I have a collection of winter sown June grass, blue grama, buffalo grass, and little bluestem. I was planning on up potting them then transplanting but that’s going to be at least a full days worth of work plus extra soil and containers to secure. Do you think I could get away with just plopping the whole chunk from the gallon into the ground? Or is dividing into plugs really the best option? Either way will likely wait until mid to late April to do so.
by plantylibrarian
4 Comments
You can do the hunk-o-seedling method for milk jugs, which is described in this link, along with other options – [https://growitbuildit.com/separate-seedlings-how-to/](https://growitbuildit.com/separate-seedlings-how-to/)
Depends on your use for them. For covering a large area, or giving away, I would pot up individually. Just want one clump or two, divide each in half (or not) and plant out.
>Do you think I could get away with just plopping the whole chunk from the gallon into the ground?
you sure fuckin can. do not be swayed by Big Up-pot. skip that middleman and go straight to the dirt. speaking as someone who did just this like 50 times last year: let the soil in the jug dry out for a couple of days before transplanting. doing so will make it far less likely that your Poaceous Loaf falls apart immediately post-release, thus making the transplant messy and arduous
you can break them apart this winter, or never, or in 65 years
I’ve done both with good results. Little bluestem can last in a jug all summer. The longer you wait, the roots will get tangled up, forcing them to be cut to seperate.
I take a long, serrated kitchen knife and cut in between each plant to basically make individual plugs. It helps to seed in rows before doing that for easier cuts.
Or I dump the whole thing in a big hole. The individual plants might fight each other until the strongest claims victory. They make require more watering to get going.
If you have trouble getting them out, you can cut down the corners of the jugs to make flaps and just slide the plugs or whole thing out. It sometime helps doing that before making the cuts in the soil. If you are only going to use half the jug at first you can fill the rest of the space with moist soil to keep the roots from drying out until the next planting.
I’m going to try reusing my jugs again next year since I learned not to use duct tape this time. That might persuade me to dump the whole jug all at once rather than cutting it if I can easily pull the plants out one by one. It does help to get them moist before transplanting by bottom watering.