Coco Bliss - Premium Coconut Coir Pith with Low EC and pH - 100% Organic and OMRI Listed Potting Soil Substrate for Plants, Seeds, and Gardens (650 Grams, 5 Blocks)

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Urban Worm’s coco coir is a nice, fine particulate and easily soaks up moisture. It’s perfect not only to use as a substrate for hydroponics but also as bedding in your worm farm. Blend this coir into your homemade potting mixes instead of peat moss for a pH-neutral alternative. Everything in between the shell and the outer coating of the coconut seed is considered coco coir. There are two types of fibers that make up coir — brown and white. Brown coir comes from mature, ripe coconuts and is a lot stronger but less flexible. White fibers come from pre-ripe coconuts and are far more flexible but much less strong. There isn’t a good, comprehensive guide to coconut coir out there… until now. In this guide, you’ll get just about everything you need to know about coco coir: what it is, its pros and cons, and the best brands to use. In 2020 I experimented by using coco coir in all my potting mixes and by adding it to troughs, hanging baskets and containers. Insect-neutral: Most garden pests do not enjoy settling in coconut coir, making it yet another line of defense in your integrated pest management system for your garden.

Coco coir is an increasingly popular type of hydroponic growing medium— and for a good reason. There are a whole host of benefits to growing with coconut coir that you can and should take advantage of if you’re new to hydroponics. I have started growing micro greens and was looking for a better supply of coir which I expect to use for planting seeds as well. Now that you understand what coco coir is, how it’s processed and made, and what to look for when buying it, you’re armed with the info you need to make a good buying decision. Inert: Coconut coir is inert, meaning it has no nutrients. It may look like soil, but it is not soil. This means you must add hydroponic nutrients and control the pH when using coco coir. Growing in soil isn’t too different, though, as many gardeners amend their soil constantly throughout the growing season anyways. Overall, I’ve had a positive experience with coco coir but I did have to pay more attention to the nutrients I fed the plants as coir is essentially inert.My first experience of using coco coir was with a cheap brand and led to iron and calcium deficiencies in our long trailing petunia plants and also a high pH number which I discovered after testing the soil. Much more goes into the process of making coco coir safe and optimal for horticultural use, but we’ll get into that a bit lower in the article.​ Good quality manufacturers should thoroughly flush the coco coir. If gardeners wish to use it as a growing medium, it should also be treated with a calcium, magnesium and iron solution, so the salts don’t create nutrient deficiencies in the plants, this process is called buffering.

Retains moisture and provides a good environment: Coco coir is one of the most effective growing media for water retention out there. It can absorb up to 10x its weight in water, meaning the roots of your plants will never get dehydrated. There’s also a lot of growing media for roots to work through, promoting healthy root development. Coco coir is a great product to use for container gardening. However, it is best used with additional media, such as perlite and vermicompost. Because coir retains so much water, too much can cause damage to plant roots, essentially drowning them. The addition of perlite helps the mixture dry slightly and allows you to better control the moisture levels in your mixture. Vermicompost is an organic composting media that utilizes various worms to break down plants and food waste, creating a nutrient-rich material that is perfect for plant growth. Composting First, they need to remove the coir from the coconuts. This is done by soaking the husks in water to loosen and soften them. This is either done in tidal waters or freshwater. If done in tidal waters, the coconut coir will take up a large amount of salt, which will need to be flushed out by the manufacturer at a later stage. Good quality manufacturers then wash the coir to remove any salt, treat it to kill off any bacteria so it’s as inert as possible with a neutral pH.The coconut palm tree, referred to in some cultures as “The all giving tree,” has been in cultivation for millennia.

Can be less complex than “traditional hydroponics”: If growing hydroponically is new, coconut coir is a good first step. You can practice the basics of hydroponic gardening without having to buy or build a hydroponic system and perform all of its required maintenance. Downsides to Coco Coir Sequestered iron with magnesium which cures leaf yellowing ( interveinal chlorosis) in line-hating plants. Coco coir is a by-product of the coconut industry and is made from the husk, which traditionally was discarded as a waste product of little value. The process of turning coconut husks into coir is long and involves soaking the material in either fresh or saltwater for months to loosen it from the coconut shell. For plants sensitive to iron, magnesium and calcium deficiencies, I recommend Canna Coir, it’s more expensive than some other brands but is a professional grade product that’s also popular with commercial cannabis growers.Many gardeners that I’ve spoken to seem surprised when they first realise that coco coir has no nutritional value whatsoever and that it won’t feed their plants. Because coconut coir is an inert growing media, you will need to supplement your plants with additional nutrition. Remember — this is still hydroponic growing if you are only using coconut coir. We’ve tested a lot of different brands and learned a lot simply through trial and error. Here are our findings, which you can take with a grain of salt (pun intended). If that sounds like a lot to look out for…IT IS! Fortunately, you don’t have to do any of that. All you have to do is make sure that it was done, either by asking your local garden shop about the supplier’s practices or by reading below, where I’ve answered most of these questions for each type of coconut coir product I review. TheBest Coco Coir For Your Garden