Anthropolis
Canna Jedi in training.
Hello friends! You got moldy fabric pots? Well here's my safe, effective, organic fix!
So, I've been watching carefully as my Viagrow 3gal Fabric Pots (aka Smart Pots, aka air prune pots?) have developed a little bit of mold around the bottom. It never spread or got out of control, so I was not concerned. But, I also want to reduce any potential risk for the dreaded botrys or bud rot / mold.
Here's what it looks like at the worst case:
As you can see, it is a whitish-gray fuzzy mold, and keeps to the bottom. Not all that terrible really, but it is rather unsightly. I do NOT know if this is the same family of mold as botrys, I do not think so... but regardless, let's get rid of it shall we?
[[[Okay so if you don't care about organic and gentle solutions, then you could probably just blast them with whatever your favorite chemical is currently, and just hope you don't totally kill your entire root ecosystem in the process lol. As for me, I absolutely require everything in my garden and medicine to be: Organic, Vegan, and Kosher. I'm not even vegan or Jewish lol, but some people I give away my veggies and medicine to are. Yes this means my soil mixes don't have any blood meal, bone meal, or bat guano, and absolutely no toxic chems from hydro stores. I'm working on the write-up for my soil mix, check back later.]]]
Thus, any treatment that I use on or near my produce must be very particular. Having almost paid attention in biology, botany, and chemistry in college, I luckily know how to prepare a solution which will totally kill small celled life like molds or mildews without damaging the plant
Also, the solution will become inactive rather quickly, long before, and in too small of an amount, to affect the ecosystem of the root zone.
OMG how did this happen? I don't know exactly, but it's probably a combination of: extremely high heat (often over 100 degrees F, yeah lol), enough moisture, naturally occurring in the compost, and high doses of the sugars in my Molasses teas. I noticed that my peppers and tomato pots did NOT get this mold, and they have the same soil and everything but didn't get Molasses teas. So basically I just created the absolute perfect environment for the mold to grow lol. Unfortunately this also means I have the perfect environment for mold to grow on my plants too, so I am ready and watching for that!
Alright here we go! You'll need:
Here's the gear:
---
Pour some Neem Oil into the sprayer. I didn't measure it, just added what felt like the right amount. Maybe 1/2 to 1 liquid ounce.
---
Squeeze some of the lime juice into it. Again, measurements don't matter much, we're just trying make a brew that's toxic to the mold but not go crazy. Maybe 20 or 30 droplets or one really good squeeeeeeze lol.
---
Now it's starting to change color a little. Pour in some of the Isopropyl Alcohol. I didn't measure, but look at the pic. Maybe 1/2 a cup or so?
---
Now it's cloudy and the layers are separated, that's okay we'll mix it up in a moment. Add some water now, just a little bit to dilute it just slightly. It will get very cloudy and crazy looking when you add the water.
---
So it looks crazy now, and smells even worse lol. We need to add a drop of dish soap so that the oil can "emulsify" long enough to spray the mixture. So add a drop, this time it's okay to use antibacterial or just whatever liquid soap you have handy. Just 1 drop is more than enough
---
Alright, now you're almost ready to rock. Attach the top of the sprayer and SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE! Shake it like a salt shaker! Shake it like you shake a baby! Wait what? Noooo shake da baby! When done, it should look like a rather uniform and milky liquid, possibly with just a bit of foam on top, and that's fine. It's milky because the suspended emulsion is refracting light. At this point it's ready to spray!
---
Now, take all the pots, co2, whatever you have off of the floor and remove it from the tent because we're going to properly wash off the tent floor. Take out the tent floor if it's removable and take it outside to be washed. If it's not removable or whatever, you can just spray it down in the tent. Whatever your setup is, the point is to clean the floor also, because I know there's mold there too where the pots were sitting. I took it outside, sprayed it down with the crazy mix, and hosed it off aggressively as possible.
---
This is when the real spraying begins yay lol! I'm warning you now, this stuff smells quite unpleasant. You will breathe some of the mist in, it won't hurt you, could potentially disinfect your lungs to some extent. I didn't do this because I didn't think of it in time lol, but if I had it to do again, I would tie a bandana or tshirt around my nose and mouth, like Mexican gangster style. If you have sensitive lungs or asthma or something, it might bother you but it's not bad.
Ok, one pot at a time, spray the fabric pots fairly well and put them back in the tent. I didn't bother wiping them down. Don't soak the thing, just give the mold a real good spraying. I dunno, maybe it was about 15 or 20 sprays per pot. The idea is to just kill the mold and not get it much into the soil. If there's a couple tiny roots sticking through, that's okay, they can be sprayed too. That little piece of root will die over a few days, but it won't affect the plant in the least bit. If it's sticking through the pot, that root piece is half dead now anyway.
Not all of my pots had much mold, but I sprayed them all equally, even the tomato and pepper. You can actually see the mold die instantly as you're spraying, and your pots will return to being totally black
---
All sprayed off! Put them back in whatever order. This is a good time to change up the order a bit to expose different plants/angles to varied light.
---
You'll probably have the floor pretty well covered in the milky spray. I chose to get some paper towels and mop some of it up, but I didn't go OCD and clean it all up. The Neem will be the only thing left after evaporation, which will actually deter some more pests, so I did leave some there.
---
Now, very important! Muy Muy importante! You need to spray off the plants with fresh clean water! You should have a foliar sprayer, so load it up with just water, preferably distilled, and get ready to blast the plants.
---
Soak those things down like you never have ever before lol. Yes, the Neem is safe for the leaves, but I don't want any Neem, Iso, or lime juice on my flowers lol. Spray spray spray, till they're all dripping wet. This should wash down any mist they could have caught blowing around in the air
---
All back together and looking clean!
---
Annnnnd you're done!
---
That concludes this little how-to. Several days later now, and the plants are fine, they didn't even seem to notice. The mold is all completely gone, and all fabric pots are looking like new. It's pretty simple actually. It took me longer to write this post than actually do this lol! Hope this helps someone, and maybe ya got a couple laughs too Good luck!
So, I've been watching carefully as my Viagrow 3gal Fabric Pots (aka Smart Pots, aka air prune pots?) have developed a little bit of mold around the bottom. It never spread or got out of control, so I was not concerned. But, I also want to reduce any potential risk for the dreaded botrys or bud rot / mold.
Here's what it looks like at the worst case:
As you can see, it is a whitish-gray fuzzy mold, and keeps to the bottom. Not all that terrible really, but it is rather unsightly. I do NOT know if this is the same family of mold as botrys, I do not think so... but regardless, let's get rid of it shall we?
[[[Okay so if you don't care about organic and gentle solutions, then you could probably just blast them with whatever your favorite chemical is currently, and just hope you don't totally kill your entire root ecosystem in the process lol. As for me, I absolutely require everything in my garden and medicine to be: Organic, Vegan, and Kosher. I'm not even vegan or Jewish lol, but some people I give away my veggies and medicine to are. Yes this means my soil mixes don't have any blood meal, bone meal, or bat guano, and absolutely no toxic chems from hydro stores. I'm working on the write-up for my soil mix, check back later.]]]
Thus, any treatment that I use on or near my produce must be very particular. Having almost paid attention in biology, botany, and chemistry in college, I luckily know how to prepare a solution which will totally kill small celled life like molds or mildews without damaging the plant
Also, the solution will become inactive rather quickly, long before, and in too small of an amount, to affect the ecosystem of the root zone. OMG how did this happen? I don't know exactly, but it's probably a combination of: extremely high heat (often over 100 degrees F, yeah lol), enough moisture, naturally occurring in the compost, and high doses of the sugars in my Molasses teas. I noticed that my peppers and tomato pots did NOT get this mold, and they have the same soil and everything but didn't get Molasses teas. So basically I just created the absolute perfect environment for the mold to grow lol. Unfortunately this also means I have the perfect environment for mold to grow on my plants too, so I am ready and watching for that!
Alright here we go! You'll need:
- 1 new sprayer. Just a couple dollars, available anywhere. I like the ones at Walmart in the garden section, they usually have a few colors, so you can have a couple different color-coded bottles, and have an adjustable mist! $2 or $3?
- 1 bottle of Neem Oil. Chances are you already have this. It can be had at Lowes/Home Depot, I think it was $10 or $15, so not too cheap, but it should last years.
- 1 bottle of Iso Alcohol. You probably have this around the house too. I prefer the 91% because it's the highest I can ever find at Walmart, is strong enough, and cheap enough. $3 or $4.
- 1 green plastic lime. Yeah it's the really stupid ones for like $1 at the grocery store, usually by the real lemons or lettuces. Since I'm organic AND vegan growing, I also use this for ph-down. My water is over ph 8 yikes!!! So it takes about 60-70 droplets per gal from one of these to get it to 6.3. No, the plants don't care it came from a plastic lime lol
Here's the gear:
---
Pour some Neem Oil into the sprayer. I didn't measure it, just added what felt like the right amount. Maybe 1/2 to 1 liquid ounce.
---
Squeeze some of the lime juice into it. Again, measurements don't matter much, we're just trying make a brew that's toxic to the mold but not go crazy. Maybe 20 or 30 droplets or one really good squeeeeeeze lol.
---
Now it's starting to change color a little. Pour in some of the Isopropyl Alcohol. I didn't measure, but look at the pic. Maybe 1/2 a cup or so?
---
Now it's cloudy and the layers are separated, that's okay we'll mix it up in a moment. Add some water now, just a little bit to dilute it just slightly. It will get very cloudy and crazy looking when you add the water.
---
So it looks crazy now, and smells even worse lol. We need to add a drop of dish soap so that the oil can "emulsify" long enough to spray the mixture. So add a drop, this time it's okay to use antibacterial or just whatever liquid soap you have handy. Just 1 drop is more than enough
---
Alright, now you're almost ready to rock. Attach the top of the sprayer and SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE! Shake it like a salt shaker! Shake it like you shake a baby! Wait what? Noooo shake da baby! When done, it should look like a rather uniform and milky liquid, possibly with just a bit of foam on top, and that's fine. It's milky because the suspended emulsion is refracting light. At this point it's ready to spray!
---
Now, take all the pots, co2, whatever you have off of the floor and remove it from the tent because we're going to properly wash off the tent floor. Take out the tent floor if it's removable and take it outside to be washed. If it's not removable or whatever, you can just spray it down in the tent. Whatever your setup is, the point is to clean the floor also, because I know there's mold there too where the pots were sitting. I took it outside, sprayed it down with the crazy mix, and hosed it off aggressively as possible.
---
This is when the real spraying begins yay lol! I'm warning you now, this stuff smells quite unpleasant. You will breathe some of the mist in, it won't hurt you, could potentially disinfect your lungs to some extent. I didn't do this because I didn't think of it in time lol, but if I had it to do again, I would tie a bandana or tshirt around my nose and mouth, like Mexican gangster style. If you have sensitive lungs or asthma or something, it might bother you but it's not bad.
Ok, one pot at a time, spray the fabric pots fairly well and put them back in the tent. I didn't bother wiping them down. Don't soak the thing, just give the mold a real good spraying. I dunno, maybe it was about 15 or 20 sprays per pot. The idea is to just kill the mold and not get it much into the soil. If there's a couple tiny roots sticking through, that's okay, they can be sprayed too. That little piece of root will die over a few days, but it won't affect the plant in the least bit. If it's sticking through the pot, that root piece is half dead now anyway.
Not all of my pots had much mold, but I sprayed them all equally, even the tomato and pepper. You can actually see the mold die instantly as you're spraying, and your pots will return to being totally black
---
All sprayed off! Put them back in whatever order. This is a good time to change up the order a bit to expose different plants/angles to varied light.
---
You'll probably have the floor pretty well covered in the milky spray. I chose to get some paper towels and mop some of it up, but I didn't go OCD and clean it all up. The Neem will be the only thing left after evaporation, which will actually deter some more pests, so I did leave some there.
---
Now, very important! Muy Muy importante! You need to spray off the plants with fresh clean water! You should have a foliar sprayer, so load it up with just water, preferably distilled, and get ready to blast the plants.
---
Soak those things down like you never have ever before lol. Yes, the Neem is safe for the leaves, but I don't want any Neem, Iso, or lime juice on my flowers lol. Spray spray spray, till they're all dripping wet. This should wash down any mist they could have caught blowing around in the air
---
All back together and looking clean!
---
Annnnnd you're done!
---
That concludes this little how-to. Several days later now, and the plants are fine, they didn't even seem to notice. The mold is all completely gone, and all fabric pots are looking like new. It's pretty simple actually. It took me longer to write this post than actually do this lol! Hope this helps someone, and maybe ya got a couple laughs too
Good luck!
