Hey Sea, if they haven't cracked after that much time they probably won't. I hate those peat pucks, waste of money in my opinion, as are most seed starting plugs. Good mellow soil works the best, you don't need anything fancy. Try the method I outlined earlier next season, I promise you'll have 'em up and cracking in less than a week.
Got all my pots finished today and filled them up with soil as well as transplanted all the ladies. This should be an interesting experiment - I know plants grow a good amount of roots during flowering, but how much has been a subject of much debate. I am very curious to see how big a root ball I end up with after transplanting from a 5 gallon to a 30 gallon pot right at the beginning of flower. I'm pretty confident they will fill out the space but I've been wrong before.
Attached are some pics of the home made '
smart pots.' They are built out of 3' tall 4" x 2" econo-fencing, goper wire, bailing wire, and landscaping fabric. To make the pots, we cut the econo-fencing to the desired length (in this case we cut in 78" sections to give us a 30 gallon pot), then folded it in half. The two ends are wired together which gives us a cylinder that is about 2' in diameter and 18" tall. Folding the 3' fence in half creates some 'tabs' of wire along one edge, which will be our bottom. The gopher wire is then threaded over the 'tab's, folded around the cylinder, and then attached in 8 places with a piece of bailing wire. The tabs are bend inward to form a little lip along the inside of the bottom. This gives us our frame. Next a 7' section of landscape fabric is cut out and draped over the edge of the pot to give us our wall. More bailing wire is used to secure it in place. A 3' x 3' square of landscape fabric is placed in the bottom of the pot to give it a bottom (this can be omitted if you don't plant on ever moving the pot). When the pot is filled the soil presses the fabric against the wire frame holding it in place. Total cost for a 30 gallon was $7 each. They do take a good amount of time to assemble however. They aren't pretty but they are about half the cost of a store bought pot and the wire frame will last for years.
The pots were filled with our soil mix which consisted of the base soil and compost I purchased earlier in the year,
Mykos, Bokashi, Azomite, Calphos, Bone meal, and seaweed powder. I was hoping to save the
smart pots, but the roots had started to grow thru the bottom so I had to cut them out. Never, ever plant
smart pots directly in the ground - the claim from the companies that you can do so is total BS. Always remove the
smart pot before transplanting. Roots will grow through them eventually when you plant like this, but they will SEVERELY retard the roots from spreading out into the surrounding soil. The same goes with those crappy manure pots - anything strong enough to work as a pot will create a barrier for the roots and slow their growth. If you want a container that can be planted directly into the ground Google 'soil blocking.'
Final shot is of the transplanted ladies. Looking much more happy now that they are in f resh new soil and have more space to grow. A triangular spacing method was used to maximize our canopy space. This is one of the many helpful bio-intensive techniques I learned from Jonh Jeavons books. If you are into organic and growing more than just cannabis I highly recommend his books.
