Very new to gardening, so been ordering seeds I have my trays and seed blocker in the box. So I've been planning and entering in my calendar when I need to start my seeds.
In theory, I really liked the idea of the soil blocker. In practice, my soil blocker did not work very well and fully half of the soil blocks were malformed and had to be redone. I had purchased a poor quality soil blocker and it just did not work very well.
Because you have to mix your soil with water for the soil blocker, you might have to experiment to get the consistency right for the blocks to hold together. I found I needed to have the soil much wetter than I had thought, but eventually, I was able to get good results with my soil blocker (after I made modifications to fix the poor quality of the device). Point is, it might take some experimenting to get the mix just right for your particular soil blocker.
Eventually, I moved to using
plastic net pots with slits in them. You get the same benefits of air pruning as you do with the soil blocks, but it's much easier for me to pack a net pot than to try to form the soil blocks with my soil block maker. Also, the net pots I bought are about twice as big as my soil blocks which is the main reason I switched over to the net pots. Most of my early plants were 8 weeks inside the house, and the 3-inch net pots I had provided that extra room for the plant to grow strong without needing to repot the plant before transplanting.
Like soil blocks, you bottom water the net pots and let the water soak up into the potting mix. With the net pots, you don't need any expensive soil blocker mix, which might be an advantage to you if you find you are spending lots of money on the soil block mix.
If I only had plants for 4 weeks inside the house, I think the soil blocks I make would be great. But stretching out my plants to 8 weeks inside would require repotting the plants to a larger container before my transplant date.
I still use my soil blocker for plants I will start inside the house for only 4 weeks, or less. The soil blocks take less space in the trays and also less (about half) potting soil. Anyways, I now have both methods of starting plants and use each to my advantage depending on the plant and how long I will be growing it inside the house before transplanting.
The next few months I'll be building raised beds after I'm done with my 2nd chicken tractor.
For a number of years, I only use raised beds for my gardening. I practice the hügelkultur raised bed system which I find the best for me. I make my raised beds out of pallet wood. It costs me less than $2.00 per 16-inch high, 4X4 foot, raised pallet wood bed. I'm on version 2.0 of my pallet wood raised bed design. It works great for me.
If you are interested in learning a bit more about the advantages of the hügelkultur raised bed method, check out the thread
Hügelkultur Raised Beds. If you are brand new to building raised beds, you might want to scan the posts in that thread and learn how to avoid many of the mistakes most of us beginners make when building our first raised beds. There are some methods and build designs that will last much longer than others. Anyways, there is some good discussion on raised bed build designs in that thread that I wish I knew years ago when I first started making my raised beds.
YouTube has many videos on making raised beds. They all look great when first built, but many of those raised bed designs will fall apart in only a few years and the YouTube poster will probably not post an update on their failed design. Some do, but most don't. Since you seem to be in the information gathering phase of gardening, I would suggest reading what other gardeners have learned from experience, so you don't have to make the same mistakes.
Also, if you buy a raised bed kit from a big box store, chances are it will look real pretty when you put it together, but many of those kits fall apart in only a few years. If you read the discussions on raised bed builds, you will learn how to modify those kits stronger, so they last longer.
I realize that you did not ask for any of this advice, but I'm offering it proactively because it is information that I wish I had access to when I first started off with my raised beds. Best of luck with your new adventure.
