Styrofoam Peanuts

[Cookiemonster]

I've been on the hunt for peanuts but thank you for the Home Depot suggestion Jason! I think I might get me some corks too and experiment with some of my larger plants.

Ray, I never knew that the color played such a big role, I had heard somewhere or another "ONLY USE WHITE" and well now I kinda get why. TY!
I was ready to go out and buy the pink ones yesterday

[Royal]

Originally Posted by gixrj18

. I find this better because for bigger pots, you can break off bigger chunks...rather than having to fill it with peanuts (and you don't find yourself chasing peanuts everytime the wind blows, while you're working with them).

Have you been watching me re-pot?

[gixrj18]

Originally Posted by RoyalOrchids

Have you been watching me re-pot?

Oh, I'm sure everyone here has done it once or twice.....at least!

[gixrj18]

Originally Posted by gixrj18

Oh, I'm sure everyone here has done it once or twice.....at least!

Chase peanuts, that is....not watch you re-pot.

[Royal]

I thought I had a weird feeling someone was watching me.

You bunch of peanut chasers!

[gixrj18]

It could be worse....we could be watching the peanuts, and chasing you while you re-pot.

[orchids3]

Agree with Ray about color. I dont use peanuts anymore but when I did I went to a manufacturing facility here where I live and bought some. I couldnt put $10 worth in a large pickup - even bagged it was too big. The problem with whites is that the same expansion chamber is used for all and the contamination of the chamber stays between batches. One of the main customers of the facility I visited was the US Navy and a lot of differant chemicals were added to their specifications. I bought mine only after a large quantity of the whites had been run and the expansion chambers purged. Peanuts take up a lot of space and keep the media open for drainage but they are also light so that pots tend to tip easily. I am using either lava rock or and expanded gravel product that I found to aid in pot stability.

[Royal]

Hi orchids3,

Thanks for the insight into the manufacturing process. I never knew about the color coding that Ray described, and your firsthand account of the facility puts things into perspective. It sounds possible that the "safe" white peanuts could contain some chemicals carried over between batches.

Did this facility make peanuts only? I wonder if Jasen's styro sheets could be made in a similar way or from the same raw materials, or if it's a totally different process.

[orchids3]

Royal,
It was a Peanuts only operation and I believe was in existance to support Navy packaging requirements. Was once involved a little with recovering an aircraft from the depths of the ocean with a deep diving sub. We Put a quart size styrofoam cup outside the vehicle so that it experienced the pressures at depth. Ocean pressures removed all gasses from the styrofoam and the cup was the size of a thimble when it returned to the surface. The same thing happons in reverse during manufacturing of the peanuts only various chemicals are added in the heat expansion chamber along with whatever dye and chemicals are to be added. The peanuts themselves go into the chamber as small plastic pellets about the size of a pellet for an air rifle. They pop to the size you see in the chamber just like popcorn.

[gmaculata]

I use packing peanuts when potting Neofinetia. i have had no negative effects. I recently showed my potting method on the Neofinetia thread page.