Crush Pot Rehydration Hand Method
For when drip isn't available. Wetting the block is only half the job — you must physically aerate it after it expands.
Read before you start
Hand-watering wets the block but does not rebuild its micro-pore structure — water fills the pores and locks out air. After the block expands you must break it open by hand. Skip the aeration step and roots inherit a dense, waterlogged core. If you have drip, use the Drip Method instead.
Hand rehydration, start to transplant
Stage the pots
Set Crush Pots on a clean tray or bench at final spacing. The label size is the nursery-pot size the block expands to once hydrated — the compressed brick ships smaller.
Water in passesCore step
Using a breaker or wand, wet the surface in passes — perimeter first, then center. Let each pass absorb before the next so water penetrates instead of channeling off the top.
Continue until the block is saturated through and the first runoff appears at the base.
Let it expand
Allow the block to lift and fill the bag fully before working it. Working it too early leaves dry cores; too late and it sets dense.
Four-corners squeezeRequired
Grip the bag at two opposite corners and squeeze inward to fracture the slab. Rotate to the other corner pair and repeat. Work both diagonals until the block breaks into loose material.
This is the step that single-event watering skips — and the reason hand-rehydrated coir fails without it.
AerateRequired
Break the fractured material down by hand into a loose, even crumb. No wet clumps, no compaction. This is what reintroduces air and restores the air-to-water-to-coir balance the roots need.
Hand-watering alone fills the pores with water; aeration is what reopens them.
Level and dimple
Level the surface, keep it loosely structured, and form a planting dimple in the center. Avoid pressing the coir down — density here carries into the root zone.
Transplant
Set your plug into the dimple and irrigate from field capacity.
Match your early shots to the propagation medium. Rockwool sits at a different matric potential than coco — give it small, frequent shots so the surrounding Crush doesn't wick the cube dry and stress the transplant.
CharCoir Coco Coin is the same coco as the Crush Pot, so there's no matric-potential mismatch at the interface. The Coin-to-Crush combo transplants with zero stress — faster rooting and veg, and a stronger finish.
