Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Making Your Own Potting Mix
There are many ways to make potting mix for starting seeds or container gardening.
You'll find various recipes out there that can get rather involved. For some reason many
people feel like the more things we add, the better the mix. Here are some of the ingredi-
ents you will see suggested: soil, clay, sand, compost, manure, leaf mold, peat, coir, news-
paper, kenaf fiber, sawdust, perlite, vermiculite, and organic fertilizers and seed meals.
I'm not an expert on potting mixes, but I've had success by keeping it simple. Whether it
be for starting seeds or containers, I use compost, good soil and sand. I mix the three, gen-
erally in approximately equal amounts, but with a little less sand than compost and soil. I
use coarse sand, although some people prefer sharp sand. If I have leaf mold, I'll use an
equal part of that, too. I use mycorrhizal fungi in both of these, along with some form of
the liquid fertilizer mixture (that was given at the end of the biostimulants chapter). So in
fact, I guess I do end up using a lot of ingredients when the liquid fertilizer is included, but
that's more of a bonus. The base is simply compost, soil and sand.
As already discussed, I stay away from peat and coir. I don't use manure, newspaper or
sawdust because I prefer to compost those first. If you want to experiment with perlite and
vermiculite, they're alright for potting mixes, but not useful in the garden. Perlite doesn't
offer much other than an ability to hold water and create air spaces. Vermiculite holds wa-
ter and has a good CEC. Personally, I rely on good compost instead for these roles.
