How do you make the perfect soil mix?

A mixture of 70% garden soil and 30% organic matter creates a good general potting mix for planting up trees, shrubs, perennials and fruit. If your garden soil is heavy, reduce the soil content by around 10% and add some sharp sand, grit, or bulky organic matter in its place to improve drainage.

What is the best homemade potting mix?

A standard recipe for a homemade soilless mix consists of half sphagnum peat moss and half perlite or vermiculite . To mix ½ bushel basket or four gallons of media: Start by pouring two gallons of peat moss into the bushel basket. Add two gallons of either perlite or vermiculite and mix thoroughly.

What are the best soil combinations?

To create your own perfect soil mix, thoroughly blend 1 part peat or coir, 1 part perlite or vermiculite, one-half part composted bark, and one-half part worm castings . You can grow just about any crop in your indoor garden with this mix.

What's better vermiculite or perlite?

Vermiculite is better for water retention , that also means in that moisture it retains key nutrients for your plants and cuttings to soak up. Perlite works better to help drainage, this means its also better for loosening heavy, compacted soil.

What is the ideal soil mixture for plant growth?

The ideal mixture for plant growth is called a loam and has roughly 40% sand, 40% silt and 20% clay. Another important element of soil is its structure, or how the particles are held together - how they clump together into crumbs or clods. A loose structure provides lot of pore spaces for good drainage and root growth.

What is the number one potting mix?

We recommend Roots Organics Original Potting Soil as the best potting soil for outdoor plants because it works for all potted plants, from seeds and flowers to trees and vegetables, using enriched nutrients that allow for optimal drainage. One of our favorite features is that the bag is ready-to-grow.

Is it cheaper to make your own potting mix?

Before we go any further, note that if you only need a few small containers' worth of potting mix, you may actually be better off buying a pre-made mix! Making your own is usually only economical on a large scale .

How can I make my own soil for free?

If you do not have a source of loam or healthy garden soil, then you might also consider making a soil-free potting mix. I have success with this simple ratio: 2 parts homemade compost . 1 part leaf mold .

What is best for poor soil?

The best way to do this is to keep adding compost, manure, or a good mulch – every year, if not more often. As these materials decompose, they release nutrients, maintaining a high level of soil fertility.

What is the best soil composition for a home garden?

Loam, however, is an ideal garden soil blend of just the right amounts of clay, sand, silt, and organic material .

The Best DIY Soil Mix Recipe - the Imperfectly Happy home (2024)

The best DIY soil mix recipe has been a long time in the making. This DIY soil mix isn’t just something I threw together on a whim and hoped it worked; I spent a lot of tireless hours researching this! I love this soil as a DIY potting soil and for my Square Foot Garden Boxes.

I’ve been using a combination of Mel’s Mix and potting soil on our little homesteading; and the results haven’t been horrible. But I wanted to take our garden to the next level. I wanted a DIY soil mix that would hold moisture, be full of rich nutrition, be lighter (less compaction) and more sustainable. The result is the best DIY soil mix recipe around!

The Best DIY Soil Mix Recipe

DIY Potting Soil and Raised Bed Recipe
I mixed mine up in a wheel barrow this time but this makes mixing a lot harder. It would be better to do this on a thick tarp.

10 gallons of coconut coir(What I used)
5 gallons of sifted compost (Hopefully you’re composting at home)
2 gallons of worm castings(what I used)
8 quarts of organic vermiculite (what I used)
5 cups of Azomite (what I used)

I like to mix in each ingredient at a time.

So first I put down the coconut coir, then I added my sifted compost and used my hands to incorporate them together.
I repeated that with the worm castings and vermiculite.
Lastly I added the azomite (be careful not to breathe the dust in!)

Now it is ready for use or you can store it in a bin or bags. I like to keep a top on it so it won’t get too dried out.

Check out this side by side comparison. On the left is a popular store-bought raised bed soil and on the right is my mix.

Now, let’s talk about the ingredients and why I included them

Ingredient 1 – Coconut Coir

Coconut coir is, first, a wonderful peat moss substitute. Peat moss is not sustainable; we are mining and using it at such a high ratecoconut coir that it cannot renew before we run out. Coconut coir is leftoverfrom the coconut industry, that was thrown away. What coconut coir does is add a spongy quality that it going to help your soil retain moisture (it can hold 10x its weight in water). It doesn’t clump and will not degrade in your soil as quickly as peat moss either. It will as a dried brick and you’ll need to soak this in some water to re-hydrate it. If you have coconut coir left over, don’t throw it away! Just store it for the next time you make your DIY soil mix. I soak mine in a tub and break it up a little as I go.

Ingredient 2 – Worm Castings

Worm castings are an amazing natural fertilizer. What’s great, too, is that plants soak up its nutrients quickly so it can stimulate growth better than any manure or chemical fertilizer. It can even help a plant fight off diseases by drawing out toxins. Worm castings also improve the texture of the soil, help to increase drought resistance AND it promotes good microbial activity. The best way to get this amazing additive is to be vermicomposting with your own little worms. But it isn’t a project I have going right now, so I opted to buy mine.

More Soil Helpers

HOW TO USE RABBIT POOP FERTILIZER FOR A BETTER GARDEN

HOW TO IMPROVE SOIL WITHOUT A COMPOST PILE

AWESOME SOIL AMENDMENTS FOR YOUR ORGANIC VEGETABLE GARDEN

HOW TO USE ORANGE PEELS FOR A BETTER GARDEN

Hubby’s ContributionEpsom Salt for HomesteadersUsing CilantroVegetables in Pots the Best Veggies to Grow in Containers