But pre-packaged potting soil can be expensive, particularly if you have lots of containers and flower boxes. Fortunately, you can make homemade potting soil quickly and easily with readily available ingredients.
What is in Homemade Potting Soil?
Potting soil is different than soilless potting mix; the latter is used only to germinate seeds. The best homemade potting mixes have three ingredients: a growing medium, something to help retain moisture and nutrients, and something to promote drainage.
Recipe #1 for Homemade Potting Soil
There are several recipes to make homemade potting soil. To closely mimic pre-packaged potting soil, you’ll need
Growing medium: Garden soil from a home center, which is pre-sterilized to remove weeds or disease.Moisture retention: Spaghnum peat moss. It is harvested from bogs that have been drained, so the moss has dried and turned a light brown color; you may need to lightly moisten before mixing the potting soil.Drainage: Perlite, vermiculite, or sand. Perlite is made by heating bits of a glasslike mineral until they expand into puffy, lightweight particles. It holds no water, aside from the little that clings to the surface of each particle.
Mix those three ingredients in equal proportions, adding more of any ingredient until you have a loose, but clump-able, mix.
Recipe #2: Homemade Potting Soil
There’s a second way to make homemade potting soil that involves fewer ingredients and is favored by some organic gardeners. To make compost-based potting soil, simply mix equal parts sterilized garden soil and compost (pre-packaged or homemade); add sand or pebbles as needed to increase drainage.
Fertilizing Homemade Potting Soil
Any potting soil will, over time, leach out nutrients that plants need. So while homemade potting soil is a great growing medium, your plants won’t thrive unless you regularly amend the potting soil with fertilizer. You can do this in a number of ways. You can amend your homemade potting soil mixture with limestone before using it. You can also top-dress plants occasionally with any number of types of compost, such as recycled mushroom compost. You can also rely on a fertilizer that offers slow-release nutrients in order to help your plants retain their growing vigor.
