Permaculture Potting Soil

Hi folks, I'm faced with a dilemma. While trying to go permie on much of my garden I still plant annuals, pot trees from bare root etc. I tried taking sod, flipping it, butting it up to other sod and then covering overwinter but all I got was dirt that could not be considered potting soil. Any and all suggestions on how to create my own potting soil, I'm tired of buying it and I've failed at my first attempt to make my own. I know I can use compost and top soil but that's still a pretty heavy potting soil. Suggestions, feedback?

Worm bin... True story.

leaf mould
well-rotted wood chips
I made a really nice potting soil for a container garden using this, plus about 20% biochar (charcoal+urine+home-cultured lactobacillus)

It's a long way from permaculture, but it works
I use about 1/4 perlite, 1/4 coconut coir and 1/2 sieved compost. If I had a worm-bin I'd use vermicast too.
I find potting mix too heavy, compacted and anaerobic if I add anything over a tiny amount of soil.
In the long-run I'd like to ditch the coir and perlite. I think really well aged, fine, sieved mulched wood might work. Or biochar.

I reuse potting soil. I have a big stock left over from last year. I figure the plants are just being started, so no big deal. The'll get into the soil they need when they really start needing it. There are amendments you can make to pump up the fertility of spent potting soil, but I haven't been down that road yet. I use it as a "growing medium" and less as a long term solution. For the precious babies, I have a sack of new stuff.
William

I use compost and soil, mixed in the compost heap... that is, when I build the heap I put in a layer of greens, a layer of browns, and a layer of soil. Usually it's not good topsoil, either, but heavy clay subsoil that got brought to the surface by a sewer excavation. By the time the greens and browns have decomposed, the clay is all mixed in with the compost and it's a very nice usable mixture. I don't start a lot of seeds indoors, but essentially all the ones I have started in this mixture have done fine. I do have to watch out for soil life that comes indoors with the mixture and decides to go adventuring.

This year I used leaf mold and composted Grass clippings That I have been storing on the edge of my property. The leafmold is light and fluffy with bits of leaves , stems and sm sticks and the grass clippings have a thick layer of worms working in them. I scoop about half and half into a bin and mix.
It is heavier than potting soil, but not as heavy and full of clay and rocks as my soil. I try to get most of the worms out of the mix. All of my seedlings are doing well in this starter.

I was worried that the non sterile mix from my back yard would be too rich for the seeds......This seems like a stupid notion to me now, as obviosly seeds want to germinate in rich fertile soil. But the hype of potting mix is the idea that it is sterile and safe.....and sterile soil also seems like a stupid idea. Although I did have some mold in my seedlings and some if the seedlings died back...but that also happens every year when I have used sterile seed starter or peat pods. That is not a soil problem but a ventilation issue.

I am never buying soil again---I have several low maintainance compost areas, and between the worm bins, leaf piles , grass clipping piles and chicken manure heap......I have all that I need to make healthy growing media.

Here is how we make our own potting soil based on rotten wood that has been run through a sifter:

http://wellheeledhills.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/rotary-sifter/

http://wellheeledhills.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/homemade-potting-soil-from-rotten-wood/

One thing I've heard about making your own potting soil is that it shouldn't bee too nitrogenous. The Idea is that if the soil is fairly rich the seedlings dont need to bother growing many roots because everything they need is right there, but if you use poorer soil the seedlings need to really get there roots established witch is what you wont. I dont know if that's true I just thought I throw it out there.

Thanks to all who responded. Great ideas!

Hi all,

I am making up some potting soil mix in large quantities for mass tree propagation from both seed and cuttings. This is the general mix I will be using. It have worked well for me in the past with seedlings, when I want to encourage root growth over top growth.

1 wheelbarrow sand (sharp construction sand, adds to open structure and drainage)
1 wheelbarrow forest mulch/humus (light and fluffy, innoculates with native forest fungi/ and micro-organisms)
1 wheelbarrow chopped straw mulch (adds to the fluffy, water holding bulk)
½ wheelbarrow 50/50 worm castings/ decomposed manure (high nutrient content, innoculates with red-wriggler worm eggs)
1 gallon wood ash (adds to potassium fertility, promoting good ionic exchange and metabolic balance)
3-5 gallons bone char ( adds calcium and magnesium fertility, promoting good root growth, left-over from making Holzer's bone-sauce)

Hope that helps

Duncan Dalby wrote:One thing I've heard about making your own potting soil is that it shouldn't bee too nitrogenous. The Idea is that if the soil is fairly rich the seedlings dont need to bother growing many roots because everything they need is right there, but if you use poorer soil the seedlings need to really get there roots established witch is what you wont. I dont know if that's true I just thought I throw it out there.

Very much so. You want low nitrogen fertility in the critical period of root formation. We tend to focus on root formation for the first two years of any perennial. Not giving it more nitrogen than is contained in the above mentioned mix. After they show that they can stand up to the dry summers on their own, we will top dress the plant with manure in the fall and let it leach/rot down over winter.
I like to use bunny manure. a mixture of poopy-straw that breaks down into a nice mild humus, and does not tend to burn plants.

I bet the texture of your soil affects its utility as a potting soil amendment. I have a fine sandy loam which works great. If I had clay it probably wouldn't. I go half sifted compost half fine sandy loam for seedings, and unsifted compost/soil for transplants and divisions. In both cases I use a complete organic fertilizer out of paranoia. I like the soil heaviness, because I think it helps regulate pot temperature and slow drying in my summers. I have spent mushroom compost available, but buy in advance so it can mature for a year and use the old stuff for potting. I have chicken manure, food waste, straw compost when I want to be fussy. I add the stripped rhizosphere of healthy adults for species where I suspect mycorrhizal associates are important.

My biggest challenge is weed seeds. Alas...

I'm finding this thread increasingly important.

I'm thinking of making my own mix with

sand, compost, vermiculture, soil, leaf mould, gypsum. Would add chipped wood but I sold my chipper. The tree plants I bought also had rocks in them, so maybe something like that could go in. I have to buy in the sand and potentially the compost

The issues for me are pH balancing and getting the mix to hold water but dry out as well. Even the peat I use sometimes gets too wet - rarely but it happens if it got overwatered. In a homemade mix I imagine that too much water retention is problem.

Getting the right mix is important because it could be a potential product I could sell in the future.

William

I've been getting great results, particularly with squashes, by using a mix of sand/leaf mold/activated char. Haven't looked in on the roots except very early one when one of my squash containers spilled. It was sending down a great tap root. I crush the char into perlite or so sizes thinking that it will serve a similar purpose. I mix the sand and leaf mold at pretty much 50/50 plus discretion. I've got a couple dozen trays going of this stuff (and many slight variations of this) and they are all doing very well. All local ingredients. No fossil fuels where used in the making or transporting of this potting soil

I recently made up a batch of potting soil for propagating several hundred comfrey root cuttings for planting out into a large swale system this up coming fall/winter.

I used a more of less equal mixture of:
spent mushroom substrate (decomposed Oak woodchips and wheat straw from a not-so-successful Shiitake bed attempt)
leaf mold (taken from a small depression in the forest. Oak and Pine needle based)
composted sod (from where we removed a lot of pesky grass, piled it, and put it under black plastic for the fall and winter. Lots of worms in it.)

The texture of the soil was very fluffy and full of mycellium and bits of root and woodchips that were still decomposing.

The comfrey is doing excellently in it. But doesn't Comfrey do well everywhere

I manage a landscape materials company. About six months ago I developed a potting/raised bed mix that we sell. My recipe is as follows:
6.5 parts compost
1 part perlite
.5 part poultry manure
1 part peat moss
1 part lava sand

These images were taken about a week apart. All plants were direct seeded.

Purple tree collard

From a purely sustainable perspective adding leaf mould or rotted wood to top soil and compost would be best. Any wooded area or forest would provide a plentiful supply of either. If sustainability is less and issue for you (or leaf mould/rotted wood is not available) peat moss, vermiculite or perlite would be your alternatives.

I have a semi-perpetual bin of potting soil/seed starting mix that I have been having decent luck with. There isn't a recipe per-say, but rather a look and feel that I strive for as an end product.

I reuse potting soil as much as possible. I have been known to doctor it up with perlite/vermiculite depending on the properties I am trying to get out of it. Sifted compost is a game changer in bringing life back to the compost and ensure healthy plants.

I do my best to make sure that the mix stays dry to prevent issues with bugs and stuff. I keep it in a tote-type container so I can cover it when not in use.

As in a few of the first post, we favor leaf mold.  

Mother Nature makes mine though folks can make it at home.

Next I favor compost.  I have planted directly into finished compost with great results.

I also prefer to plant things outdoors.

With fine seeds I use a strainer to cover the seeds with starter mix.

We decided to make our own too. Would have been nice to have found this thread earlier, but it turns out it was not so crazy what we did.
I've done it with a young farmer who wants to have a lot of start up plants next year. Me i'm just sick of buying stuff expensively of dubious quality and sometimes terrible even.

So our recipe is :
1 riversand,
2 year old cow manure that lay in the field,
3 soil from an acacia tree grove,
4 soil from a alder grove,
5 few month old alder wood chips.
1 riversand, 1 manur, 1 mix of the soils and woodchips until it started to look and feel nice.

We used a tractor mixer and a excavator to dump it in there.
I love this next level i get to experience with farmers. No petit mixer for cement. No gigantic stone crushing blades ready to rip arms off if not careful!

So how did it turn out? Quite poorly. The mix without woodchips got like a mad ball of clay just turning around in the mixer, the woodchips saved the day. It became superbeautiful mix. But.... it hadn't broken down enough.
It got warm soon from bacterial activity. I did an experiment, side by side i put pumpkin seeds in a balcony tray full of it and another one with my normal old mix of a third sand with gardencenter ''biological'' compost. Our new mix won, seeds sprouted quicker, but soon they stunted and got yellow. But the funny thing is that Robinia Pseudoacacia seeds started to sprout. Which i had tried before and failed. The long moving around roughly in the mixer must have scraped off this super tough outer layer the seeds have.
Next time better!

I'm glad this thread got highlighted by a new reply because yesterday I was tempted into buying four pepper plants that I want to keep in pots.  My project is on a much smaller scale than Hugo's, but it was interesting to read his experience.  I like to bring in a few peppers inside as houseplants for the winter and keep them for years, and I don't want to buy soil to up-pot these.  I have made my own stuff over the years with no recipe and with mixed, but mostly good, results.  I want to get a little more systematic about things and have these peppers off to a good start.  

I have access to lots of rotting old trees on my property.  It's said decomposing wood chips use up the nitrogen when they decompose, but the wood is already soft and you can break it up with your hands- so I'm guessing it's past this stage?  After reading this thread, I feel better about using it.  
The leaf mold here is always full of fern and other roots, and not the fluffy stuff I easily collected at my last location, so I will be relying more on the rotted wood.  To this, I will add deer/porcupine manure and perlite since peppers tend to need better drainage than other vegetable plants.  (I don't add perlite to outdoor beds or potted tomatoes.)  After reading this thread, I will see if I can collect some sandy dirt from the creek bed to add to the mix.  

The soil here contains a fair amount of clay and a lot of rocks.  It's not all clay, like my last location in NC, but it's not loam like what I experienced growing up in the Hudson Valley.  When I plant things in the ground I remove the rocks and not much dirt remains to put back, so I make up the difference with soft rotted wood I break up fine with my hands- which is currently my most abundant and easily collected resource.  In the past, I relied more on leaf mold, but I can only find a few places where this is easily collected because of the abundant ferns.  This thread is giving me more confidence that this should be ok, unless I'm just hearing what I want to hear.  

I was thinking about purchasing Azomite or compost to add to the potting soil just to be sure the peppers have everything they need, but I really want to rely on weed teas and not turn to outside sources anymore.  But I don't create enough organic waste to support a worm bin or produce much compost.  

Anyone add coffee grounds to their mix? Would you? Not? Why?

Coffee grounds are the ingredient I have the most consistent supply of, it usually goes in the compost bin. Leaf mold is next, then 1/2 rotted straw from last year's winter mulch.

TIA.

Jennie Little wrote:Anyone add coffee grounds to their mix? Would you? Not? Why?

TIA.

I tend to use coffee grounds as a top cover when I can get them, so that it keeps the weeds out and slowly gets incorporated into the soil.  I drink more black tea than coffee, and I spread the used tea leaves around the most special plants, but don't produce enough to really make a significant addition to even my small scale soil production or mulch everything with it.  The neighbors I spoke to use Kerug coffee machines so they just have those stupid plastic cups.  I don't understand how that horrible machine became so popular, not only is it incredibly wasteful but I think it makes weak, not great tasting coffee that doesn't even give me energy the way coffee made in any other way does.

One local coffee shop was giving me their used grounds until early last month, then they closed.  I have asked at several other places but either someone else is already taking them or the shop owner just don't want to be bothered.  

For planting indoors, I feel that the soil is best to be sterilized.

To me, bringing soil from outside brings critters into the house.

Also soil from outside might have weed seeds.

I understand the need for bacteria and microorganism in soil.  That is good for outdoor soil.

And yes, adding coffee ground is good if you plants like acid conditions.

Coffee grounds are great to use to make compost.