Low Dollar Long Lasting Homemade growing medium / potting soil

Over the last 40ish years I've grown in containers as well as fields both indoors and out. Roughly 20-30 years ago I got away from using commercial fertilizers for the most part. Anyway these days it's about using things I have and buying as little as possible to make what I need.  I haven't done this in awhile so if I'm screwing up shout out, if you see something I've missed please shout louder!

This will be used in a wick type system using rope hanging in water and nutrients (tea) as needed.

 My goal here is to make some very high quality reusable growing medium or potting soil. I did have to buy part of what I needed that being pearlite, vermiculite, peatmoss and worm castings.

I'm basing this on 7-10 gallon pots and I'll be making enough for 10 containers to make things easy to measure.  I will put a #) for the amount or parts per.

1) good bottom ground soil
1) worm castings
1) vermiculite
1) pearlite
1) peatmoss
1) inoculated biochar
1.5) composted cow manure
0.5) chicken litter
1) bark, ground up / broken down
1) old homemade potting soil, mostly composted wood chips

I will also be amending with wood ash and bone meal.


 Let me know what you think and please speak up if I've made mistakes!

Hi Larry,

I would add a paramagnetic basalt or granite rock dust. Maybe not needed depending on what the good bottom ground soil is.

Given the option I would replace the perlite/vermiculite with pumic/lava rock/rice hulls.

It's nice to know the source of the cow manure and chicken stuff for possible gick. Maybe well composted is better if unsure.

This link has a recipe that has become quite popular. There are many versions of this recipe if you do a search. This basic one doesn't even have biochar which I think can be a pretty important addition. Just FYI for anyone starting from scratch as this is where I would start if I were starting today.

https://clackamascoots.com/blogs/news/coots-soil-recipe-coots-nutes

Les Frijo wrote:Hi Larry,

I would add a paramagnetic basalt or granite rock dust. Maybe not needed depending on what the good bottom ground soil is.

Given the option I would replace the perlite/vermiculite with pumic/lava rock/rice hulls.

It's nice to know the source of the cow manure and chicken stuff for possible gick. Maybe well composted is better if unsure.

This link has a recipe that has become quite popular. There are many versions of this recipe if you do a search. This basic one doesn't even have biochar which I think can be a pretty important addition. Just FYI for anyone starting from scratch as this is where I would start if I were starting today.

https://clackamascoots.com/blogs/news/coots-soil-recipe-coots-nutes

Our "soil" is mostly red clay. It's full of minerals, iron and such but has less than 1% organic matter in most places. My garden is now close to 4% after nearly 2 decades of improvements.  

As to replacing pearlite etc. it's what I have in hand so I'll be using it. Next time maybe I'll try some of the others.  All the manures are off my own property.

I think your mix sounds good. You didn't mention what you're growing in containers but in my experience the larger the container the better. I use 10 gal minimum these days for things like peppers. With your wicking system I can see that being much easier on the watering labor. That's probably the most challenging part of growing in containers and why I use the largest containers I can handle.

The most helpful things that I think I've done are using mulch and planting a diverse chop and drop cover crop in the containers along with some worms etc. The soil keeps getting better and can be used for a number of years with very minimum inputs.

Les Frijo wrote:I think your mix sounds good. You didn't mention what you're growing in containers but in my experience the larger the container the better. I use 10 gal minimum these days for things like peppers. With your wicking system I can see that being much easier on the watering labor. That's probably the most challenging part of growing in containers and why I use the largest containers I can handle.

The most helpful things that I think I've done are using mulch and planting a diverse chop and drop cover crop in the containers along with some worms etc. The soil keeps getting better and can be used for a number of years with very minimum inputs.

Sapling trees came in these containers 30 odd years ago, and I've been using them ever since. They measure 14" across and 12" high if memory serves, none of them have the size on them. I must have had around a hundred of them originally and there must be 30 or so still in use.

Companion planting is something I'm playing around with.