Making my own potting soil.

Mark Reed wrote:I make my own potting soil just from stuff available in my yard and garden. I don't have an exact recipe that I follow religiously but basic ingredients include:

*Compost - my compost isn't "proper" compost, it's just the more rotted stuff off the bottom of whatever weeds and such were thrown in a pile.
*Plain garden soil
Those two make the bulk of it mixed about half and half

*Next a big helping of dry black locust and mimosa leaves along with crass clippings raked up after fall mowing.
*The stuff that falls out from under the bark of well-seasoned firewood including whatever bugs might be in it

I just mix that all up and sift it and put it in big tubs. I do that in the fall. I guess it composts a bit and generates some heat because most weed seeds either sprout or rot before I need it the next spring. It is however, far from completely sterile. I like it that way because I save my own seeds and if something can't get along some organisms in my soil I would rather it croak as a seedling than later on.

I started doing it this way years ago and at first, I did have a lot of issues with seedlings damping off, especially tomatoes and peppers. I almost never see that now unless I am planting some newly acquired seeds. Any seed that doesn't like whatever else lives in my soil can just drop dead as far as I'm concerned, and some do.

When you find a system that works stick with it.     Damping off I also have fought with, thus why I have done some sterile soil testing.        There is a lot to be said about getting genetics that work for you and keep them growing.
   

William Kellogg wrote:
Ingredients: Perlite, Coco Fiber, Peat Moss, Composted Forest Material, Pumice, Worm Castings, Bat Guano, Soybean Meal, Alfalfa Meal, Fishbone Meal, Kelp Meal, and Greensand.
Also contains beneficial mycorrhizal fungi: Funneliformis mosseae, Rhizophagus intraradices, Septoglomus desertícola to enhance uptake of plant nutrients, increase root biomass.

Hmm...not a bad mix; except that the peatmoss is like manna for our fungus gnats in Texas..no matter how small the percentage is, it attracts them  almost as soon as you open the bag, and easn't someone, somewhere, telling the world that using peatmoss is not sustainable?

It's doubtful you can eliminate fungus gnats by removing the peat moss.