How to Make Your Own Potting Soil

Learn how to make your own potting soil potting mix ingredients combining dirt, well-aged compost, and a handful of sand for good drainage. Gather your own potting mix ingredients to form an inexpensive and organic planting medium.

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Learn how to make your own potting soil potting mix ingredients combining dirt, well-aged compost, and a handful of sand for good drainage. Gather your own potting mix ingredients to form an inexpensive and organic planting medium.

How to Make Your Own Potting Soil

Packaged potting soils are a terrific convenience, but their cost adds up fast in a busy garden. Making only about half of the potting soil I used saved me money. Next year, when my pile of rotting sawdust matures, I hope to be potting soil self-sufficient.

Potting soil self-sufficiency is good for your pocketbook, your plants and the planet, and you actually gain convenience by always having potting soil ready when you need it. If you have soil and compost, you’ve got the basic ingredients for making your own potting soil. In place of peat moss, perlite and vermiculite (the three leading ingredients in bagged potting soil), you can simply combine your best soil with cured compost, leaf mold, rotted sawdust (from untreated wood) or a long list of other organic ingredients. Prepare some small batches, mix it with store-bought stuff to stretch your supply, and gradually make the transition to what potting soil should be — a simple, nurturing medium for growing healthy plants or starting seeds.

Giving Up Exotic Planting Ingredients

  • Updated on Mar 25, 2023
  • Originally Published on Oct 7, 2020
Tagged with: compost, fertilizer, live compost, organic, peat moss, Potting Soil, soil
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