How To Make The Best Homemade Potting Soil Around - Without Peat Moss!

Welcome to the Simple Garden Life podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and always rewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competti. Hello and welcome everybody to another episode of Simple Garden
Life. I'm your host, Jim Competti with my co host and wife Mary
Competti, and today we are going to talk about potting toa more importantly making
your own potting toe, which is something we've been doing and trying to perfect
for for many years. But more importantly Mary and I think this is key
doing it without using Pete moss, right, Pete moss is such a oh,
it's just a tough it's a tough topic right now. I mean everybody,
you know, it's it's not a renewable resource. It's made over thousands
and thousands of years, and it takes a lot of car there's a there's
a whole environment or reason not to be using Pete moss. But the good
news is you don't have to write and you can make you know, we're
really talking about dirt today and potting soil, and you know, being back
at the farm is really getting us geared up, you know, for garden
Sea and planning flowers and pot of plants. And you know, this is
such a great topic because it's so important. So many people ask us about
our recipe. I think, in fact, we just did an interview what
about two weeks ago with the Washington Post about using our recipe without having Pete
Moss in it and how effective it is. And I always love it because
you know, this podcast is called Simple Garden Life for a reason, because
we try to keep things simple and you get a lot of scientific people involved
and what can work and what can't work, And for us, it's always
been one thing, and it's called experience. It is and you know,
Pete Moss has been around for years and a lot of people have used it
over the years, and you know, there's several reasons why not to use
it, and we're here to tell you today that you don't have to use
it. Not when it comes to potting so and we actually call this the
best potting so around because again experience, we've used it year in and year
out really good results. We'll get into that before we get any farther.
I do want to remind everybody with your questions, always feel free to email
us at the Farm at ow garden dot com. You can also sign up
to follow Simple Garden Life on any of the major podcast apps. We're pretty
much on them. Sign up follow. We do a new podcast every two
weeks. It drops usually on Tuesday, and you know, we we have
enjoyed it. We love getting the emails when we get a lot of them
from people all around. And this was a topic that a lot of people
ask us to kind of cover, like how do you make your potting soil?
Is it better to make your own potting soil? Let's kind of go
down that road first, Mary, about making your own versus purchasing. First
of all, if you can't make your own, if it's not there are
a lot of good potting soils on the market. We're not here to change
that out, but they can be pretty expensive. Yeah, they're very expensive,
and depending on how many pot of plants do you actually plant in a
year's time, it can really add up. And one of the best ways
to save money and grow the best pot of plants around is to make your
own potting soil at home. Yeah, and a lot of the ingredients is
will get into today. You're going to find out that you know, you
can actually make them for free or find them for free. Some you have
to purchase. But at the end of the day, well, we've found
more than anything else beyond the cost savings, and you're talking about two people
that probably pop more plants than we ever should we use this everywhere? But
beyond that, I think for us, we've found that it's just that much
better than commercial mixes because there's so much powerboat into this potting soil. Um
it's loose, it has all of the things that you need into good potting
soil, and you can just make it right at home, right and when
we're talking about potting soil, this is to grow vegetables, flowers, herbs,
or hanging baskets when you make your own absolutely and you know, not
just that. A lot of people, you know, blend this into their
raised beds if they want to put some extra soil in it. And at
the end of the year, with all that potting so ours all goes right
back into our compost, which you'll see as a major ingredient in our potting
soil. But it's it's renewable, recyclable, and very easy to keep,
extremely powerful. So there's there's little doubt that when you talk about potting plants
or anything like that. That making your own for us has always just been
kind of a I don't want to say, a badge of honor, but
we're really proud of it because there's nothing like making your own soil, then
putting your own plants in and watching something grow and maybe it's a vegetable it
produces. Maybe if it's flowers, they're they're big and bright and beautiful.
But more importantly, it's a really quality, good soil, right. And
you know a lot of those commercial products that you could buy have additives in
the potting soil and you really don't know what's actually in it. So I
think that's a big point here. It's like, when you make it yourself,
you know what's in your soil, you know what you grow. We
talk about that all the time, and you bring up another good point is,
especially especially when you're growing vegetables in those pots. It's one thing to
say you're growing flowers and you're not going to consume them, but I always
encourage people to think full circle. You know, you may not be growing
vegetables in that potted flower this year, but that ends up in your compost
spin and if there's materials in it then aren't natural. They're going to go
through your compost and they're going to be an extra. So for it's always
been peace of mind, make our own. We know it's one hundred percent
organic, we know it's in we know what's in it, we know what
we can put in it, we know we can put in our compost piles,
and we go from there, right And you know a lot of those
bags have added fertilizers, fungicides, and other additives that are far from organic.
And even if you're not an organic gardener, and that's okay, just
remember what you're eating also absorbs those nutrients from from the soil and the additives
from the soil. It does, so, okay, I'll tell you what
we're going to do right now. Let's we normally get to our question a
little bit later, but I kind of want to get to our question of
the week right now because it leads into this potting soil. And I got
to tell you, I think it comes from Norman from Somerville, South Carolina,
which is hilarious because Mary and I love to go to Somerville. It's
a wonderful place. It is a wonderful place. So we saw this and
then it was right on to Q and we saw them like, we've got
to use this as our question because actually it's an incredibly good question. Mary,
go ahead and read it here and then we'll answer it. Sure.
This is Norman Davis from Somerville, South Caroline. Norman asks, whenever I
purchase potting soil, there always seems to be styrofoam or something that looks like
it in my soil. Is it organic? Or can I use that potting
soil to grow vegetables and containers? I love it, and Norman, it's
a great question. We get it a lot. I remember we received emails
a few years ago when we were talking about our potting soil recipe and they're
like, well, it's not organic because you have that styrofoam in your soil.
I see the picture. So actually, what that is is actually a
one hundred percent organic substance. It's per light and it is actually volcanic glass
that they simply heat up and they explode it, and it's basically like popcorn
right exactly. They heat it up to like thirteen hundred degrees and it expands
thirteen times of size. That it originally was, and it's a great filler
in soil because it allows the mixture to expand. It allows the soil to
be light and airy, and allows water and roots to be able to develop.
It. Yeah, it really loosens that soil and lets them move.
And more important, and you said it best, it lightens the soil.
So think about potted plants hanging baskets. You can't put heavy garden soil and
then first of all, you're gonna crack all your pots. Second of all,
you can't move and you're gonna crack your back. And but more importantly,
when it's heavy soil for flowers or vegetables, you want those roots to
be able to grow quick. So what perlite does in those soils, you
said it lightens it up. It keeps it a little bit easier, but
it also helps the water channels it makes it allows the water to get through.
Perlite is magical. And here's the best part of all. It never
goes away. It does not rot, It does not go away. So
when you buy perlite and you put in your soil and it ends up in
your compost spin, it's just going to be there to continue to build soil.
No, it doesn't at all, and it is one hundred percent organic
and it's not styrofoam norm and you can rest ashore. We get that question
a lot, so it's it's a great question, and that's why we included
it today. But it's one of the key ingredients in our potting soil mix.
But I want to go one step further. We use per light in
our raised beds in other areas to help loosen thick soil. And it's great
because we said it doesn't break down right, and like you said, it
allows the route to expand and develop and grow strong, allows the water to
come through. So one of those great things to have in our garden at
all times, potting soil or the garden itself. Well, I heard the
little symbol right there, so I think that's time for an ad break.
We apparently sometimes run a little long, so we get some warning, so
we'll take a very quick ad break. We're going to be back. We're
going to discuss exactly what should go in your potting soil, right down to
the ingredients and what each one is, and we'll be right back after this,
all right, and we are back talking about how to make your homemade
potting soil. Five ingredients. That's what we talk about all the time.
It's five natural ingredients. And you know we're going to go through I think
Mary, you're going to read off the actual recipe and what the ratios are.
Look, I just want to really say this. You can make as
much or as little as you need of this. Just use the ratios and
keep them the same or are close to the same. I always talk about
gardening. It's not baking. It's cooking. So when you cook, you
can throw a little more hot pepper, and if you like that, you
can throw when you bake. You can't get away with that. But don't
get so caught up with the exact Like I think, I'm a little will
If you get close to this ratio, you're going to have a wonderful potting.
Someone mix is going to work. So I think a lot of gardeners
get scared off of all the scientific terms and exact measurements. So we're here
to tell you that. You know, once we give you this recipe,
you can tweak it, just like you said, just like in a cooking
recipe, make it your own. Well, I'm glad you said that,
because you know This is a recipe that we have kind of honed over the
last ten to eleven years, and really in the last few years we've settled
in on this exact formula. And I use the word exact, and I
should, but the key is this seems to be a really good ratio for
us that makes a light, loose but extremely powerful soil. So again,
you can be a little off on one or the other if you have to
be, but just try to be close to this. We're going to do
this in cups, so we're going to just show you like it's basically,
you know, like like you're baking. So if you're going to make it
up, it's six cups of this or this, and we'll get into the
recipe right now. But again, just keep those ratios the same. If
you've got to make a lot of it, use six five gallon buckets and
then move, you know, just make the ratios equal. So, Mary,
I think let's go through the ingredients first and how much of each,
and then we'll get into specifics. It's five ingredients. It is five ingredients,
and this is our oral garden homemade potting soil recipes. I'm used doing
recipes, not usually in gardening, but we'll go for a time. I
get to cook. Ye. So the first thing that you're going to want
to use is compost. Compost is the key here. You're gonna use six
cups of compost and then pulverized top soil six cups of that as well,
one to one ratio. Yeah, that's the big part of this soil mix.
So six cups of composts and six cups of a soil of pulveroi.
It's a loose soil weet. We'll get into that a little bit. And
then what else do we put in that? Then we do two cups of
each of worm castings, spent coffee grounds, and the per light that we
talked about earlier. So it's a really simple formula. It's six six two
two two and it's of each of those ingredients. So six of the compost,
six cups of pulfroy soil, and then two cups each of coffee grounds,
spent coffee grounds, per light, and then we're the worm casting.
So let's kind of get into why and what. So let's talk about the
compost. First. We talk about compost. I think every single podcast it's
amazing. It's black gold. It is black gold. And the reason it's
black gold is it has every nutrient plant's need in the right amounts and most
importantly, super easy to absorb those nutrients into the plant. So compost is
by far the key. Now, if you have a compost pile at home,
sifted a little bit to get a little bit finer compost for your potting
soil. You don't want big chunks of half decayed things if it's animals.
Um So, if you're purchasing it, and we'll have links on this on
this podcast, on the article on Simple Garden Life. Excuse me for the
new article, um that that are there if you have to purchase these things.
But either way, you just want a good compost around it, you
know, a whole compost. If you grow your own nets, fine or
make your own excuse me, that's that's more than fine. But you want
it to be seeing sure it's a completed compost pile as well. Yeah,
not not fresh or anything like that. It's just got to be done and
finished compost. So that's what it starts with. And like I said,
compost is the king. It's got everything in it, It's got everything you
need. And now we go to the Paul roys topsil, which we get
a lot of questions about this, so I want to explain what this is.
If you go into your local garden center, a lot of times they'll
have gardener soil, uh, and it's not bulk, it's in bag.
It might be called top soil, Paul, you know, loose, it
might be called garden soil. All we're talking about here is a base soil
that's that's loose, not clay. Not going out to your garden and picking
up a shovelful of it. You want to get really good soil. Mix
it may you can usually find it bagged. It's fairly cheap too, but
just make sure it's a decent soil and it's naturally they don't have anything in
it, right. And sometimes they're also called filtered soil. Yeah, filtered
soil. A lot of places have it in bulk. You can buy it
in bulk if you're gonna make a ton of it. Bags are kind of
easy when you're mixing it up. That's all you really want here. So
a six six ratio right there, six cups of composts and six cups of
soil. So the way we make ours, we use a wheelbarrel. It's
just really really easy, so you know you're going to throw that in.
We make a little bit bigger. We do actually six five gallon buckets and
six five gall but again the ratio just keep it same. So you're gonna
put six of six parts of compost and six equal parts of the soil in
first, and then we get to the second things. We talked about perlite.
We talked about what it does for soil. So two cups of that,
that's you're gonna mix that in and you're gonna mix it all up,
and what that's gonna do. It's going to start to help some of that
top soil which is a little heavier and the compost which is a little lighter.
It's going to keep it all light. It's going to keep it from
packing together, and that's what you want in a good potting soil. And
one thing to mention too about pelight. It also has a neutral pH level.
Oh it's it's huge because that's what you know. It's not going to
adjust anything, it's not going to change things out, just like compost us.
Finished composts is the same way your soil can be a little bit different.
That's going to be okay, But those those other ingredients are really good.
So now you've got that in, it's a little loose, it's a
little bit better. And what are we going to kick in next? Oh,
our favorite worm castings. It's right, two cups of worm castings.
I cannot say it enough. Get worm castings and have them on hand for
everything. We put them on top of our hanging baskets, we put them
in every planning hole. We use them to make a tea, to water
our plants, to fertilize our plants. Yeah, I cannot tell you how
many emails we get every single week that says, oh, my gosh,
I use worm castings last year for the first time. I'm so amazed.
I never get an email that says, ah, these this didn't work for
me. They really do work, and in potting soil they are a huge
benefit. You have to be careful too, when you're buying worm castings.
You have to make sure that you're buying one hundred percent worm castings. There's
a lot of mixes out there that the bags will say worm castings, but
they have a lot of additives to it or ground material though, So you
really want to be careful what you purchase. Yeah, and you can usually
find them local. We have them. In fact, if you go to
any of our sites, Old World Garden Farms, Good, this is my
garden. Or you go to Simple Garden Light, we have a product's page
on there. Click on it. We have links there that you can buy
them online, or you can at least see what it is and go to
your local store. But Mary, you said it best one hundred percent worm
castings, you've got to have that. If you get the fillers, they're
not going to have the same power. I think the biggest thing about the
wormcastings adding to your potting soil is that it's a slow release fertilizer that your
plants are going to benefit from months well one hundred percent. And it also
helps absorb water and keep it into plants, which is going to help you
water less when you're talking about potted plants. And it lightens the soil as
well. So it's that triple hitter, you know, it's it's just it's
it's the crown excuse me of really what you need to put in that soil.
So when people ask us, I know, when we did the interview
with watching puts they ask us like, what's taking the place of Pete moss.
I said, well, compost is the big key because it's really lighten
it up. But you get those worm castings in there, and it really
adds power that pete moss doesn't have that power. Pete moss is just a
lightner and it doesn't have the kind of stuff so it holds some moisture in.
But this is where you're getting the great potting soil. When you start
mixing that compost with the worm castings, and when you when you go to
purchase worm castings, you know you're going to get something that looks like little
tiny pellets. Yeah, so you know, just be aware that you know
that's what you're looking for exactly exactly. So now we have four of the
five ingredients. We put six cups of top or of pulverized soil, and
we put six cups of composts. We put two cups of pearl light in,
and we put two cups of worm castings. And that leaves the last
part of it, which people always ask us, like, why are you
doing this? It's it's the spent coffee grounds rights the coffee grounds that you
are finished with in the morning and you're about ready to either put in your
composts or unfortunately throw away, but use those as part of you're potting soil.
Yeah, you know, we say this every time we talk about coffee
grounds. You can't use fresh. We get some non coffee drinkers it's like,
why don't drink coffee? And I'm like, you've got to have somebody
saving for you because fresh coffee is very acidic, and when it goes through
that filtering process the water of making coffee, it loses that acidity and becomes
very good. If you use fresh, you're gonna you're gonna mess up that
pH of the soil. So spend coffee grounds and again two cups and you
mix that all in. So what do the coffee grounds do. Well,
Again, they're going to help hold some moisture in. They're gonna give some
trace nutrients in there, which is fabulous. I mean you're getting you know,
nitrogen, you're getting all the other trace elements, and again in an
easily absorbed way, and they're going to get to those plants. So it's
huge to use all of those things. Can you leave one out? Yeah?
You can not. Really the compost because it's such a major part.
But you put those five together and I'm telling you you will have the best
potting soil you've ever had. Right, And I know this isn't the question
the week, and I'm kind of jumping the gun here, but we get
this question a lot, and I'm just going to throw it out there right
now. Can you use spent coffee grounds that have been flavored like hazel nut
or all the different flavors? Great, great point, because I've probably answered
a hundred questions. I'm glad you brought that up. All right, So
here's our take on it. There's a lot of natural flavors that are used,
and if you look on it, it's one naturally flavored. There's no
problem. In my mind, there's no problem with it. You get into,
you know, like cake ups and all the other things where it's all
kinds of art. I just my feeling is if I'm growing something, I
want to know what's in it, and I don't know what's in that,
and I don't know what kind of chemical they use to make that flavor.
So I always say, no, don't you. So we'll stay away from
the artificial flavored coffees. But natural flavored coffees are good to go. Yeah,
I just think you're safe that way. And we talk about it all
the time, and we have our standard coffee, so we don't really know.
Boring, nothing to worry about. That's right, Well I'm boring or
else. At least it gets us off to a good start boring. I'm
probably not very boring if I don't get that cup. So so anyway,
mix these together. People ask how long does it last? It's it's indefinite.
I mean, you got you got that in there. As long as
it's not wet and leaching out. You can use that soil if you make
too much extra. But fantastic for potted plants. It really is fun to
kind of make your own potting soil and realize that you're controlling. I always
said, like when we grow our own pants from seed, and then we
plan our own flower pots and we plant our own garden, and at the
end of the year you're putting what you made into your own compost pile.
It is an unbelievable failing. You know you did it all right, and
you know it's just a great excuse to play in the dirt again. It
is it is It is so okay, So let's kind of wrap this up
and talk about you know what we said, so again, Pete Moss,
you just don't need it to make a really quality potting soil. And to
do that this recipe that we have today, which is five ingredients again you
know, pulverized soil, compost, you're talking about, coffee grounds, spent
the spent variety, perlite, and worm castings, those five together in that
mix. And again go to Simple Garden Life. This will be the article
of the week. And if it's not up there, all you gotta do
is just put in the search bar right there best potting soil or potting soil,
it's going to come up. And again on all of our sites.
I always want to tell that people there's a search bar on every site and
it's a really good search bar. Put in any topic in there and you're
going to find our articles on it, and it's really helpful. Absolutely,
it's a great way to find the information that even if it's something we haven't
yet covered, you can definitely search those websites and get what you need.
That's right. So I think that about does it get out there make your
own potting soil try it, just you know what, do what we used
to do and have a little fun with it. We would plant some commercial
potting soil and we would do ours, and we would try a couple of
mixes and we try ours. We always came back to, wow, this
is I think the final tweak for us was adding a little more worm castings
that really put more energy in it. But have fun with it, have
fun with guardening. That's what it's all about, right Mary, Absolutely,
I think it's time. It's time. Well, happy spring everyone, and
remember whatever you do, find the fun and gardening and grow something beautiful.
So long everyone. We hope you've enjoyed this episode. Subscribe to the Simple
Garden podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or most of your favorite
podcast apps. You can also head over to simplegardenlife dot com where you can
listen and read all of the show notes to every episode. And if you
have any questions, any ideas for show topics, or if you want to
share your favorite garden tip, email us at the farm at owgarden dot com.
Until next time, Thanks everyone,