Looking for the perfect homemade potting soil recipe to create amazing soil for your hanging baskets, containers and potted plants?
One of the best ways to save money and grow the best potted plants around is to make your own potting soil at home. Why make your own? For starters, it can not only save on your budget – but more importantly, create richer and more fertile soil that it is far better for your plants than ordinary potting soil.
In addition, creating your own potting soil also lets you know exactly what’s in it. Unfortunately, many commercial mixes have all kinds of artificial fertilizers, additives and fillers. And if you happen to grow vegetables or herbs in pots, or save and compost your potting soil at the end of every year – that can be anything but organic!
The Perfect Organic Potting Soil Recipe
Keeping Your Potting Soil Fresh & Organic
Let’s face it, opening a bag of potting soil can sometimes make you wonder if there is any real “soil” in the mix at all. Some have moisture pellets that help retain water. Others boast that their special fertilizers can feed plants at twice the rate of regular potting soil.
But the simple fact is, there is simply no need for those non-organic ingredients. Especially when you can create incredibly powerful homemade potting soil from just a few basic all natural ingredients!
So what make a potting soil perfect for plants? Great potting soil needs to have a few basic qualities and ingredients to be able to grow strong, healthy plants. For starters, it needs to be lightweight.
This is extremely important when you are planting in containers and baskets, where heavy soil can easily cause baskets to fall or break apart the container. It’s also important to allow strong and easy root growth for your plants.
The Perfect Recipe For Homemade Potting Soil
We have been tweaking with our potting soil recipe for years to come up with the “perfect” blend. A few years back, we finally settled on this specific recipe, and has it ever consistently grown amazing plants!
It has been incredible for powering our flowers in pots, hanging baskets and containers. It also works equally well for the vegetables we grow in containers. The mix is lightweight, has great structure, and is filled with a host of natural, slow-release fertilizers.
Best of all, at the end of each growing season, we can add it right back into our compost pile. With a 100% organic make-up, there is no worry of saving the soil and recharging it as compost to use again. Just one more benefit of making your own potting soil right at home!
The Ingredients:
- Compost – 6 cups
- Pulverized Top Soil – 6 cups
- Worm Castings – 2 cups
- Spent Coffee Grounds – 2 cups
- Perlite – 2 cups
Here is a look below at each of the ingredients and how they come together to make it the perfect potting soil recipe. You make these in large or small batches – all you need to do is keep the ratios the same.
Compost – (6 cups)
Compost is a must in creating great potting soil. Not only is it lightweight, it’s filled with an incredible balance of nutrients as well. Nutrients that are released slowly to the roots of plants over time.
Compost will also absorb and retain water in massive amounts. In fact, it can absorb 10 to 15 times its own weight in water! That absorbing power helps to create potting soil that doesn’t dry out too quickly.
Pulverized Soil (6 cups)
Pulverized top soil is simply loose dirt / soil. You can often find it bagged, or in bulk at mulch & soil stores. Whether you use bagged or bulk, it is important to make sure it is light and loose. Heavy, clumped soil will not make good potting soil.
Worm Castings (2 cups)
Quite simply, worm castings are one of the most crucial parts of this mix. They provide an incredible balance of slow-release nutrients to plants. All while keeping the soil lightweight and allowing it to absorb water more easily. Affiliate Link: 100% Pure Organic Worm Castings
We use worm castings everywhere on our farm to power our plants. As a tea for liquid fertilizing. And, in their dry, natural state as a top dressing for potted plants and hanging baskets for natural fertilizing.
Listen To Our Podcast Below On How To Use This Recipe To Make The Perfect Potting Soil!
Coffee Grounds (2 cups)
Coffee grounds are one of the most powerful, humus-building organic ingredients around. And so readily and easily available!
Much like worm castings, they help to add all-important structure to potting soil. And they also contain a fair amount of trace nitrogen, which is extremely important for its fertilizing capabilities. It is important to use spent coffee grounds, not fresh coffee. Spent grounds have been washed of their acidity. See our article: How & Why To Save Coffee Grounds
Perlite – (2 cups)
It its natural state, perlite is 100% all-natural volcanic glass. But when heated, it pops open almost like popcorn. But it has near magical powers when used as an ingredient in potting soil. Perlite not only helps to improve drainage, but keeps the soil mix light. And that popcorn-like substance also absorbs moisture, and a lot of it!
Like compost, perlite can keep moisture around the roots of potted plants, releasing it back out as the soil dries out. Perlite, with a neutral PH of 7, won’t affect the make-up of the potting soil. Just another reason it is the perfect soil-lightening additive!
Here is to making your potting soil this year – and to having your containers grow better than ever!
Simple Garden Life
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Simple Garden Life is a website dedicated to keeping gardening fun, simple and enjoyable! We publish two new articles each week along with a new garden podcast episode every two weeks. This article may contain affiliate links.