HelpfulGardener.com

Hi

I am getting the most stunningly lush and health growth from my container plants this Spring, like nothing I've ever seen before, so I thought I would share the recipe for the homemade potting mix I've been using. I will never, repeat never, go back to grungy commercial bagged mixes! There's just no comparison.

The successful mix is approximately this:

- Fine wood chip mulch, composted 50%
- Household compost 30% (= food and garden waste, plus minerals from wood ash, dolomite and rock dust, with lots of worms and other critters):
- Clay soil 15%
- Horticultural sand 5%

Now you may not have some fine-chip composted mulch just lying around, and I'm not advocating that you buy expensive mulch and then leave it in a pile on your driveway for a year ... but if you do, it makes a really awesome DIY potting mix base!

And if you have horrible heavy clay soil like we have, you can use that to your advantage in the mix for water and nutrient retention.

Everything is bursting with lush green growth from this mix! The mix itself is so alive, rather than the lifeless, uniform shreds of chemical-soaked dead cellulose that pass for 'potting mix' in the stores.

I always mix a little clay soil into my potting mix as a filler and I also add a little compost. But the other ingredient is bagged commercial potting mix. If I had more materials available I would make my own mixes. I will keep your recipe in mind.

is this and inside or outside mix. Granted I have put my own compost in my indoor pots people recomend against this since you may be bringing in bugs and other nasties that should be left outside.

Inside, outside, anyside .

It will definitely bring in bugs, but that's exactly what's required for the health of the mix - the more critters the better. Fortunately there's nowhere those bugs would love to be more than in that mix, so it's all good; they tend not to wander!