Making Potting Soil

When you pot up plants to share or just to plant your containers, do you mix your own potting soil?

I do.
A number of years ago I listened to my good friend Gianna give a lecture on container plants. She shared her tip of mixing together potting soil and compost in a 2 to 1 ratio. That means that if you put two buckets of potting soil in your wheelbarrow, you add one bucket of compost (or top soil or aged manure, what ever you have).

I love a compost and manure mixture so that's what I order for my garden. Even though I have a huge compost heap, I just haven't been able to produce as much compost as I need. This compost/manure mixture is what I add to my potting soil.


Potting soil by itself is very light and dries out quickly. There are potting soils that have additives to retain water and even potting soils with fertilizers in them but I prefer to stay as natural as possible. What I add instead is a nice healthy scoop of Milorganite which is an organic fertilizer made from sludge.

This year I've been adding a secret ingredient, a nice big couple of handfuls of shredded leaves. They do wonders for the potting soil, making it so nice, fluffy and hopefully, healthy.

Time will tell how this potting soil mixture works but I think it's going to be fantabulous!