Potting Soil and
Fertilizer Recipes
Written by: Dottie Baltz
There are various reasons why you may want to make up your own potting soil. You could be trying to grow organic, or you just want to make sure you know exactly what is in the soil because you'll be growing vegetables or herbs.
You may be having problem with retaining moisture, or maybe the soil is too wet and plant roots keep rotting.
Everyone's weather conditions are different, and everyone grows different kinds of plants, so it's not far fetched to want to customize your potting mix to the conditions at hand.
With a little tweaking, you too can solve a lot of problems by using the appropriate soil mixture. Use the recipes below as starting points. I've also included some fertilizer recipes below that you can add to the mixes.
Soil Mix for Greenhouse Growing
- 2 parts sifted topsoil
- 2 parts compost
- 1 part peat moss
- 1 part perlite
- 1 part sand
Soil Mix for Containers - General Growing
Heavier Mix (for areas that may get a lot of wind)
- 2 parts commercial potting soil
- 1 part builder's sand
- 1 part compost
Soil Mix for Containers - General Growing
Lighter Mix (ideal for hanging baskets or window boxes)
- 5 parts perlite
- 5 parts compost
- 1 part sifted topsoil
Soil Mix for Seed Starting
- 1 part vermiculite or perlite
- 1 part peat moss
- 1 part compost
Soil Mix for Very Large Containers
- 1 part compost
- 1 part peat moss
- 1 part composted pine bark
- 1 part vermiculite
- limestone
- rock phosphate
- green sand
- granite dust
- blood meal
Super Easy Potting Mix
(This is the mix I use most often)
- 1 part potting mix
- 1 part compost
Fertilizer Recipes
To be added to the soil mix recipes from above.
General Purpose Fertilizer
Mix a handful into each pot, more for very large pots
- 2 parts blood meal
- 3 parts bone meal
- 6 parts green sand
For Alkaline Loving Plants
Mix a handful into each pot, more for very large pots
- Add a hand full of wood ash or oyster shells to the potting mix
For Acid Loving Plants
Mix a handful into each pot, more for very large pots
- Mix in more peat moss and/or cotton seed meal.
- Powdered Sulphur