How to Make Potting Soil
Starting seeds inside has not been our most successful venture. However, I have a hard time resisting those seed catalogs as I’m dreaming of warmer spring days. So, we’re trying it again. This year was by far the most enjoyable year for the task at hand. I’m sure it has to do with the variety of farm children that helped at different stages during the operation. From making our own potting soil to planting and watering the seeds, at least one or two farm kids was by my side the whole time. Just the way I like it.
We started by making an afternoon project of mixing our own potting soil. This was a first for us, so I’m excited to see the results as things start to grow. I did a little research on the contents of homemade potting soil and settled on these ingredients: compressed coconut coir, compost, and sand.
The compressed coconut coir I ordered online and I was shocked at how much coir is actually in one of those bricks, once you start adding water to it! The farm girls loved adding the water and causing the coir to multiply.
Of course compost on a farm is pretty easy to come by so that was a simple addition to the mix. I just tried to sift out larger clumps of the compost before adding it to the coir.
I read you can purchase perlite to add to the soil for aeration. However, I also read that sand can be used as well. We have a sandy area near a cave entrance on our property where the flood waters (from heavy rains) push the sand up from beneath the earth. I know it sounds weird and I’ll admit it is…nevertheless, we have a natural sand pile and I had the farm kids haul some of it up for our potting soil mix.
We mixed the three ingredients together and I guess we’ll see in a few weeks how good our mix
works.
