Today I made some potting soil. I used this video from the Epic Gardening YouTube channel as a base guide – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJhJOEhcfVM
I didn’t use all the extra additives as described because I didn’t have most of them. My main goal is to make a potting mix that is like and retains water
Sifting cotton burr compost
Sifted cotton burr compost
The process used:
- Sift Timberline Cotton Burr Compost (kept large parts to use as mulch)
- One 2.5 gallon buckets full of pre-sifted compost
- One 2.5 gallon bucket full of garden soil, large pieces picked out
- Two 2.5 gallon buckets full of sifted peat moss
- Two 2.5 gallon buckets full of vermiculite
- 1 1/2 cups Dr. Earth Home Grown Organic & Natural Tomato fertilizer
- Mix thoroughly
- Wet thoroughly before using
Notes for next time:
- Either 2 buckets of sifted compost OR sifted garden soil would be fine
- Try half vermiculite. I think the vermiculite I have is much finer than the vermiculite from the base video
I used this mix to replace ~4 inches of compacted dirt in the “in-between” space in the raised garden bed. 4 inches of dirt was removed, another 4 inches was mixed with the dirt in the bed. I also added an additional cup of Dr. Earth fertilizer. I covered this space with the cotton burr mulch that was left-over after sifting. I really like everything about using this cotton burr compost as a part of my process so far.
This in-between space does not have agricultural bins, like most of the raised beds. This space had strawberries in it, but they were starting to dry out and wilt. I dug them up and put them in a medium pot, using the potting mix I just created and covered with cotton burr mulch.
I also used this potting mix to replant asiatic lilies in a pot that were recently dug up by squirrels. There were a ton of tiny lily bulbs, so I put some of these tiny bulb along the garage side of the entryway sidewalk bed.
Cut out all small volunteer trees throughout front flower bed, along back fence line and in garage side flower bed.
Lastly, I transplanted the Green Zebra tomato plant that was broken off last month, back into the raised bed where it came from. The roots were all the way to the edge of the 1/2 gallon pot from top to bottom. Color is deep green and stem is thick and strong.
