Garden Doctor- Create A Perfect Potting Mix For Your Containers

When you grow herbs and veggies in containers, soil compaction and rapid depletion of nutrients threaten to kill your chances of having a good crop. We help you tackle these by creating the perfect potting mix.

- Kapil Mandawewala

When you grow herbs and veggies in containers, soil compaction and rapid depletion of nutrients threaten to kill your chances of having a good crop. We help you tackle these by creating the perfect potting mix.

Good tip 

Fill the pot till about three-quarters of its depth, leaving enough space for adding more compost and nutrients later.

Planting is only one part and actually the last amongst the three ‘P’s of successful kitchen gardening: Planning your garden, Preparing the soil, and Planting your vegetables. Often the most ignored, soil and potting mix actually form the basis of successful farming and kitchen gardening. Healthy soil, a living, breathing organism should be teeming with earthworms, microbes, termites and a host of other subsoil fauna that constantly decomposes organic waste and leaf litter and re-composes it into nutrients that trees and plants can absorb. In the ground, earthworms drill and churn the earth to ensure it remains soft, crumbly and friable, creating an ideal environment for roots to spread and grow. Plus, in the ground, roots have ample room to search for nutrients. But when we plant the saplings in containers, we are confronted with two major limitations: Compaction This is when the soil becomes hard since there are no worms or other subsoil fauna to carry out nature’s own form of tilling. Lack of nutrients This is simply due to space constraint for roots to spread and seek them out.