Make Your Own Potting Mixes

There are many benefits to the environment if we make our own potting mixes, and it’s great for plants too, says Dr Anton Rosenfeld, knowledge officer of Garden Organic. So how about it?

- Dr Anton Rosenfeld

There are a number of good reasons for making your own potting mixes. Firstly, you are avoiding the use of peat. It is now well known that peat is a non-sustainable resource and extracting it destroys wildlife habitats and results in the release of locked-up carbon as CO2. Yet it still finds its way into the majority of bags of potting compost found in most garden centers.

Secondly, you are avoiding ‘compost miles’ and all the energy associated with transporting bulky substances over long distances.

Thirdly, in many cases, you are ‘closing the loop’ and turning materials found within your own garden into a product that you would otherwise have to buy – saving precious resources and money.

But perhaps most importantly, you know what has gone into something that you have made yourself. A bag of commercial potting compost may contain added artificial chemical fertilizers or animal by-products such as blood, hoof, and horn. What could be better than saving money and having the satisfaction of creating your very own mix?

WHAT WE NEED FROM A POTTING MIX

Although there are plenty of good reasons for making your own potting mixes, it can take a bit of tinkering around to get it right.

Commercial potting composts are the result of a considerable amount of research, development, and refinement. A plant growing in soil, as opposed to a pot, has access to a large volume of earth and plenty of water and nutrients. There is also a lot of biological life in the soil to help it out.

Once you confine a plant to a pot, it is akin to locking it in a small room, so it becomes far fussier about its living conditions and what you feed it.

An ideal potting mix should: