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Monday, January 19, 2009

How to make your own potting soil

Why waste your money on packaged potting soils? They are not only expensive, but also environmentally unfriendly. Most packaged potting soils are based on some combination of peat moss, perlite and vermiculite, all of which involves energy-intensive mining. Mining obviously contributes to land degration.

If you value your money, or if you really care about the environment, then why not make your own potting mix which contains only inexpensive and environmental friendly materials?

Here is a method for making your own potting mix that is proven to work for me. All you need is to first get hold of the following materials:

1 part of sand

1 part of garden soil

2 part of crushed dry leaves

a few cloves of garlic

2 spoon epsom salt

coffee

soap

Then, follow the following steps:

Step 1: Get a few cloves of garlic. Mash them up.

Step 2: Mix sand, garden soil, dry leaves, crushed garlic and epsom salts together in a container.

Step 3: Expose the soil to sun-heat for several weeks.

Step 4: Use coffee and soap as soil amendments to adjust the PH value of the mixture. The PH value should adjusted according to the pH preference of your plant.

Posted by Admin at 3:33 PM
Edited on: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 5:51 AM
Categories: DIY Library, Go Green