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soil Can I use topsoil as potting mix? Any way to transform it?

chicken_phat

chicken_phat

I have a lot of topsoil that will arrive at my house next week. I was wondering if there was a way to use some of that topsoil in my planting containers? Is that possible? And how would I do it?
 
Sorry everyone but i'm gonna go against the flow here and say that i've always had bad experiences with it, each and every time. With vegetables, pricey ornamental trees, fruit trees etc.
 
1/2 through the season, the plants would start looking funny, stop growing, then eventually catch diseases and die. And this was with amended soil, lots of perlite, pine bark fines. But eventually the drainage would go to hell once the soil packed up.
 
I'll agree with nightshade, the type of soil may have everything to do with it. Everyone's experience sounds different than mine, so it was probably my soil.
 
But in my honest opinion, i think chicken_phat should just spring the cash for potting soil so he'll never half to worry. You can always make your own potting soil by mixing pine bark fines, perlite, Peat and some manure-compost.
 
I used it in my tomato mix this year with great results.
 
Stear Manure from HD
Chicken Manure from HD
Topsoil from HD
perlite ~20%
Myco
 
I have 6 toms that are growing like weeds on crack.And the best part, it was very reasonably priced compaired to a "garden mix"
 
 
 
Prehensile said:
Ratios for homemade soils are tough to get right it took me half a year to get it correct.  GL!
Click to expand...
 
I think people are afraid to use a lot of perlite, but 20-30% seems to do the trick. Also 20% peat will help hold water.
 
Cayennemist said:
I used it in my tomato mix this year with great results.
 
Stear Manure from HD
Chicken Manure from HD
Topsoil from HD
perlite ~20%
Myco
 
I have 6 toms that are growing like weeds on crack.And the best part, it was very reasonably priced compaired to a "garden mix"
 
 
 
 
I think people are afraid to use a lot of perlite, but 20-30% seems to do the trick. Also 20% peat will help hold water.
Click to expand...
I bought some HD manure/potting soil but didn't put anything else in it and it's doing way better than my normal florida dirt, the natural dirt is pretty dense, should I dig that up and mix some perlite in?
 
cactusMD said:
I bought some HD manure/potting soil but didn't put anything else in it and it's doing way better than my normal florida dirt, the natural dirt is pretty dense, should I dig that up and mix some perlite in?
Click to expand...
If your plants are happy, dont mess with it. Next year add 20% perlite so the roots can zoom through it with ease. Learned that from Guru.
 
It if the roots dont need a lot of energy to push through the soil, they can focus on other things like production, immunity, or just overall growth.
Perlite is also a big help with drainage, peppers like air on the roots.
 
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