Potting Soil

[LogicalBee]

Anybody make their own potting soil?  What works good? 

I’m getting anxious to get some of my smaller overwintered canna rhizomes potted up and gaining some size before going outside in another couple of months.  Probably the first week of June here.

[Ray4852]

I use perlite and vermiculite mixed together.

[LogicalBee]

No peat moss or other organic matter?

[CpnObvious]

I'm pretty sure vermiculite has been outlawed around here.  Formaldehyde content, I think??

You don't add compost? (Yes, Logical, I know that is "organic matter"). 

[Slowmodem]

I have a worm farm and a couple of compost piles.  I mix dirt and compost.

[LogicalBee]

Worm Farm???

Do tell 

[Slowmodem]

Worm Farm???

Do tell 

Yeah, some red wigglers and mostly coffee grounds and banana peels and stuff goes in there.  The worms turn it into compost.  Lots of info on Google and youtube.

[LazyBkpr]

ooh, worm farm would be cool, fishing bait when i need it, no more opening hives and digging through the drone brood for Bluegill bait!

    We have chickens, and i have to say that cleaning out the chicken house each spring brings the neighbors out with their wheel barrows..   I have to SNEAK so I can get most of it to the garden and till it under..

[Retroguy]

Worm farms are cool.  Just so I don't have to drive 'em to market like Rocky & Bullwinkle did.

[Alleyyooper]

Mine are crawlers I keep in a 24"x24" x24" box. Pick them up in the spring when a warm rain brings them to the top and turn them loose in my garden in the fall before it freezes.

   Al

[Les]

I am a big fan of a bagged soil called, "Espoma" organic potting soil mix if you don't get around to making your own.  It contains worm castings (poop) too.  I too have a worm farm for my red wigglers.  Most everything that comes out of the kitchen goes into my bin and they make lovely black gold for the garden and worm tea to water your plants.  I also harvest the worm eggs when the bins start to get really crowded and bury them out in my garden. 

[apisbees]

We have a controversial compost product available to us. Recycling at its finest.
http://www.kelowna.com/2009/07/01/10457/
www.naturesgold.ca/

[Bakersdozen]

Personally, I would never put that product on a vegetable garden.  The author turns to Victor Hugo and China as sources to support the use of human waste.  Hhmmmm.  That doesn't boost my confidence.   Heating to 170 degrees would certainly kill microorganisms but the lead is a different issue IMHO.

[Les]

My concern with this is the amount of medications that are ingested by humans and passed through their waste.  I would not feel comfortable putting this stuff either on my flower or vegetable gardens....I am thinking of run off from rains.  Puddles that our little critters drink out of....we expose them to enough stuff such as pesticides and herbicides, who knows what would end up in the puddles.  It's bad enough that it makes it through our water treatment plants and dumped back into our rivers. Oh my, when I think even deeper about this I am scaring myself!

[efmesch]

Les, you remind of those days, about 40-50 years ago, when DDT was still in use on just about everything, and ads were run to warn of the passage and concentration of the chemical through the biological food webs.  They had one, with the picture of a mother nursing her baby.  I don't remember the exact caption of the picture, but it went something to the effect that the baby was picking up a concentrated share of DDT in the mother's milk.

[Les]

Ef, you should see some of the deformities of frogs.  They know that the medications in the water are definitely effecting them.  Am I concerned, you bet!