7 Different Potting Soils You Can Use! Mold & Gnats FREE Options

I love lava rocks in my dirt.. we have land and sheep cow chicken goats.. i personally hate perlite in my dirt.. i love your information. Im new at dirt learning. I also use worm casting i buy fishing worms and put them in my house plants. The knats have been down since ive been doing this.

What's your take on growing cannabis? Since I started growing the plant I've ventured into the soil/plant world as a hobby. Thanks for all the videos and knowledge!

Rice hulls are cool but the price is nuts here. BTW. OMG the weird pause for odd noises.I do that all the time 9/10 it is a dog snoring weird. Yesterday mine was my son's circulation pump in his fish tank touched the side of the glass and vibrated / humm'd the whole house. 250 year old house so it does have .... Moods., anywhooo. .good video 🎉🎉🎉

hydrophobic peat moss is no problem. open the bag and leave it in the rain. soft and fluffy the next day.

Great to use peat in containers or grow bags if you grow potatoes so they don't become water logged. Yes you have to water more but hey you can't have everything

I now mix powder biochar to peat. Most uh mayzing mix.

At least here in Finland you can buy nematodes that parasitize gnat larvae and they are amazing. Super easy to just put in water and they removed the gnats in like 2-4 weeks completely. Kinda same for other predators for different pests.

I like to grow in forest soil and like to even have decomposing wood on the surface so a gnat heaven. But 2 years later they still seem gone. Saw one in a spider web but that's about it.

I really like having worms and stuff and as alive soil as possible in big containers with all kinds of plants growing together. But it's just for fun and feels pretty easy. I want to live in a food forest inside but I have no delusions about my ways maximizing yields :D

It's just so chill and wholesome to have lettuce, chilis, flowers, avocado trees and other stuff growing everywhere and the lights keep winter depression away too. It's a bit dark here.

Hey, maybe just burn a bit sage, rosemary, pineneedles, juniper(the not toxic please) conifer, or mugworth. Also cleaning with Salt/throwing it around and lemonpeel helps. Yeah it is esoterik wuhu but such rituals have shown to calm us down and give a sense of power and everyone who goes to church does the same esoterik crap only in a langer group with more sinister intention

Actually you gave eight examples of "potting soils", unless you combine pine bark and saw dust under the label "wood products" ;
peat - rock wool - coco coir - rice hulls - pine bark - saw dust - vermiculite - leaf mold
I end up using most of the above, one way or another, but they all go through my composting system. I don't deal with much rock wool because that usually comes to the compost pile as spent plant starter plugs in soil left in annual nursery plants. The plugs usually end up having to go through the compost pile twice as I sift the finished compost through a 1/2" mesh. I catch the plugs and everything else big in the sieve, brake up what I can, then recycle the leftovers through the system again.

There is no bug free option lol God designed bugs to live in dirt and gnats to live around standing water so if you have either of those there will be bugs ...I ran a enclosed microgreens lab in the basement with plastic walls and I still saw gnats unless you have one or two plants and your day job is bug cop you will meet some crawly new friends lol

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Do the pine bark mixes require more initial nitrogen fertilizer?

What a great timing on the video! I was just putting together a lesson plan on making potting soil for a local Highschool.

You have been so much help with kicking off my career as a gardener and a garden educator.
Sorry I haven't been watching and commenting on the videos as much as i used to do.
I needed a break from garden content after working with soil and plants all day.
But it is winter now so i am back here again :)

Another amazing, info-packed information!!!! Thanks for spreading your knowledge!!!!

If I can I use just peat moss and mix perlite and vermiculite in it with 😂egg shells that have been cooked and ground down
This is my 1st seedling mix
2nd mix adds some kind of fertilizer to it in small quantities

I have been using this recipe for my diy potting mix with success.

1 part peat/leafmold

1part Aeration (clay pebble, lava rock, and aged woodchip)

1part compost/ aged manure


1/4part clay rich top soil

Dry Ammendments

1lb of lime per 26ish gallon
(Half dolomite and half calcitic)

Alfalfa/ seed meal for N

Bone/crab meal for P

Bit of woodash and/or seedweed for K

Crabmeal/ Frass for chitin

I water in homemade LAB to help nutrient cycling

I also use Fermented Fish fertilizer to add quick release N
and occasionally top dress with more dry amendments and compost)

I have been growing in 4 × 40gal pots with this potting mix for 4 seasons with great success so far. I love that I don't have to refill the pot with new mix every year.
My only gripe is I have very little clue what nutrients are getting used up and what nutrients are building up each year.

I have been adding N and K ammendment each season but staying away from applying too much P in worries that it would build up in the soil mix and throw off the balance.

If anyone know a method to test for residual nutrients please let me know. I was not sure if sending it to a local soil test lab would get me accurate results, since my potting mix is much different from actual soil.

Pine shavings from the mill down the road I buy shavings from them and use it for rabbit bedding and then clean it out and put it on the garden I use it as mulch I don't dig it in... It breaks down fast on my Sandy soil but it does help hold the moisture in the garden

I will stick with peat. I tried Burpee coconut coir once, and it killed my seedlings. Peat is affordable, readily available, and works fantastic for seed starting.

I use solarized sifted home compost with perlite for starting seeds. You didn’t actually mention that, though, so is there any downside? It seems to work fine.

In the UK many potting soils have household compost added which can contain microplastic and chemical in it. Read the label carefully! Also sawdust and planings might come from treated timbers.

Curious if using a mix of peat, leafmould, and pine bark mulch with compost would be good for growing blueberries in neutral/alkaline-leaning native soils without the need of additional amendments. 🤔

P.S. Don't let the ghosties get ya 😜

Fraser Valley Rose farm has a video of visiting a place that makes custom blends for greenhouse growers.

Another downside to rockwool is that it's too freaky efficient. You only need a very small amount for a full plant, which means the plant is very top-heavy. It's only the weight of the water in the cube that holds it down, so as it uses it, that center of gravity moves up real fast. You'll need a trellis or some sort of support, and ideally indoors (although I grow outdoors where it definitely requires plant bondage).

Sounds like somebody’s trying to get your attention. I just watched a YT video about spooky things that happen in Canada. This is not helping.

Just caught a gnat while watching this (and that's not easy). Drives me crazy.

Thank you. I love your mind, Nate missed the boat. Just my opinion. I have more questions. I have clay soil, I have been adding natural products. But I added limestone, and the evergreens next to the garden. They looked like they were going to die but they didn't. Limestone I only do once a year. I broadcast it by hand. I keep trying, I will not give up. I love fresh veggies. I am in the lower 48. Please try to keep your channel up as long as possible. I don't care what anybody says you're the woman. Any woman that's got a PhD in soil in a minor in plants has got my vote forever. Just a fan.

How do you recommend adjusting water PH?

Wood shavings destroyed my garden one year; had mulched with woodworker's shavings over winter then turned into the soil in speing. The high carbon bound all the nitrogen and everything struggled.
Wouldn't such raw carbon reqquire a ton of fertilizing in a potting mix??

Rockwool is fiberglass insulation. Same stuff.

If you have a fan blowing somewhere in the house it will develop a rhythm which can sound like someone humming

I think we are going to look into the rock wool.

I get a butloade of cardboard drone shipping boxes, could I sheet them and mix in when making leedmold?

For Coco Coir a person would want to get one that's OMRI listed AND rinsed which gets out the salts or most anything from the process. This also means the coconut trees it came from weren't sprayed with chemicals that would not allow it to be OMRI listed, and these are more common than a person might think because in most areas coconut grows, it grows well, with not enough pest or disease issues to worry about it and almost nothing can penetrate the seed portion of a coconut so there isn't a good reason to spray the nuts on the tree. I can't answer for largescale coconut farms in different countries but where I have visited the trees were in organic certified settings even if they weren't certified because in most those tropical areas they aren't going to bother with certifications like that, and farmers want to avoid the expense of chemicals. I'm familiar with the Philippines in general and small farmers there do their best to avoid having to buy stuff for agriculture, so organic is a pretty natural thing there.

As OMRI listed AND rinsed coco coir is common on the market you probably overstated the issues with it. I mix it with a peat based seed starting mix about 50/50 and then add in a fine vermiculite, not a lot, but then for a top dressing to put on top of seed I add more vermiculite.

My big problem with coir is how it's produced. Many of the larger coconut producing nations do not have the best labour practices nor do they have the best environmental practices. Add to that, that a huge amount of fresh water has to be used in it's production, you're left with a decidedly non eco-friendly product.

I am going to listen again and take notes