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You can also make potting soil yourself at home instead of buying it expensively.
All you need is sand, soil, compost and an oven.
Potting soil is needed by some plants in order to thrive as well as possible in the early growth stage.
It's a mix of sand, soil and compost if you make it yourself.
This creates nutrient-poor soil in which young plants can grow well before they can be repotted or planted in the garden.
Since almost every hobby gardener has these ingredients at home, you can easily make potting soil yourself without having to go to the plant store or hardware store.
Difference to potting soil: Why potting soil is better suited for young plants
Especially in the first few months, young plants are still sensitive and should therefore only be grown slowly so that they do not grow too quickly and die again.
According to Oekotest.de,
ornamental and vegetable plants in particular need
a special growing soil in order to thrive as well as possible in the early growth stage.
This is lighter, looser and more airy than normal potting soil and can also store water better.
You can easily make the growing soil for young plants yourself.
© Martina Raedlein/Imago
The biggest difference to potting soil is that it has a high nutrient content because it has already been treated with fertilizer.
Older plants tolerate these mineral salts and the higher nitrogen content better than young plants.
Cultivating soil, on the other hand, which is also known as sowing soil, propagation soil or pricking soil, offers seeds, seedlings and cuttings optimal growth conditions because it contains fewer nutrients.
The young plants can develop naturally and not slowly in a process accelerated by fertilizer.
It's easy to make your own potting soil: This is how hobby gardeners make good soil for young plants
To make your own potting soil, you only need three simple ingredients:
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sand
Aged compost
Loose garden soil
All three components make up about a third of the potting soil.
They are sieved and then mixed together.
You can use leaf mold for compost, for example.
The garden soil should be loose and airy.
According to Mdr.de
, gardening consultant Brigitte Goss recommends
using mole soil.
“The top layer of a molehill is not only already well loosened, but also free of weeds.”
The soil mixture is then sterilized in the oven, although various expert websites recommend different temperatures and lengths.
Mein-schoener-garten.de
recommends steaming at 120 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes,
Oekotest.de
gives 150 degrees for 30 minutes as a guideline and
Mdr.de
even recommends sterilizing the soil at 180 degrees for at least 30 minutes.
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The purpose of “baking” the potting soil is to kill fungal spores, weed seeds, pests and other germs.
The soil mixture should then rest for two days.
Then it can be used for sowing.
Potting soil should generally never be fertilized.
Tip
: According to
Mdr.de
, the growing soil becomes even looser and allows the water to drain even better if you add some volcanic material, such as lava substrate.
You can buy such an additive at a plant store or hardware store.
Make your own potting soil: Why DIY is more environmentally friendly
Another reason - apart from the lower costs - why you should make your own potting soil instead of buying it is, according to
Umweltbundesamt.de,
the environmental friendliness of the different soils.
Most potting soil that you can buy commercially contains peat because it binds water well and has a high degree of acidity.
However, peat for potting soil is obtained from raised bogs that have to be drained.
This destroys the moors, some of which are centuries to thousands of years old, and the habitat they provide for many plants and animals.
Peatlands also store a lot of carbon that is released when peat is mined.
The process is also bad for the climate because it releases a lot of CO2.