Soil

[eddy]

Gday all, first post here and just about to start growing. I have been reading and consuming a fair bit of information from various websites and forums however one thing i cant figure out is which soil to buy. Considering most of the other forums were based in other countries it was hard to find a soil they stocked in Australia which they recomended. Is there any Australian soil that is highly recomended or widely used by the majority of growers? Any advice would be greately apreciated as I am about to start growing in a number of days.

Cheers

[THE CHEF]

i always have used Amgrow Premium Potting Mix, it comes in 35litre red bags, always did good to me pretty sure it has added peat and is 100% organic

i been trying some yates soils and am not happy, gonna hav to pick up a few bags of Amgrow soon

[eddy]

ahh thanks for the reply. Oright well ill probably go with that if it has treated you well......thats if i can find it. Any other suggestions?

Cheers

[everest]

searles premium , served me well ..

 

hi

 

ev

[GIY]

All potting mix is pretty dodgy it is made mainly from composted pine bark and sometimes has some other beneficial additives.

The reason they are dodgy is because pine bark is hydrophobic, however, it is used because it is cheap and can be purchased in the correct aggregate size to achieve drainage objectives. Premium potting mixes add extra wetting agent and usually use more expensive forms of fert. For example a person mentioned amgrow before well - the diff between Amgrow regular pot mix and premium is the extra wetting agent. Another way potting mixes can differ is in the fertiliser they use. Premium potting mixes tend to use a complete fert that has a polymer coating around the pellets which controls the release of the ferts over 3 or six month periods.

 

The reason potting mix exists is because u cannot use soil in pots for water drainage reasons. Water will not flow from soil to air because the pores are so small in soil that water must be sucked out of soil or conducted, and for water to flow from a pot it must flow into air out of holes in the bottom. However, potting mix is so course that water freely flows from the bottom of the pot. A reason potting mix is pretty bad is because they are so free draining that they tend to have very small water holding capacities. But this creates another problem they are so free draining that they tend to leach out important cations.

NOTE - soil is way better than potting mix particularly a well structured clay high in organic matter. And soil can be used in pots BUT the pot must be watered very very very carefully, to avoid water logging at the bottom of the pot which will turn leaves an iron and N deficient yellow quicker than anything.

 

My advice - Go to your local garden supplies yard and buy 1/4 a meter cubed of 7mm screened pine bark, compost mix (just very degraded pine bark - looks black also known as black magic) and a quarter of sandy loam. The total cost of the 3/4m should be no more than $40.

Buy a small bag of gypsum a some osmocote and thrive and wetting agent.

 

Mix the soil ingrediants till u get a nice lite soil mix resembling pot mix

 

Add about 8g of thrive - this is completely soluable and will leach easily but give plants and early kick or avail nutes.

Add osmocote - contains polymer slow release granuals for longer lasting mix

Add wetting agent

 

The total cost should work out to be about $0.5 a bag and would be just as good as premium pot mix if not better.

[THE CHEF]

thank you man, that was a good lil read gonna hav to pu tthat away for reference