Improve Potting Mix and SAVE Money With This Simple Trick

G'day, I'm Mark from Self Sufficient Me and if you've bought potting mix lately you would know that it's not exactly cheap. Some of the better mixes are getting so expensive that you would think there were truffles hidden in the bag instead of compost and bark. So in this video I want to show you a simple way to make good quality commercial potting mix go further. Now I know some gardeners swear by making their own potting mix from scratch and good on them, but to be honest I don't think that's always the most cost effective option. Once you factor in all the ingredients, the time and the extra effort to get it right, I find myself gravitating towards what I'm going to show you in this video and that's a bit of the middle ground. Start with a decent commercial mix and then bulk it out carefully with materials you already have. After that I'm going to show you what I'm going to use that mix for and that's to repot some of this cassava here into a bigger bag and I'm also going to show you and this is a little bit odd but how you can use standard potting mix to make a seed raising mix and we're going to sow a few seeds in this pot here. It sounds simple I know but stick around throughout the video and watch my demonstration because there's going to be a ton of little tips in there that you don't want to miss. So let's get into it. So why am I doing this? Well the first reason is obvious, it's cost. If I can make a good quality potting mix go further by stretching it 20 percent that's a really good savings for me and I know I talked a little bit at the beginning about how people can make their own. The truth is it does take a fair bit of time and if you don't get it right if you're a beginner and you don't know what you're doing and you just get some soil out of the backyard whack it in some containers you're going to kill your plants. There's an actual art and science creating a potting mix that is suitable for container growing. So I don't mind paying for quality when it matters but if I can stretch a good mix by around 20 percent using the materials that I already have lying around then that's a big win. Then there's the waste saving or waste reduction. I chip up a lot of prunings from the orchard, a lot of materials from the garden and I don't want that to go to waste so I'll leave it in a pile. The top stuff like the wood chip on top it doesn't break down very quickly, dries up, gets rid of the green type thing so it's suitable to put in containers or to mulch around the garden. But underneath those piles you often get some really nice dark composted material forming. That was actually the plan all along. No turning, no fuss, no standing there with a thermometer like I'm checking a roast. Just pile up and let nature do the work. And the third reason is structure. Some commercial potting mixes or I reckon most of them, they're too fine and they tend to break down really quickly in the container and then it turns into kind of an anaerobic boggy mess. So I've found that adding in some of this thicker homemade stuff, this thicker wood chip, actually makes the mix last longer so you don't have to re-pot as much and these big pieces add more aeration in the soil. Basically turns a finer mix into a longer lasting chunkier more aerated mix which is what I like and more importantly the plants like. So what we're looking at here is a massive composted down almost pile of wood chip. This is a couple of truckloads. I have a mate who runs a tree lopping business and he often brings me, if he's in the neighbourhood and he's been mulching up a whole heap of wood, instead of taking it to the dump and having to pay because yeah you know if you're a commercial business you've got to pay to dump this stuff which to me seems like criminal. In this case about 12 months ago he dumped several large loads of wood chip right at our back gate here and I've just let that slowly compost down. It's right out of the way, doesn't bother anybody, it's just that slow lazy way of making compost. You forget about it and then 12 months later here you are with this magnificent resource and now I'm going to show you how I'm going to use it. So here's what I'm using, a middle of the road premium potting mix. It's not the most expensive one and it's not the cheapest either. Then I'm going to use some of the wood chip from the top of the pile here that I can see laying around. I'm going to scrape that up about 10 percent. I'll use the eyeball method and then I'm going to dig down and find that beautiful rich compost underneath and we're going to add about 10 percent of that to it and that way the original commercial mix is still doing most of the work but I'm just getting more volume and a bit more life and a bit more long-term structure. If I feel like I've diluted the nutrient content a bit too much I can add some organic fertilizer later to back it up. Now there are a few things to be careful about. The first thing is don't add new wood chip to your mix. Fresh chip can tie up nitrogen while it breaks down and this can be too raw for potting mixes. What I'm using here is an older material that's already had time to age and start decomposing and this isn't the sort of mix I'd use for tiny delicate seedlings in trays but there are exceptions and I'm going to show you that exception when we get into the potting upstage because there is a way that you can use a mix like this but it depends on the type of seedlings that you're growing and the type of seeds that you're sowing. Gardening is always a it's not a strict science lab out here so yeah you learn through experience. You're not just going to lose plants in that overnight if you do something wrong and that's where good observation does come in so make sure you do keep an eye on things if you try something different. Enough talking let's get this going. So here's my commercial mix, doesn't matter what brand it is I'm not trying to sell this brand or anything like that I don't know them been using them for a while but then I use whatever I can get on hand and what's on special sometimes pour it into obviously a bigger container and for this purpose a wheelbarrow is really good because then you can cart it around to wherever you want to go and it's an appropriate size container to be able to mix that stuff in and you don't want to go overboard with your potting mix either and then try to mix in another 20% of stuff so that it's hard to mix make sure you've got enough space in here to be able to mix the stuff around. So there we have it I can see that yeah not bad okay get rid of a few of these weeds and yeah you can see just by simply scraping the top the top layer that's what I'm looking at some more heavier stuff over here you don't have to go down too far and it's breaking down to a finer mix but for now this is what I'm after so I can measure it in this bag kind of roughly about 10% I think I'll put in a little bit more it's about 10% of the original mix yeah I think so with what I've already got there there we go there's some larger pieces but it's so well decomposed that it's easy to break up and you know if you want you can throw away some of the bigger sticks that you've grabbed I still wouldn't and I'm not even going to break them up I'm just going to leave them whole like this once I mix them all in it won't make much difference now let's get some of that compost we're going to have to really dig down for that just clear out some of these weeds because I don't want to transfer them into a pot look there's already worms and grubs in here I obviously won't put these big beetles in not that they'd probably hurt too much anyway they're just mainly eating on organic matter you're not going to eat your plant roots I don't think but the kookaburras can have them and this is what I'm after this beautiful well brown gold look at that lovely stuff it'll have mycelium in it fungi but just mainly really good nutrients so let's start digging around there my compost well a few more grubs to give to the chickens or the kookaburras or the magpies you can see how well broken down it is I mean it's not getting any more really broken down that's about it it's very very fine you can see I'd have a literal ton of compost underneath here maybe I'd know a ton and a half but I've done nothing I've done nothing I've watched the truck pour the wood chip on top here and it's developed into this resource all on its own all I've had to do is come here pull out a few weeds on top and now just harvest my beautiful resource a little bit more let's go one more handful okay and now it's just a matter of mixing this in really well and I think hands are the best thing to do with this and no I wouldn't use gloves this is just too wonderful reminds me of when I was three years old playing in the mud in the backyard it's just something wonderful about having soil and compost and bark running through your fingers now check this out look how that is blending in now with the original mix yeah there's yeah that bit there's a little big but that's right but see how generally overall it's starting to look like the original mix really and that's important because like I said before you don't want to overdo it you want it to still look like fairly close to what the original mix was you're just adding a little bit to it and yeah I can see from what I had before to now that's increased by yeah about 20 percent I'm going to fill this hole in and that'll just keep breaking down for me now I don't think I'm going to add any extra fertilizer to this mix I reckon it'll be fertile enough and like I said I'll just keep an eye on the plants that I put in here if I think they need more of a feed I'll do that then later whether that be liquid or otherwise now let's put this into practical use and I've got a couple of examples here the first thing I'm going to do though is this I'm going to sift out a bit and I'll tell you why soon but let's get that over here get this tray by the way a lot of these materials here you'll find that I have affiliate links for them in my description below and if you go to my website in the support me page you'll find these companies that I'm friends with that I work with very closely and that often I can get you a really good discount by going through my code and using my affiliate link so don't forget that always check my description below even if I don't mention it and also the support me page on my website and our own store and you'll find products that I use all the time for sale let's remove this put that there this will become evident soon on why I'm doing this but I've got this sifter here and I'm just going to use a bit of it I'm just stealing a bit not a lot that's for a specific seedling example that I want to show you that's what's left of there there's the fine mix there beautiful okay well I need all that uh maybe not as much yeah that'll do for now anyway so that that there can go back in that's not going to hurt the mix much there we go okay now let's get to the repotting of this plant here so this is cassava and it's outgrown it's outgrown this pot and it needs a new lease on life it's getting towards the end of the growing season but it's not going to hurt for this to be potted up afresh now I might just loosen it up a bit let's add in a little bit in the base here of this new beautiful mix trying to keep that root ball as much as possible yeah throw some more in this might need a bit of a stake I think I'm not talking about the meat kind I'm reusing this potting mix it's still got a bit of fertilizer in there I can still see it it's not that old it's just that this plant has grown so fast but it's outgrown the pot so I'm happy to keep a lot of this potting mix a couple of stakes in there a bit of twine that should fix that up there we go that's cool let's finish potting this up okay that's done it just needs a bit of water in and we'll do that soon the other thing I want to do is we use this little pot here and here is a really good seed raising mix now I'm still going to use a little bit of this standard mix in here probably almost three quarters press it down so it's still chunky and this is yes I'm going to be putting seedlings in here maybe a little bit more there so almost three quarters see that and then let's pick our seeds survival seeds australia yep these are some guys that I work with and of course if you look at the links below you'll see other people that I work with as well especially if you're in the states got epic gardening botanical seeds and you can follow my affiliate links and get discounts on those products what have we got in here this is like a little survival pack and heirloom 25 heirloom varieties okay we've got beans I could start beans don't wonder I'd prefer to direct sow beans zucchini maybe can't corn is too late for corn because we're coming into winter peas I'd prefer to direct sow peas into the garden bed pumpkin too late watermelon too late spinach veo flay I haven't tried this spinach before pick and eat let's do that and this will work well in this little container because what will happen is the the topsoil or the seed raising mix the seed raising mix that I've just sifted that will allow those roots to go down without too much trouble it'll also allow that seed to sprout and go upwards grow a stem and grow leaves without having to push through any thick type potting mix because your seed raising mix has always got to be thinner and lighter and so I'll get the best of both worlds I won't have to have a specific seed raising mix but I'll still be able to start these seeds in that little container there and its roots won't worry once they start getting stronger because it'll start growing down but at that point I'll I'll break it up and plant them out in the garden anyway I just want them to really sprout so it doesn't really have to be in traditional seed raising mix and also little tray or little punnets so let's do it let's put the fine mix in there it's a few inches of nice fine stuff and cut it down slightly and leave some and leave a bit of a gap too at the top there so it doesn't overflow and your seeds dribble out in the rain you don't want that but leave some of that mix there so we can top it and now we get these seeds and I'm going to go the lot then I can prick them all out I don't care if they all come up won't matter but just try to spread them out evenly as possible and if I've got if all these come up this will be great because I've got a whole raised garden bed that I can put these in and see how they're spread out like that right and now I'm going to just cover them over lightly just about a centimeter or half an inch if that pat it down and the rest of this stuff will go back into the potting mix for something else and then that can stay in the tray and we'll give that a light water and just keep that moist and then we will have seedlings coming up in probably about seven days time and now let's just give that a light little water in let's go on mist here mist that in that should be enough for that and then let's give this a good water in on normal normal shower let those roots settle it's been through a bit of trauma now get rid of the air pockets it's just a matter of keeping the moisture up to those seedlings or the seeds till they germinate and and then some not you don't want to keep them soaked but just keep them moist keep an eye on them especially if they're out in the elements and they're not in a greenhouse and this keep this moist as well until that plant you can see is starting to grow and take hold you don't want it to dry out too much there so what we've essentially done is like especially in times like these when well when isn't it tough I mean you know it seems like financial crises and rising prices has been going on for decades and well maybe even before that so it's it's always good to try to save some money if you can and this is essentially getting an extra 20 out it's not just saving you that extra money I think we're improving this mix and letting it last longer as well as bulking it out so if if you enjoyed this video make sure you give it a big bulk out thumbs up share it around and subscribe if you haven't already thanks a lot for watching bye for now cheers