Very cheap potting soil + extras

[xineohpoel]

A local gardening warehouse sells their old potting soil for 10.00 for a pickup truck load. The soil although still soft is tired. We get several truck loads and dump it into the garden in piles.

During the late fall/winter we let the chickens run in our fenced in garden. They spread this out and add some of their own fertilizer. Also for the coops I use composed pine needles/pine peat which is like peat moss only not so dusty and waterproof when dry. We dump this in the garden too.


The + comes in that usually there are live plants in the potting soil. From our last hauls I would say there were 300-400 mums of varying shapes/colors. outdoor plants, Poinsettias, houseplants, Christmas cactus, herbs, We use the plants and not resell though because they might cut us off if they knew we loved the plants in the soil. The plants we leave of course we let those just decompose and add back to this depleted soil.

To make the potting soil useful for houseplants here is my recipe.
1/2 five gallon bucket of potting soil
Pine peat and chicken compost the rest of the way
Sometimes a little sand if the plant likes fast drainage.
After you have planted something use my recipe for urine fertilizer and water the plant.
Check my dirt with a soil test kit to see where my PH and fertilizer levels are.

Watch the plants grow!

 

[denimangle]

A local gardening warehouse sells their old potting soil for 10.00 for a pickup truck load. The soil although still soft is tired. We get several truck loads and dump it into the garden in piles.

During the late fall/winter we let the chickens run in our fenced in garden. They spread this out and add some of their own fertilizer. Also for the coops I use composed pine needles/pine peat which is like peat moss only not so dusty and waterproof when dry. We dump this in the garden too.


The + comes in that usually there are live plants in the potting soil. From our last hauls I would say there were 300-400 mums of varying shapes/colors. outdoor plants, Poinsettias, houseplants, Christmas cactus, herbs, We use the plants and not resell though because they might cut us off if they knew we loved the plants in the soil. The plants we leave of course we let those just decompose and add back to this depleted soil.

To make the potting soil useful for houseplants here is my recipe.
1/2 five gallon bucket of potting soil
Pine peat and chicken compost the rest of the way
Sometimes a little sand if the plant likes fast drainage.
After you have planted something use my recipe for urine fertilizer and water the plant.
Check my dirt with a soil test kit to see where my PH and fertilizer levels are.

Watch the plants grow!

Is it just the plants that die that they dump them and this is where the dirt comes from?
I have a small town near here that is full of wholesale nurseys/growers I wonder if I could get some dirt from them ...Never thought of that.
I also have chickens & goats ..

 

[Home Maker]

Oh, I wish I had something like that available!

 

[xineohpoel]

Nope the plants are not dead. They throw away anything that is too late or too early to ship. They supply places like Lowes, Home Depot, Wal-Mart Gardening Center. They want flowers to be in full bloom with all plants looking nearly alike when put on shelves for customers not something that is a little past bloom or not bloomed yet, too leggy etc. LOL we loaded some up today and found a 50lb bag of liquid fertilizer stuffed in the dirt.

There are so many though that we leave some covered in the dirt to decompose to add a little more back to the dirt.

Spring is coming so there should be hundreds of Geberra Daisies in the dirt soon.

denimangle-I would just ask what they do with their old dirt and if you could get it for your garden.