While you can buy seedling mix to start seeds, we find it a bit lackluster in most cases. You can and should have some fertility in a seedling mix, especially if you’re starting indoors and growing for a while before you transplant into the garden. Here are three different ways to make your own seed starting mix, from simple to epic!
00:00 – Intro
00:16 – Boosting Seedling Mix
03:06 – Thinning Potting Mix
05:28 – Epic Custom Mix
Epic Mix:
1/3 pumice
1/3 coir
1/3 compost, worm castings, Azomite
IN THIS VIDEO
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loving the pond. great B-roll backdrop
Great information – especially about seeds not needing fertilizer at first.
excellent info! Mahalo nui!!
I don’t like using mix with oyster shell in it because I’m against anything suffering for my garden. Is there a good vegan cruelty free mix for seeds you’d recommend?
Hey, nice video, you asked early in the video why seed starting mixes should be sterile and whithout nutrients.
To answer the question: Seed starter tents to be very low in nutrients to promote root growth (because the plant searches for nutrients). Then, when you put the seedling in your garden it already has some strong roots to start of its growth. And store bought mixes are sterile so every batch is the same and it's asured that there aren't any soil-borne deseases in them.
But I guess putting some nutrients in the mix won't hurt. 😀
This is excellent. Thank you! Do you have a recommended or preferred brand/company for the Azomite?
I understand the need sterile mix to prevent pathogens for seedlings but if there's isn't any soil in the seedling mix then, I don't see the need for it to be sterile.
I start my seedling right in worm castings!
Want to make it even more epic? Put a layer of bokashi on top, cover it up for a couple of days and let the mycelium grow before use. Or inoculate the mix with a microbe/mycorrhizae product and some molasses
More small scale here have about 50 sq ft in ground the rest in pots on my deck
5% per volume of worm casting
I don't see chickens in the background. Where are they?
Thanks Kevin for your very informative video clips. I'm totally new to the gardening world but very eager to get started. However , I do find it tiresome to write down the information in quarts, gallons etc and then having to convert it to the metric system.
Would like to see the metric equivalent in brackets if possible.
Can you (or did you?) do a video about making your own soil without using bagged products? i.e. using natural items, compost items, and so on to supply a fresh garden? I want to get away from relying on companies as much as possible.
RE: sterilized potting mix,
personally I like the idea that the bag of potting soli i buy has no insects nor eggs in it, no fungal spores and no unwanted seeds inside it. I have recently bought a Mycorrhizal inoculant amendment that helps establish a healthy colony of beneficial fungus and bacteria in "dead" soils. I started using it last season and have had pretty positive results, mainly that the watering requirements of my potted plants has reduced by about a third due to better retention and uptake.
I do agree with you that there's no reason they should be inert, which is to say devoid of nutrients, though.
Do you still have worms?
This was so helpful! The last recipe, do you think it holds together enough to make soil blocks with?
The homestead is looking awesome. Lots of hardwork and great planning. Good weather helps too.
pasteurised horse manure + bakashi
Woohoo worm castings!
Kev like: Spring is here!
Me, having gotten 2.5in of snow yesterday like: Eff you, Kev..
Great video about how to make seed mix. Rhank you for this informative information.
the camera constantly zooming is a bit rough
Thank for the video! Could you tell us which brand coco coir you used? There are so many of them and hard to know which one is good. Thanks.
Beginner gardener here. I just wanted to ask your opinion on liquid fertilizer. I started with aerogarden and moved to indoor soil recently so im still understanding the basics