Whe­re can I get good soil for my bal­c­o­ny

Buy good soil yours­elf

If you buy the plant sub­stra­te from a DIY store, gar­den cen­ter or online, you should con­sider what you need it for. The­re are Spe­cial soil for seed­lings. This is low in nut­ri­ents, fine-grai­ned and loo­se so that the seeds have opti­mum con­di­ti­ons for start­ing. For gro­wing vege­ta­bles, we need the nut­ri­ent-rich, coar­ser soil. Vege­ta­ble soil. Medi­ter­ra­ne­an herbs in par­ti­cu­lar have spe­cial soil requi­re­ments. And often pre­fer san­dy and cal­care­ous soils, but the extra Her­bal soil use. I do wit­hout the cheap pot­ting soil as things stand today, becau­se tests have shown that it often con­ta­ins hea­vy metals. This soil is also often hea­ted to such a high tem­pe­ra­tu­re that it hard­ly con­ta­ins any micro­or­ga­nisms. It is worth spen­ding a litt­le more money on good orga­nic qua­li­ty soil from a brand manu­fac­tu­rer. We want to eat our home-grown fruit, vege­ta­bles and herbs with appe­ti­te. To do this, we need to be sure that the soil does not con­tain any harmful sub­s­tances.

I also don’t buy soil that Peat con­ta­ins. It can take up to 1000 years for one meter of peat to form in the uni­que bog habi­tat. In Ger­ma­ny alo­ne, around ten mil­li­on cubic meters of peat are used for hor­ti­cul­tu­re every year. As peat­lands dis­ap­pear, so do the ani­mal and plant spe­ci­es that spe­cia­li­ze in them. When the peat is remo­ved, lar­ge quan­ti­ties of car­bon dioxi­de and nitrous oxi­de are released, which is not good for our cli­ma­te. Make sure you check the decla­ra­ti­on on the soil bag that the soil is peat-free. BUND has pro­du­ced a buy­ing gui­de: Pot­ting soil wit­hout peat. Vege­ta­ble soils can also be found the­re. Orga­nic soils can also con­tain peat. Look out for the label “Peat-free” or “Does not con­tain peat”.

To avo­id buy­ing too much or too litt­le soil, you should brief­ly esti­ma­te how much soil you need befo­re going to the DIY store or gar­den cen­ter. Around 12 liters of soil are nee­ded for a 40-cen­ti­me­ter-long bal­c­o­ny box. Accor­din­gly, you can expect to need around 30 liters for a one-meter-long box. For a flower pot with a dia­me­ter of 46 cen­ti­me­t­res, you can plan on around 40 liters of soil.

Mixing good soil for the bal­c­o­ny yours­elf

It has beco­me so com­mon to buy rea­dy-made pot­ting soil, alt­hough this purcha­sed pot­ting soil is basi­cal­ly only desi­gned for one sea­son, con­ta­ins nut­ri­ents for one sea­son, remains sta­ble, stores water well and is air-per­meable. It is finer to mix your own pot­ting soil from various com­pon­ents. A simp­le mix­tu­re is 5 parts gar­den soil from an orga­ni­cal­ly cul­ti­va­ted gar­den, 2 parts matu­re com­post, 1 part sand. If the gar­den soil is less loamy and more san­dy, do not mix in extra sand.

For gro­wing in boxes, the gar­dening book aut­hor recom­mends Andrea Heis­tin­ger in coope­ra­ti­on with Noah’s Ark a mix­tu­re of 65 % gar­den soil, 15 % ear­thworm com­post and 20 % pumice (porous vol­ca­nic rock).

Refres­hing the soil for the bal­c­o­ny ins­tead of buy­ing new

In spring, you should defi­ni­te­ly give your plants a refresh­ment of the soil. The­re is an argu­ment that if you con­ti­nue to use last year’s sub­stra­te, you run the risk of dise­a­ses or pests that have nes­ted in the soil in the pre­vious sea­son being trans­fer­red to the new plants. The other view is that the purcha­sed sub­stra­te is used up, that it no lon­ger con­ta­ins any nut­ri­ents, at most for let­tuce, and that the soil must the­r­e­fo­re be com­ple­te­ly repla­ced. I am not of the opi­ni­on that we need to buy new soil for all our plan­ters every spring. But we defi­ni­te­ly need to enrich the soil with nut­ri­ents and loo­sen it a litt­le. Good soil has the hig­hest pos­si­ble Humus con­tentso that the nut­ri­ents are stored and the soil is well aer­ated. We can fres­hen up the soil, for exam­p­le, by adding 10 % worm humus from the worm bin. For hea­vy eaters such as toma­toes, 15 % worm humus can also be mixed in or sprink­led on top of the plant pots — but in wet wea­ther wit­hout sun­light so that the fine micro­or­ga­nisms sur­vi­ve. You can even buy worm humus in dif­fe­rent pack sizes in my health food store. You can also mix 1/3 com­post with the old soil from the bal­c­o­ny box. Every gar­de­ner has their own spe­cial reci­pe. Try it out here too. Read more about this: 5 ways to get strength into old bal­c­o­ny box soil. For bal­c­o­ny gar­den­ers, I recom­mend sus­tainable worm humus, which can be made from your orga­nic was­te. You can read about my 5 years of expe­ri­ence Best fer­ti­li­zer for the bal­c­o­ny. Worm humus from the worm bin.

How do you deal with the old soil from the bal­c­o­ny boxes? What reci­pe do you have? It would be nice to exch­an­ge ide­as so that we can all learn some­thing and the soil does­n’t end up in the orga­nic was­te after a sea­son.