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.