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Potting Soil Recipe
How we got started: One day when we were ready to start our seeds again, we found out that our favorite mix was no long being made. This was about the third time this had happened and we were totally disgusted with the prospects of starting over again. Over the years we have had considerable trouble with potting mixes and soil-less media for starting our seeds and other potting needs. It seemed like that when we finally found a half way decent mix and learned how to grow in it, the manufacturer would stop making it. Consistency is very important to us. I think we could probably adapt to many of the high quality mixes available but it would take a long time and many trials and tribulations for each. We may be a little slow but it seemed to take us at least a couple of seasons to get the hang of a new mix. The last time we bought a commercial mix was about '95 or so. We have been much happier ever since. Why make you own mix? We started out doing some research and looking for the optimal ingredients. We found many similar recipes and came to realize that most of the researchers and professional growers make their own mixes from ingredients that they can find in abundance locally, and inexpensively. We took what we learned from these many papers and started to form our own recipe. Once we realized that it was not only cheaper but we could make a mix of our own, to our own specifications, EXACTLY, this opened up a whole new world for us. Sure it took a little while to figure all of it out, but now we are on our own. No more manufacturers to deal with. This would be the last time we would have to adjust to a mix, now we were adjusting the mix to us. What a wonderful concept! The mix is adjusted to fit our style of growing and the plants that we grow. The plants are the main consideration in all of this and we can certainly attest there is a huge difference between our mix and any of the commercial mixes we have ever found. Here is a recipe for our basic potting mix that we use for starting our daylily seeds and potting full grown daylilies. The exact same mix is used for both seedling and adult plants, we only water the seedlings a little more often. We also use this same basic mix for most of the non-daylily plants we pot by adjusting the ingredients to suit the needs of the plant and the location it will be living. Sand can be added if you need a really heavy mix to hold a tree up for instance. We would use regular "play sand" since we have this, it's cheap and fairly sterile. Usually the addition of sand is not needed or wanted. We would add a little more peat for plants that like moisture or planing outdoors in the sun and wind. More or less perlite depending on the plants need for drainage and so on. Once you have made a batch or two of this mix you can easily see the consistency of it and adjust it to you needs. Over the years this has been refined to very fine recipe that we share with you. The basic potting (seed starting) mix: For a measure we use a two pound coffee can.
Mix well (dry) in a wheel barrow, then wet and mix thoroughly again. Notes on the ingredients: You can use Marathon instead of the Merit adjusting the proportions accordingly, or leave out for outdoor or non-daylily use. Pine bark is a great suppressant for disease and fungus. It will not support fungal growth of most any type while it will allow most plants to thrive. This makes it an ideal base for potting media. If you can't get this in your area you have our most sincere sympathy. Perlite is added to give additional pore space. This increases the oxygen uptake to the roots and the water penetration. It also allows the roots to easily maneuver through the media. (oxygen to the roots is critical for plant growth and a major factor in accelerating the growth) The peat help to retain moisture and to hold onto the ionic nutrients that feed the plants. As you may know peat has some problems associated with it such as fungus gnats and so on, so we try to limit this to a minimum amount. We would add about double for planting outdoors and for plants that have a high water need. The dolomite is to raise the pH to a more neutral and acceptably balanced level. This seems to help the plants to thrive. If we were planting Rhododendron or some other acid loving plant, then we would leave this out. Gypsum, Epsom salt, and sulfur are to provide elemental nutrients of calcium, magnesium, and sulfur. These elements are almost NEVER in the so called "complete" fertilizers yet they are essential to the plants. Check the label to see if I am right. I know I am 99.9% of the time unless you are into some really high tech, high $$$, fancy fertilizers. These elements should be provided as part of a high quality potting mix. Remember the point is to make something better than you can buy, and very few potting mixes come with these essential ingredients and if they do, it costs a small fortune. The fertilizer manufacturers can't put these elements in their fertilizer because of certain chemical reactions with the other elements.This holds true for all forms of fertilizers except the two part liquids that mix just before application. The fertilizer we add is to give a base start to the seeds planted in this mix. We don't do any fertilizing of our seeds until they have germinated and have grown for a couple, three weeks. If we were making a mix for adult or full sized plants then we would add an appropriate amount of slow release pellets into this mix and also add the water soluble for a quick start. The insecticide is self explanatory. This keeps the seedlings from damping off and a host of other problems. We do not use this if the pots are going outdoors. For some reason it just isn't needed. If I were to guess, I would say that there are plentiful natural predators that take card of the problems outside. We don't ever use insecticides or any other chemicals when they are not needed. It's bad for everything. Don't get me wrong, this is a great chemical and wouldn't every consider not using it in the right conditions. Just don't use it if you don't need it. It's not good for the pocket book, the environment, and probably not the best for many other reasons too. A word on pots: We have learned that with daylilies and especially daylily seed, that the diameter of the pot is not very important (within some reason here). The depth of the pot seems to determine the size of the plant. A seedling will grow until it reaches the limit that the depth of the pot will support, then at that point there is little you can do to get it to grow much bigger. It may put up longer leaves and continue to be green, but it won't increase in crown or root size and that's what really matters. We use 32 ounce Styrofoam cups since these are about 6" deep and can get pencil sized plants in about two months. We will plant up to 35 to 40 and sometimes more seeds in a single cup, still getting this rate of development. The plants will obviously be very crowded side to side but the roots can go down and that's what they seem to want. It makes little to no difference if there is one in a cup or 40. Using Dixie cups you can never get the plants to pencil sized. You can't hardly do it in a 12 ounce cup, and you sure won't do it in two months. I know this sounds a little crazy but this is how we really do it and have been doing it for well over a decade. You can't convince us this method won't work and work well. Consider the depth of the pot first for daylilies. Deeper is better! Many other plants are not so critical and some even like shallow pots like Mums for instance. Good luck! Jeff
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