Preparing Soil and Planting Seeds

Although we already have celery seedlings sprouted and growing well, we have many other seeds that need to be planted in order for our garden to be full and prosperous this year! But before we can plant anything else, we need to prepare our topsoil so it has all the proper nutrients and density that seeds enjoy!

Why We Prepare Our Own Soil

At the beginning of the video, I was working with peat moss expanding pellets. We have several of them from previous years that we needed to use, and at first they do well. However, they are very restrictive for seedling root systems, and they're pretty expensive.

The short answer to why we prepare our own soil though is effectiveness and cost.

Although we haven't made our own potting soil in the past, after watching many videos and learning quite a bit about a good mixture of potting soil, we decided we'd use topsoil we already have and add various other components.

I added compost manure as a bit of fertilizer as well as worm castings (poop) for additional fertilization. I made sure not the add too much fertilizer though because if fertilizer goes unchecked, it could burn and kill seedlings. Then, I added vermiculite, which are white beads that hold moisture in the soil. Then, I added coconut coir. This is to provide some light airiness to the mixture. Having too dense of soil makes it difficult for the root systems to spread because they're constantly battling with too much compacted soil.

I used two full bags of topsoil, about 6 fistfuls of compost manure and worm castings, and about 6 or 7 cups each of vermiculite and coconut coir. I mixed it all together using my hands and arms making sure to dig deep enough to get all the topsoil at the bottom mixed well with the other ingredients towards the top. The resulting soil is what we have been using with great success so far with our other seeds.

We've spent only around $75 for all of the compost manure, worm castings, topsoil, vermiculite, and coconut coir we have, and we've not even mixed a quarter of it all, and we've only just gotten to the bottom of the container full of potting mix!

Planting, Planting, and More Planting

After I mixed our potting soil mixture, I started planting various seeds!

First, I planted onions and various flowers.

Then, a few days later, I planted broccoli, cauliflower, brussle sprouts, cosmos, petunias, and various herbs. The cosmos, petunias, and herbs went in the greenhouse upstairs because I'm running out of room under my grow light system. In the future, I will expand the grow light system, but for now, I have a table full of other grow lights downstairs that I hope to put together and use for this years garden!

Stay tuned to learn about "mini" greenhouses!