Reviving My Old Potting Soil
First off, this is not a DIY recipe for reviving old potting soil, so if that's what you're looking for, you'll be wasting your time watching this. This is a video about how I took a bunch of random old soil that I had laying around the house, mixed it with some other stuff I had laying around, and I made some potting soil that looks and feels pretty darn good.
Because I've been focusing most of my attention on container gardening this year, I've spent a bazillion dollars on potting soil, because I like to get the good, clean stuff. I needed to pot up some new plants that I bought this weekend and I really didn't want to have to break open yet another fresh bag of potting soil, so I decided to walk around the yard and check out the crawl space under the house to see what I could come up with. I found quite a bit actually, and even a couple of partially used bags of new potting soil that had been forgotten for a couple of years.
I grabbed a large plastic container, dumped everything in, along with some clay soil I had dug up for a project I did last year. I then added a bunch of worm castings and some perlite, to give the old soil some nutrients and make it a little more airy, and I mixed it all together.
During my mixing adventures I found some creatures. I've seen these guys a lot (see the video), but I have no idea if they're a garden friend or foe, so I picked them out and put them in a wood chipped spot where they can live out their lives in peace. If you happen to know what these things are and if they're good or bad for a garden, let me know, because I see them a lot. I usually just leave them, but if I need to re-home them, let me know.
It took a long time to mix that soil up. I broke up all the clay chunks and pulled out the rocks and I ended up being pretty happy with the soil's consistency afterward. I mean, most of it was potting soil to begin with, but I can't tell there's any clay soil in there anymore.
After I finished mixing, I began potting up my plants. I bought a bunch of marigolds and geraniums, because they have pretty strong smells that apparently deter common garden pests. I've never tried using them on this scale before, so I'm hopeful they help, because my little garden has collected a decent number of pests in its short time in existence.
This was a really fun project. I absolutely love taking old things and bringing new life to them, so doing that with a bunch of neglected old soil was extremely satisfying.
Hi, I’m Kristen!
I envision a world where you and I rediscover what it is to be human, through connection with ourselves, each other and the natural world around us.