Ground up wood and bark has it's place. I have trees. I prune the trees. I feed the branches and leaves into a wood chipper. It works great - as mulch.
This video has turned my world upside down. So many of my garden and potted plant problems have been answered. I want to learn more! For example, if the soil is just the medium for growing plants and it's just mineral based, where do they get their nutrients? Please keep these videos coming.
Hi Alex, The answer is the plants get the nutrients from fertilizer or compost that is added on top of the soil level. In nature, organic matter falls on the ground and is decomposed above ground, and the nutrients sort of trickle down through the soil to the roots. Compost is a good thing to use in gardening, as long as you only apply compost to the top layer, above the soil line, and not mix any with the soil when planting your plants.
Gary, you have saved my life. I am no longer going to be a plant murderer after learning from you. Thank you. This makes all the sense in the world. Compost ON TOP! Just like in nature. Where all the answers are 💚
@@BulmaThinks exactly it makes total sense hey. I wish I knew this years ago. I hope my dwarf apple tree doesn’t die cos I planted it in a heap of potting mix which is dead trees. I will be moving out of the pot next winter into the ground so I will make sure it’s not planted in pure dead trees. I will put the mulch aka potting mix in it’s huge pot (dead plants) on the top area though after I plant it. Then when ever the mulch has been decomposed I will add more but only on top.
I had 6 different 2-3 year old citrus trees in a variety of pots in a variety of "soils". None of them were doing that we'll, some we struggling. Earlier this season, I purchased 10 gallon terra cotta pots, and transplanted them into them with the 10 bags of Gary's Top Pot soil mix. I dug out all the old solid (some of which was DISGUSTING), and carefully planted the now mostly bare root trees into this mix. I added some micoriza to the soil, and just a little bit of worm castings. 2 months later they had begun the healthy reaction. I left some space on top of the soil to cover it with a good organic mulch. I feed them 1x/ month with a citrus fertilizer, (pull mulch back when I do). I cut off the many fruits that were developing to promote a season of root growth. I am probably going to up pot them as I can tell there's been a huge burst of root growth this summer (2020). Learned so much from this specific video, I am pretty new to this.
In The Central Valley of California, where a lot of produce is grown, the soil is sandy loam or loamy sand. Not compost. Farmers do not plant in compost. At my house, I use vermicompost. Worm castings. Just a little bit on top of the soil.
@@Nihlink That's why ground water is important for farming. Have you ever heard of a big tree need to watering by watering can? So where do the trees get water? Nature gives water by raining. If the soil is Sandy loam,water can pass through the soil and fill the ground with water again. The plants and trees create oxygen and form cloud s and rain again. That's how nature circles again and again. Stupid people like you are disturbing and destroying nature circles with stupid own opinions that can't prove scienctific facts.
From one greenfingered Gary to another: this is my understanding: Soil is made up of distinct layers, or strata. The humus layer is the is the topmost layer, rich in nitrogen from decaying plant and animal matter. When bacteria and fungi break down the organic matter of humus, the nitrogen (of plant and animal amino acids/proteins/porphyrins) is ultimately converted to the highly water-soluble nitrate form of nitrogen, which is readily taken up by the plant's roots. The inorganic component of soil, which is the layer of loam, clay or sand just below the humus layer, consists of weathered bedrock, of which silica is a major component. The weathering effect of underlying bedrock releases into the inorganic soil layer, over a period of time, essential plant microelements and trace elements (iron, zinc, potassium, calcium, magnesium, copper, manganese, boron, molybdenum, etc). As you say in your helpful videos, too much organic matter in a potting mix is bad for plant's root system, because its breakdown by bacteria and fungi consumes available oxygen and releases phytotoxic 'sewer gases' such as hydrogen sulphide (rotten egg smell). I read on the Tropical Fruit Growers International Forum that anaerobic breakdown of organic matter, such as compost or bark chippings, may cause a dangerous lowering of pH, as organic acids (such as acetic acid) are formed upon what is, essentially, fermentation. When pH is too low (or, for that matter, too high) the bioavailable essential trace metals may increase to toxic levels and, also, harmful metals such as aluminium (which is a common metal in clay) are made bioavailable to the plants (by the way, may I ask: does aluminium have any recognised beneficial function in plant health?). My question is: how can we best replicate the natural soil strata and the beneficial microbes associated with a healthy soil, in the confines of container/pot growing? I believe in the concept of 'feeding the soil' and treating it as a living ecosystem. I only use inorganic fertiliser salts as a 'quick fix' when plants require it. Thankyou, from another Gary across 'the pond' in England! PS: I am never again using organic matter like compost or bark chips as the main component of the growing media for my containerised tropical fruit and citrus trees!!
At last I found you! What a blessing you are. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and lifetime of growing experience. You've explained 90% of my potting problems in one video. What are your thoughts on using coconut coir vs peat moss? I have a bunch of it. I've always had great success using CC as a seed starter. Not wanting to toss it if it will work for the time being as well as peat moss. I'm an old dude. This is the first time I've ever "SUBSCRIBED".
Who said anything about disliking compost? He said that compost is great as long as it’s kept on top of the soil, where it can leach nutrients into the soil below as it breaks down. All he said is not to mix compost in with the soil below as it can eventually release toxic gasses which will kill plant roots.
@@robertc5387literally every tree growing in every forest grows in composted material…. This is a selling gimmick that’s it. Nature disagrees 100% with his logic!
It works for a season or two in containers and then gets mucky because it breaks down. Adding a small amount to your garden soil, maybe an inch each year, will not be an issue, but it's going to be an issue if you allow the organics to accumulate. If you do accumulate too much then start adding some washed medium or coarse sand and/or topsoil from your yard into the bed and make sure to turn the soil to get some oxygen in there. Everything is poison and nothing is poison. The dose is the issue. Back in the day potting soils were just 50/50 compost and sand. There are still people who do this on their own. So compost isn't bad but it's misused and overused.
@@BulmaThinks Unfortunately it's dying. Turning black after drying out all the leaves... 🥺 I pulled it and broke off the dead roots and there was still some good roots but when I repotted it it just got worse again. I don't get it. The main root was very long with little spider ones but again I repotted it into some soil from home depot for vegetables and it wilts.. I don't get it! Too much water? Every video says to water it till it starts to drain then stop and don't water for days. Did that. It got worse.
@@BulmaThinks I wish I could post pictures here. Mine was getting big. Was nice. I knew better than to repot but still did it thinking it was the smart move to keep it healthy. Nope.
Hey Gary, I just found you after a subscriber on my channel pointed me toward your channel. I couldn't agree more, with what you're teaching here. I get a lot of people asking me about growing in pots and I try to steer them away from it and get them in the ground, where all the nutrients are and the moisture and ph is more constant and better regulated. I appreciate your video!
I've killed 4 trees because of the crap I was growing them in. Going to make a trip up and pick up my 5th (and hopefully last tree) and some bags of your Top Soil Gary
We just reported 3 small ficus trees in a sandy loam mixture. They had been potted In M****** *** soil and several of the roots are rotten and the soil, slimy. It’s only been a few days but my trees perked up!
I've watched two of your videos and must say that this makes sense with everything I've observed about potting mixes. Potting mix is mostly sphagnum peat moss with wood and bark chips, and it comes full of pests like spider mites and fungus gnats. If I sterilize potting mix with heat before using it, the pest problems are largely absent, but most plants grow poorly in it. Adding some wild dirt to reseed the sterilized potting mix with microbes caused a fast rate of decomposition and after a few months many of my plants died, presumably due to the toxic byproducts of the rotting process. The shifting of the potting mix due to the decomposition/loss of volume is no doubt a factor as well.
Melvin Wei We are trying to get the word out there to people who think that they can’t grow plants. Growing plants should be easy, it’s all about the dirt.
Gary this is 6 yrs old but Im hoping you see this. I live on a tropical island. Lots of beach sand ... Can I use beach sand in a raised bed in my green house? Will I have ph problems from the high calcium? Yes I know about not holding moisture. I'm concerned only about ph and nutrients inhibiting growth.
Great video! I have been wondering about soil... I have not been understanding why compost would make sense to be IN the ground, but if we want to mimic nature, I could understand adding a topical layer.
Thank you so much! Great to hear back from you. I featured your nursery on my last vlog! haha. I plan to be seeing a lot more of you guys. Love your shop!
Gary, I was watching RUclips videos where people that I thought were “experts” said to bury vegetable kitchen scraps deeply in the backyard. So I’ve been digging holes and burying veggie/fruit scraps in my very heavy clay soil. I even made sure to layer the greens the browns and the dirt. Did I just poison the dirt in my backyard? I was frustrated by the heavy clay and thought that doing this would make my dirt “fluffy“ in a couple of months! Geeze, now I have other questions....
I would just use a compost worm bin to compost all ya scraps and then you can absolutely put it on and in your soil. He just means you’d shouldn’t grow plants in pure compost. Like make sure compost is on top layers where your fruit Trees etc are and make sure where their roots are that it’s soil. I would get a heap of sand if I was you and work that into your clay soil. You will not have good drainage otherwise. But compost is amazing for the plants but just not to grow solely in. So if you have any plants/ trees just throw the mulch on top around the tree. They will love it. As long as you don’t bury it super deep it won’t cause root rot issues etc. I mean some plants do just fine in dead trees aka potting mix but if ya got avocados and fussy trees that love free draining soil then I would use sandy loam like Gary’s soil.
@@TheRainHarvesterAre you putting fresh compost in your beds each year? Also, what crops are you growing in them? I would assume that they are annual, not perennial, crops - is that correct? This video is primarily focused on potted and in ground plants that live for multiple years, such as fruit trees, etc. Gary said himself that compost can be successful as a growing medium for a few months before it becomes toxic as it breaks down. This would explain why one might have a great degree of success with a vegetable garden with a great deal of organic matter, since the plants are usually done within that amount of time. If you tried to grow an avocado or citrus tree, for example, in the same leaf compost that you’re using in your grow beds, your results would likely be quite different.
Back in the day we used to use small balls of pure modeling clay under a bed of sand for live plant aquariums. Also what I've normally encountered is that ground up trees etc is called mulch where compost is decomposed organic matter like kitchen scraps.
By the way the tree to be repotted is a Hass Avaçado. Information in this video was awesome. Follow nature. This tree has been sprayed with liquid fertilizer and worm castings on top along with egg shells and organic Dr. Earth fertilizer. Recently I used some Ortho granular fertilizer for citrus and Avocado. After blooming it lost its leaves and new growth was just at the end of the branches a foot or more from the trunk. I don't like the long bare area with no leaves so I was hoping it would fill in with leaves. Thank you for your take on soil. I don't want to make a mistake so I need your Gary Up Pott planting mix. I have no way to get to your Nursery although it's just probably 70 miles or so south of you.👍♥️
Hi Gary I'm new to your channel and find the videos excellent !!!! I have lived in Cerritos since 69. We have sandy soils as we are on the San Gabriel river flood plain. There were dairy cows here and during the first couple of years, after the rains the cow urine and manure left pools of dark brown liquids. My father was told to put gypsum in the soil by the former "Andy's Nursery" on Artesia Blvd. I graduated with his daughter in 1976. I've had vegetable gardens in the same beds for 40 years. I rotate crops and some years dont plant anything. Is the sandy soil depleted of minerals by now. Would adding granite dust or charcoal help ? Or should I just mulch on top of the soil ? Thanks
Mulch or compost on top would probably be the best thing, charcoal would be good too because it does a good job of storing the nutrients. Any good organic fertilizer, whether it be compost or a product like Dr. Earth, would work fine.
Gary I need a bag of your soil to report an Avaçado tree for someone. It was bought at Home Depot about a year and a half ago. It is three and a half foot tall in a 5 gl pot. In early March it had a bloom that produced 14 baby Avacados. They gradually fell off at different sizes. One lasted 5 months but small. I had half of it when ripe and it was good.. I am afraid to report it but it is a must. How can I buy some of your soil. The tree is just south of you. Is the soil in local stores or does it have to be shipped. Do you think a 10 gl pot would be big enough. Please reply.
I've known about Gary before RUclips really blew up. I used his ideas to grow radishes, lettuce, pineapples and tomatoes. After making my own vermicompost and having some lettuce, celery and aloe fall apart in it, I am going back to silica based media. My bell pepper plant is growing ok in the compost, but too much else is failing bad. Think about what he said. The the end stages of organic matter is it turns into sludge. If it isn't aerobically digested into CO2, that carbon stays as muck. In wast water treatment, all the organic matter sludge they collect out of the incoming water is burned or made into fertilizer pellets. It makes me wonder if one of the purposes of forrest fires is to char and burn off that organic layers every so often.
Get over it, we’ve all been lied to about many things - this certainly wouldn’t be the first time. The best way to find out if his method works is to try it. I’ve been mixing in compost heavily for years, and I can’t really say that it’s been successful. I did it because there’s a lot of hype out there regarding the benefits of organic potting soil. Yet a lot of my plants have struggled and died, and overwatering has been a constant threat. I’ve found it necessary to repot most of my plants every year, and am always amazed at how awful the old potting soul has become - dense, waterlogged, and often smelly. For me, the information in this video was like a breath of fresh air. It seems to give plausible answers to some of the questions I’ve had. I’m ready to give this a try to see how it works. We should never be so rigid in our thinking as to stop learning.
So what can I do if my in ground soil has a lot clay and doesn't drain well here in Phx Arizona. Everyone here mixed organic matter or compost into the clay... completely opposite of what your saying... if I understand right, the right solution according to your explanation would be to mix my soil with sand? The only add compost and organic matter on top?
That would be correct, you can make mounds with sand and plant above, or try to mix Peat Moss, Pumice and Sand. Compost, Organics and Mulch on top and water in. - KC
@@GarysBestGardening sorry to bother u again, but does filter sand from the pool store work? They said its 100% sand no chemical, but who know. Also, where would one find pumice locally? Wish I'm CA, I can just buy ur soil.
Great information on the mineral component of soil (sand, silt, clay) but a misrepresentation of compost. Compost does two things: adds organic matter and inoculates beneficial microorganisms. Compost made from ground up trees left to rot will be lacking in the proper sets of microorganisms and will perform as you describe. Its these microbes that cycle nutrients making them available for plants and they feed on organic matter. It's the roll of fungi and bacteria (found in compost) to create micro and macro aggregates in the soil. This creates the porosity needed for oxygen and water to move through the soil and is how nature deals with heavy clay. When growing in containers the media tends to settle and reduce porosity. This will cause the conditions you describe if using poor quality compost. However many organic growers have success using just quality compost and the right amount of perlite. Check out Elaine Ingham of the Soil Food Web here on youtube.
If you are growing veggies or weed you can grow in higher amounts of compost. See Fox Farm. If you want a permanent growing medium mineral soil is best with compost and fertilizer on top of the soil, as in nature, compost piles up on top of the soil and is filtered down into the mineral based Permanent soil.
Thank you so much for this great info. If I'm growing mustard greens to harvest in a month or two in a seedling flat, should I fill the flat with sandy loam, place the seeds on top, and then sprinkle an inch of compost on top? I want to harvest them as baby greens after only a short while. What would you recommend? Would cococoir/perlite work as soil?
The seedling has enough energy to sprout without any added fertilizer, however, after it sprouts, you can add some compost or other fertilizer to provide nutrition. Compost can rot out a seedling if it stays too saturated. As far as the coco coir soil, we haven't worked much with plants in a coco coir based soil, so we don't know the possible negative effects. From what we expect, since coco coir is, like wood, a recently dead organic material, and not like peat moss which has been dead for presumably thousands of years, it would have the same breakdown habits as wood. This means that after a short period of time, it could create toxic conditions in the soil that could lead to the detriment of the plants. If you are only planning on keeping the greens planted for a few weeks, this should be fine, any longer I would use another material, like peat moss.
Thanks! That makes sense. From your experience, would it make more sense to go with Peat Moss at 100% or Peat Moss/Perlite at a 50/50 mix than it would to try to grow small plants in sandy loam filled trays with compost on top? You've completely changed how I think of soil, thankfully! I appreciate what you're doing! Ganbatte ne!
We like to use peat moss because of its ability to hold more moisture, which plants like leafy greens need. A 50/50 peat moss perlite or 50/50 peat moss pumice mixture would be ideal because the rocks help give the soil permeability and allow a path for oxygen to the roots. We prefer pumice because after a while, the perlite tends to float to the top of the pot. Just make sure you fertilize the plants once they are sprouting!
Gary's Best Gardening does this 50 / 50 mix work well for fruit trees , seedlings, cuttings, everything in general? I may be planting everything from now on with this mix 😄 thanks so much !
Is coconut coir OK to use to amend soil or is it considered decomposed wood? I'm in AZ and have sandy clay. I was going to add coir to help with water retention. Is it needed? Also I was going to add perlite and vermiculite to aerate the soil. What percentage would I use? Thanks.
Coconut Coir is OK as a soil amendment. We prefer to use peat moss because it has been dead for thousands of years already in bogs, so it has not recently died. Coco coir characteristics are more like peat moss than like wood, but, like wood, it has recently died. Also, we have seen that coco coir can be slightly more salty than peat moss, but not to the extent where it makes a huge difference in the garden. It is not necessarily needed in the garden, however it won't hurt anything, and if you have clay, you shouldn't have too much of a problem with water retention. As for the perlite and vermiculite, probably anywhere from 20-40% is good. We sometimes prefer pumice over perlite because perlite floats in water, and can sometimes wash away from the soil.
That should be fine, as there is a separation that is created between the clumps of clay flakes. It should act similar to clay pellets, as long as it doesn't dissolve when it comes in contact with water.
Your soil mix is inert rock media of various sizes and weights that allow air and water permeability (drainage,) plus peat moss, which is an inert natural sponge that will retain and release added water & nutrients. (Peat moss is slightly acidic in pH, varying by source.) Everything being inert means that there are no nutrients included in this mix. Therefore, it will require routinely adding nutrients (fertilizer.) Buried decomposing plant materials poison plants, but is this also true of composted cow/steer or chicken manure? Would it be a bad idea to mix this with "Gary's Top Pot" to reduce the need to fertilize, such as for fruiting plants? Another question: I live in the Arizona desert, and here, we use decomposed granite in place of grass. It comes either screened, or "minus," which is powdery. Would a soil mix ratio of 65% 1/4” minus decomposed granite with 35% Peat Moss be an equivalent mix, albeit much heavier?
I’m in Texas and I’m having trouble finding the crushed pumice or lava rock, about how small do the pieces have to be? Also does the charcoal have to be horticulture grade or can it be charcoal like for BBQ. Do you ship to Texas?
BBQ charcoal has chemicals. Dig a ditch and layer it with wood and set it up. Wet it down when it blackens before it turns to ash. David the good has a video on it. You must then soak the charcoal or compost it or else it will sequester your nitrogen
Thanks for the videos, I REALLY appreciate them and am learning so much! Two questions: first sand out on the west coast is all silicon dioxide based, but I live in South Texas (Victoria), and a LOT of the sand available here is calcium based due to the fact that this was all reefs not that long ago geologically. Can calcium based sand make a workable topsoil? Or will that doom me to failure? Second I would love to buy some of your top soil for growing avacados in large containers but it doesnt seem like you guys ship your top soil. Or is it available if I buy it in bulk? If you cant ship it, do you know of any similar product that can be shipped or is available in Texas?
Can you suggest an effective method for eradicating ant infestation of the soil? I’m assuming that the ants will defeat any attempt at growing a garden.
Just found your videos and Funny I’ve never had any problems with plants from nurseries or big box stores and have left them in pots for way over 3 years for some plants ,Great way to create a problem to sell a product .
Hi Gary,recently moved to a new home and brought some of my trees down. I have several avocados and several citrus as well as other trees. Not sure if I should plans avocados near pomegranate, apple or cherry. Till I figure where is the best place they have remained in pots. Any advice?
I would say to look up what the diameter will be of each of the tree's dripline when they are mature. Then space them far enough apart so they can grow and mature to their natural size without interfering with each other. Also consider which trees will be tall (like avocado and macadamia) and which will be short or that you plan to keep short ( like apple and peach) for harvesting. Arrange those so the tall ones do not shade the short ones. Before you start planting your good trees... remove the useless trees with invasive water sucking roots (California Pepper , Brazilian Pepper, Pine, Mexican Fan Palm ) and the fire prone and dangerous ( eucalyptus aka: mankillers ).
Another popular weed tree that landscapers love to infest neighborhoods with is the Carrotwood tree. Get rid of that junk tree. If you like the look of the Carrotwood tree then replace it with a Macadamia or a grafted female Carob tree (or a grafted Santa Fe carob which is a hermaphrodyte and has both male and female flowers).
would top soil be a good option as a potting soil or is it 2 wet? what if mixed with sand? at what percent? I feel like I need cactus mix for tropical fruit trees cause of the wet cool winters and springs
If by top soil you mean what they call "top soil" at bulk soil distributors or building materials stores, I would shy away from that, usually because there is a substantial amount of ground up wood and/or compost in that mix. A soil being too wet usually isn't a problem, as long as there is no organic matter involved. Cactus mix is the same deal, with most cactus mixes on the market containing a large amount of "composted forest products" (aka wood/sawdust). Something like a sandy loam mix would be best, or a mix of peat moss and other minerals like pumice, sand, perlite.
yea I swear every bag at the store is all just bark these days lol I knew there was something wrong with that osmocote seed raising mix.. horrible stuff lol, how necessary is the peat moss? do you think you could get away with just sand or white quartz sand and a thick mulch of compost if you was in Portland or somewhere around there? thankyou from Tasmania Melvin below and I are your new biggest fans weve been killing tropical fruit seedlings for years and have been trying to figure it out together lol
Peat moss is not super necessary, we just like to use it because it holds the moisture a lot better than sand. Yes, strictly sand with a mulch layer on top is good, basically anywhere.
The same soil can work for any type of plant. It just depends what you want as a result. If you want faster growth...make the soil more permeable with better airflow. If you need more moisture retention...make soil soil more porous with more sand or silt or even a bit of clay or vermiculite. If a higher acidity is required you can increase the peat moss content up to 50% without loosing permeability in the future. Just do not use organic matter, other than charcoal, peat moss or rice hulls, as a soil component.
@@GarysBestGardening Thanks - is there an online forum to discuss these things in more detail? There seems like a lot of misinformation... What's with the "best soil in the world" claims being midwestern, for example, when that is not very sandy or volcanic? Wouldn't "the best soil in the world" for growing in general be a volcanic soil with lots of rainfall and good temperature? Even if "the top soil" is not very deep, then it seems a locally deep enough top soil could be engineered just as well using these methods...
Hey Gary, i think there's some confusion happening here - you defined the organic content as protozoa, worms, roots, bacteria etc - that's not the same as organic content! the bulk of the organic matter is in detritus, dead bacteria's and worm poo! I believe healthy soil with carbon content around 6-8% is the idea content, and this is made up of that decaying matter. so i guess if we're measuring weight for weight itd be only 70-80% mineral content. Also regarding fungal diseases due to woodchips in soil - that's only if they use too much water and bury the wood chips. And as far as im aware most decomposition fungi are different to the ones that attack living tissue. Happy to be corrected because this would mean my sandy property is good to grow ahah!
What about permaculture? Great video, toxic decomposition gases from microbes make sense, but it contradicts much of the information available on RUclips. How do you view permaculture?
Everything Gary said makes sense in his context but I would venture a guess that he's never used quality compost. I'm not blaming him because compost today means any broken down organic matter. The toxic decomposition gases you refer to occur only in anaerobic conditions. The beneficial microorganisms in quality compost aggregate the soil which creates porosity to keep things aerobic. Without the beneficials and the proper amount of aerating media (ie: perlite), anaerobic conditions will occur. Check out Dr. Elaine Ingham of the Soil Food Web on youtube. She's probably the world's leading soil microbiologist.
@@MrWoodsli i think his context must be in farming dealing with 8' layer of material. I guess compost might be a problem at that depth. But my beds are 2' deep pure leaf compost. I get incredible yields. Am i doing something wrong?!
He is also talking about pots. Well it IS easier to wipe depleted compost from the top of a potted plant than REPLACING all the soil. So using sand is easier? Idk
@@TheRainHarvesterIf you’re growing annuals they’ll do fine in compost. It’s the long term perennials that suffer from compost that decomposes too much over time, like after a couple years
This guy lost all credibility when he said adding sand to clay soil to amend it. According to the University of Arkansas, adding sand to clay soil make more dense soil. I have that exact problem. I will take my own experience and university of Arkansas over this guy any day.
Excitement with post and ground beds first before you discredit him. Some of the stuff is pretty accurate. Many nursery guys use sand for cuttings and works great.
Whilst your video is interesting but quite technical, I feel what the viewers want to know is what can we amend our soils with to maximise soil health and thus grow healthy plants, compost and other organic matter added to the soil will encourage beneficial microbes as well as increase soil water retention. In one of your previous videos you mention that avocados really benefit by their leaves falling to the ground and breaking down and eventually being incorporated into the soil (that's composting) and used by the plant for nutrition. Compost is not really a dead ground up tree, it is a complex mix of decayed organic matter which when mixed into impoverished soil will greatly improve the soil health and microbe population. I appreciate you need to sell your products, but nature has made compost for millions of years...
david And nature mostly deposits the compost on the surface of the soil rather than incorporated all through the root zone. Compost is great but just applied on top over the plant’s roots rather than under the surface.
You apparently didn’t understand the video at all - not too surprising for someone who describes it as “quite technical”. He never advised against using compost, he just stated that it should be used on TOP of the soil rather than mixed in with it. This is how nature does it. The organic material doesn’t eventually become part of the soil below, it releases nutrients down into the soil as it decomposes. Nature doesn’t magically take a shovel and mix it all together at some point. At no time did I get the impression that he was trying to “sell” a product - there was very little focus on his potting soil. In fact, he was very up front about the ingredients so as to enable people to source and make their own potting soil. If all you got from this video was a sales pitch, I’d say you have a lot more problems than just your soil. Perhaps try going elsewhere if you don’t agree with his methods (you seem to feel you have all the answers anyway) rather than leaving comments attempting to discredit him. No one’s stopping you from planting everything in pure compost if you so desire - some of us have learned from experience that it doesn’t work.
Ok... so plants *actually* grow in inorganic matter. But where's the blinded study comparing compost-grown plants and plants grown in your inorganic, "permanent" substrate? In other words, your argument assumes we can't do it better than nature does it. And technology proves that in many areas of natural science, we can actually improve on nature. IE hyper concentrating carbon dioxide in to aquariums to make landscapes not possible in nature
Ground up wood and bark has it's place. I have trees. I prune the trees. I feed the branches and leaves into a wood chipper. It works great - as mulch.
This video has turned my world upside down. So many of my garden and potted plant problems have been answered. I want to learn more! For example, if the soil is just the medium for growing plants and it's just mineral based, where do they get their nutrients? Please keep these videos coming.
Hi Alex,
The answer is the plants get the nutrients from fertilizer or compost that is added on top of the soil level. In nature, organic matter falls on the ground and is decomposed above ground, and the nutrients sort of trickle down through the soil to the roots. Compost is a good thing to use in gardening, as long as you only apply compost to the top layer, above the soil line, and not mix any with the soil when planting your plants.
There will likely be a video going into further detail in the near future.
Gary's Best Gardening perfect !
Gary, you have saved my life.
I am no longer going to be a plant murderer after learning from you. Thank you.
This makes all the sense in the world.
Compost ON TOP! Just like in nature. Where all the answers are 💚
@@BulmaThinks exactly it makes total sense hey. I wish I knew this years ago. I hope my dwarf apple tree doesn’t die cos I planted it in a heap of potting mix which is dead trees. I will be moving out of the pot next winter into the ground so I will make sure it’s not planted in pure dead trees. I will put the mulch aka potting mix in it’s huge pot (dead plants) on the top area though after I plant it. Then when ever the mulch has been decomposed I will add more but only on top.
I had 6 different 2-3 year old citrus trees in a variety of pots in a variety of "soils". None of them were doing that we'll, some we struggling. Earlier this season, I purchased 10 gallon terra cotta pots, and transplanted them into them with the 10 bags of Gary's Top Pot soil mix. I dug out all the old solid (some of which was DISGUSTING), and carefully planted the now mostly bare root trees into this mix. I added some micoriza to the soil, and just a little bit of worm castings. 2 months later they had begun the healthy reaction. I left some space on top of the soil to cover it with a good organic mulch. I feed them 1x/ month with a citrus fertilizer, (pull mulch back when I do). I cut off the many fruits that were developing to promote a season of root growth. I am probably going to up pot them as I can tell there's been a huge burst of root growth this summer (2020). Learned so much from this specific video, I am pretty new to this.
In The Central Valley of California, where a lot of produce is grown, the soil is sandy loam or loamy sand. Not compost. Farmers do not plant in compost. At my house, I use vermicompost. Worm castings. Just a little bit on top of the soil.
Yeah and you use a fuck ton of water. Sandy loam just evaporates immediately.
@@Nihlinkgood thing 71% of the earth is water. Genius
@@Nihlink That's why ground water is important for farming. Have you ever heard of a big tree need to watering by watering can? So where do the trees get water? Nature gives water by raining. If the soil is Sandy loam,water can pass through the soil and fill the ground with water again. The plants and trees create oxygen and form cloud s and rain again. That's how nature circles again and again. Stupid people like you are disturbing and destroying nature circles with stupid own opinions that can't prove scienctific facts.
Thank you for making all these videos and making them available online! I’m a new gardener and this is such helpful information!!!
From one greenfingered Gary to another: this is my understanding: Soil is made up of distinct layers, or strata. The humus layer is the is the topmost layer, rich in nitrogen from decaying plant and animal matter. When bacteria and fungi break down the organic matter of humus, the nitrogen (of plant and animal amino acids/proteins/porphyrins) is ultimately converted to the highly water-soluble nitrate form of nitrogen, which is readily taken up by the plant's roots. The inorganic component of soil, which is the layer of loam, clay or sand just below the humus layer, consists of weathered bedrock, of which silica is a major component. The weathering effect of underlying bedrock releases into the inorganic soil layer, over a period of time, essential plant microelements and trace elements (iron, zinc, potassium, calcium, magnesium, copper, manganese, boron, molybdenum, etc). As you say in your helpful videos, too much organic matter in a potting mix is bad for plant's root system, because its breakdown by bacteria and fungi consumes available oxygen and releases phytotoxic 'sewer gases' such as hydrogen sulphide (rotten egg smell). I read on the Tropical Fruit Growers International Forum that anaerobic breakdown of organic matter, such as compost or bark chippings, may cause a dangerous lowering of pH, as organic acids (such as acetic acid) are formed upon what is, essentially, fermentation. When pH is too low (or, for that matter, too high) the bioavailable essential trace metals may increase to toxic levels and, also, harmful metals such as aluminium (which is a common metal in clay) are made bioavailable to the plants (by the way, may I ask: does aluminium have any recognised beneficial function in plant health?). My question is: how can we best replicate the natural soil strata and the beneficial microbes associated with a healthy soil, in the confines of container/pot growing? I believe in the concept of 'feeding the soil' and treating it as a living ecosystem. I only use inorganic fertiliser salts as a 'quick fix' when plants require it. Thankyou, from another Gary across 'the pond' in England! PS: I am never again using organic matter like compost or bark chips as the main component of the growing media for my containerised tropical fruit and citrus trees!!
At last I found you! What a blessing you are. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and lifetime of growing experience. You've explained 90% of my potting problems in one video. What are your thoughts on using coconut coir vs peat moss? I have a bunch of it. I've always had great success using CC as a seed starter. Not wanting to toss it if it will work for the time being as well as peat moss. I'm an old dude. This is the first time I've ever "SUBSCRIBED".
Thanks, Gary. That was a good explanation about soil composition and ideal growing medium.
I’ve never heard anyone who grows plants dislike compost. Interesting perspective.
Who said anything about disliking compost? He said that compost is great as long as it’s kept on top of the soil, where it can leach nutrients into the soil below as it breaks down. All he said is not to mix compost in with the soil below as it can eventually release toxic gasses which will kill plant roots.
@@robertc5387literally every tree growing in every forest grows in composted material…. This is a selling gimmick that’s it. Nature disagrees 100% with his logic!
It works for a season or two in containers and then gets mucky because it breaks down. Adding a small amount to your garden soil, maybe an inch each year, will not be an issue, but it's going to be an issue if you allow the organics to accumulate. If you do accumulate too much then start adding some washed medium or coarse sand and/or topsoil from your yard into the bed and make sure to turn the soil to get some oxygen in there. Everything is poison and nothing is poison. The dose is the issue. Back in the day potting soils were just 50/50 compost and sand. There are still people who do this on their own. So compost isn't bad but it's misused and overused.
AWESOME!!! Please post more!!!
So informative! I've been wondering why my avocado plants keep dying when I repot them 😕 I'm unsure what to do at this point
Same here, struggling with my beautiful baby avocado. Did u try anything good with yours? Plz share 💚
@@BulmaThinks Unfortunately it's dying. Turning black after drying out all the leaves... 🥺 I pulled it and broke off the dead roots and there was still some good roots but when I repotted it it just got worse again. I don't get it. The main root was very long with little spider ones but again I repotted it into some soil from home depot for vegetables and it wilts.. I don't get it! Too much water? Every video says to water it till it starts to drain then stop and don't water for days. Did that. It got worse.
@@BulmaThinks I wish I could post pictures here. Mine was getting big. Was nice. I knew better than to repot but still did it thinking it was the smart move to keep it healthy. Nope.
Hey Gary, I just found you after a subscriber on my channel pointed me toward your channel. I couldn't agree more, with what you're teaching here. I get a lot of people asking me about growing in pots and I try to steer them away from it and get them in the ground, where all the nutrients are and the moisture and ph is more constant and better regulated. I appreciate your video!
I've killed 4 trees because of the crap I was growing them in. Going to make a trip up and pick up my 5th (and hopefully last tree) and some bags of your Top Soil Gary
We just reported 3 small ficus trees in a sandy loam mixture. They had been potted In M****** *** soil and several of the roots are rotten and the soil, slimy.
It’s only been a few days but my trees perked up!
I've watched two of your videos and must say that this makes sense with everything I've observed about potting mixes. Potting mix is mostly sphagnum peat moss with wood and bark chips, and it comes full of pests like spider mites and fungus gnats. If I sterilize potting mix with heat before using it, the pest problems are largely absent, but most plants grow poorly in it. Adding some wild dirt to reseed the sterilized potting mix with microbes caused a fast rate of decomposition and after a few months many of my plants died, presumably due to the toxic byproducts of the rotting process. The shifting of the potting mix due to the decomposition/loss of volume is no doubt a factor as well.
Melvin Wei
We are trying to get the word out there to people who think that they can’t grow plants. Growing plants should be easy, it’s all about the dirt.
Gary this is 6 yrs old but Im hoping you see this. I live on a tropical island. Lots of beach sand ... Can I use beach sand in a raised bed in my green house? Will I have ph problems from the high calcium? Yes I know about not holding moisture. I'm concerned only about ph and nutrients inhibiting growth.
Great video! I have been wondering about soil... I have not been understanding why compost would make sense to be IN the ground, but if we want to mimic nature, I could understand adding a topical layer.
That's it, do as nature does!
Thank you so much! Great to hear back from you. I featured your nursery on my last vlog! haha. I plan to be seeing a lot more of you guys. Love your shop!
I grow ALL my vegetables in leaf compost. Incredible yields. Should i change?
Thankfully some compost brands specify on the bag that it should not be used for planting. Unfortunately, despite this, people still do.
Gary,
I was watching RUclips videos where people that I thought were “experts” said to bury vegetable kitchen scraps deeply in the backyard. So I’ve been digging holes and burying veggie/fruit scraps in my very heavy clay soil. I even made sure to layer the greens the browns and the dirt. Did I just poison the dirt in my backyard? I was frustrated by the heavy clay and thought that doing this would make my dirt “fluffy“ in a couple of months!
Geeze, now I have other questions....
I would just use a compost worm bin to compost all ya scraps and then you can absolutely put it on and in your soil. He just means you’d shouldn’t grow plants in pure compost. Like make sure compost is on top layers where your fruit Trees etc are and make sure where their roots are that it’s soil. I would get a heap of sand if I was you and work that into your clay soil. You will not have good drainage otherwise. But compost is amazing for the plants but just not to grow solely in. So if you have any plants/ trees just throw the mulch on top around the tree. They will love it. As long as you don’t bury it super deep it won’t cause root rot issues etc. I mean some plants do just fine in dead trees aka potting mix but if ya got avocados and fussy trees that love free draining soil then I would use sandy loam like Gary’s soil.
@@NMW80 Hmm my grow beds are lined with poly sheet and contain 95% leaf compost. Incredible yields every year. What am i doing wrong?
@@TheRainHarvesterAre you putting fresh compost in your beds each year? Also, what crops are you growing in them? I would assume that they are annual, not perennial, crops - is that correct? This video is primarily focused on potted and in ground plants that live for multiple years, such as fruit trees, etc. Gary said himself that compost can be successful as a growing medium for a few months before it becomes toxic as it breaks down. This would explain why one might have a great degree of success with a vegetable garden with a great deal of organic matter, since the plants are usually done within that amount of time. If you tried to grow an avocado or citrus tree, for example, in the same leaf compost that you’re using in your grow beds, your results would likely be quite different.
So what's the best organic fertilizer? A bit of manure on top of sandy soil? This works in a raised bed?
So loam is the best soil to grow in. So is Sandy loam even better to grow in?
Back in the day we used to use small balls of pure modeling clay under a bed of sand for live plant aquariums.
Also what I've normally encountered is that ground up trees etc is called mulch where compost is decomposed organic matter like kitchen scraps.
By the way the tree to be repotted is a Hass Avaçado. Information in this video was awesome. Follow nature. This tree has been sprayed with liquid fertilizer and worm castings on top along with egg shells and organic Dr. Earth fertilizer. Recently I used some Ortho granular fertilizer for citrus and Avocado. After blooming it lost its leaves and new growth was just at the end of the branches a foot or more from the trunk. I don't like the long bare area with no leaves so I was hoping it would fill in with leaves. Thank you for your take on soil. I don't want to make a mistake so I need your Gary Up Pott planting mix. I have no way to get to your Nursery although it's just probably 70 miles or so south of you.👍♥️
Hi Gary I'm new to your channel and find the videos excellent !!!! I have lived in Cerritos since 69. We have sandy soils as we are on the San Gabriel river flood plain. There were dairy cows here and during the first couple of years, after the rains the cow urine and manure left pools of dark brown liquids. My father was told to put gypsum in the soil by the former "Andy's Nursery" on Artesia Blvd. I graduated with his daughter in 1976. I've had vegetable gardens in the same beds for 40 years. I rotate crops and some years dont plant anything. Is the sandy soil depleted of minerals by now. Would adding granite dust or charcoal help ? Or should I just mulch on top of the soil ? Thanks
Mulch or compost on top would probably be the best thing, charcoal would be good too because it does a good job of storing the nutrients. Any good organic fertilizer, whether it be compost or a product like Dr. Earth, would work fine.
Gary I need a bag of your soil to report an Avaçado tree for someone. It was bought at Home Depot about a year and a half ago. It is three and a half foot tall in a 5 gl pot. In early March it had a bloom that produced 14 baby Avacados. They gradually fell off at different sizes. One lasted 5 months but small. I had half of it when ripe and it was good.. I am afraid to report it but it is a must. How can I buy some of your soil. The tree is just south of you. Is the soil in local stores or does it have to be shipped. Do you think a 10 gl pot would be big enough. Please reply.
My head is exploding. Everything I’ve been told is a lie???
I've known about Gary before RUclips really blew up. I used his ideas to grow radishes, lettuce, pineapples and tomatoes. After making my own vermicompost and having some lettuce, celery and aloe fall apart in it, I am going back to silica based media. My bell pepper plant is growing ok in the compost, but too much else is failing bad.
Think about what he said. The the end stages of organic matter is it turns into sludge. If it isn't aerobically digested into CO2, that carbon stays as muck. In wast water treatment, all the organic matter sludge they collect out of the incoming water is burned or made into fertilizer pellets. It makes me wonder if one of the purposes of forrest fires is to char and burn off that organic layers every so often.
Get over it, we’ve all been lied to about many things - this certainly wouldn’t be the first time. The best way to find out if his method works is to try it. I’ve been mixing in compost heavily for years, and I can’t really say that it’s been successful. I did it because there’s a lot of hype out there regarding the benefits of organic potting soil. Yet a lot of my plants have struggled and died, and overwatering has been a constant threat. I’ve found it necessary to repot most of my plants every year, and am always amazed at how awful the old potting soul has become - dense, waterlogged, and often smelly. For me, the information in this video was like a breath of fresh air. It seems to give plausible answers to some of the questions I’ve had. I’m ready to give this a try to see how it works. We should never be so rigid in our thinking as to stop learning.
I wouldn't say that. I am still trying to understand how to grow epiphytes on sand when they grow on tree bark.
So what can I do if my in ground soil has a lot clay and doesn't drain well here in Phx Arizona. Everyone here mixed organic matter or compost into the clay... completely opposite of what your saying... if I understand right, the right solution according to your explanation would be to mix my soil with sand? The only add compost and organic matter on top?
That would be correct, you can make mounds with sand and plant above, or try to mix Peat Moss, Pumice and Sand. Compost, Organics and Mulch on top and water in. - KC
@@GarysBestGardening sorry to bother u again, but does filter sand from the pool store work? They said its 100% sand no chemical, but who know. Also, where would one find pumice locally? Wish I'm CA, I can just buy ur soil.
@@devildestiny555 you can find pumice at local nurseries here in the Valley like Summer Winds. A big bag goes for about $30.
How about Green Sand? Any info on this product in regards to building a loamy soil?
What is your opinion about amending a garden with sheep manure ?
Great information on the mineral component of soil (sand, silt, clay) but a misrepresentation of compost. Compost does two things: adds organic matter and inoculates beneficial microorganisms. Compost made from ground up trees left to rot will be lacking in the proper sets of microorganisms and will perform as you describe. Its these microbes that cycle nutrients making them available for plants and they feed on organic matter. It's the roll of fungi and bacteria (found in compost) to create micro and macro aggregates in the soil. This creates the porosity needed for oxygen and water to move through the soil and is how nature deals with heavy clay. When growing in containers the media tends to settle and reduce porosity. This will cause the conditions you describe if using poor quality compost. However many organic growers have success using just quality compost and the right amount of perlite. Check out Elaine Ingham of the Soil Food Web here on youtube.
If you are growing veggies or weed you can grow in higher amounts of compost. See Fox Farm. If you want a permanent growing medium mineral soil is best with compost and fertilizer on top of the soil, as in nature, compost piles up on top of the soil and is filtered down into the mineral based Permanent soil.
Nope 👎
Thank you so much for this great info. If I'm growing mustard greens to harvest in a month or two in a seedling flat, should I fill the flat with sandy loam, place the seeds on top, and then sprinkle an inch of compost on top? I want to harvest them as baby greens after only a short while. What would you recommend? Would cococoir/perlite work as soil?
The seedling has enough energy to sprout without any added fertilizer, however, after it sprouts, you can add some compost or other fertilizer to provide nutrition. Compost can rot out a seedling if it stays too saturated. As far as the coco coir soil, we haven't worked much with plants in a coco coir based soil, so we don't know the possible negative effects. From what we expect, since coco coir is, like wood, a recently dead organic material, and not like peat moss which has been dead for presumably thousands of years, it would have the same breakdown habits as wood. This means that after a short period of time, it could create toxic conditions in the soil that could lead to the detriment of the plants. If you are only planning on keeping the greens planted for a few weeks, this should be fine, any longer I would use another material, like peat moss.
Thanks! That makes sense. From your experience, would it make more sense to go with Peat Moss at 100% or Peat Moss/Perlite at a 50/50 mix than it would to try to grow small plants in sandy loam filled trays with compost on top?
You've completely changed how I think of soil, thankfully! I appreciate what you're doing! Ganbatte ne!
We like to use peat moss because of its ability to hold more moisture, which plants like leafy greens need. A 50/50 peat moss perlite or 50/50 peat moss pumice mixture would be ideal because the rocks help give the soil permeability and allow a path for oxygen to the roots. We prefer pumice because after a while, the perlite tends to float to the top of the pot. Just make sure you fertilize the plants once they are sprouting!
Great advice, thank you
Gary's Best Gardening does this 50 / 50 mix work well for fruit trees , seedlings, cuttings, everything in general? I may be planting everything from now on with this mix 😄 thanks so much !
Is coconut coir OK to use to amend soil or is it considered decomposed wood? I'm in AZ and have sandy clay. I was going to add coir to help with water retention. Is it needed? Also I was going to add perlite and vermiculite to aerate the soil. What percentage would I use? Thanks.
Coconut Coir is OK as a soil amendment. We prefer to use peat moss because it has been dead for thousands of years already in bogs, so it has not recently died. Coco coir characteristics are more like peat moss than like wood, but, like wood, it has recently died. Also, we have seen that coco coir can be slightly more salty than peat moss, but not to the extent where it makes a huge difference in the garden. It is not necessarily needed in the garden, however it won't hurt anything, and if you have clay, you shouldn't have too much of a problem with water retention. As for the perlite and vermiculite, probably anywhere from 20-40% is good. We sometimes prefer pumice over perlite because perlite floats in water, and can sometimes wash away from the soil.
Can I add plain cheap odorless non clumping clay cat litter into a mixture of tree soil safely? Maybe like clay pellets. Sand also of course.
That should be fine, as there is a separation that is created between the clumps of clay flakes. It should act similar to clay pellets, as long as it doesn't dissolve when it comes in contact with water.
@@GarysBestGardening I've had some in a bowl of water for 2 days and it's still hard. No cloudy water
@@GarysBestGardening thanks.its good sized, larger than course sand.
Your soil mix is inert rock media of various sizes and weights that allow air and water permeability (drainage,) plus peat moss, which is an inert natural sponge that will retain and release added water & nutrients. (Peat moss is slightly acidic in pH, varying by source.) Everything being inert means that there are no nutrients included in this mix. Therefore, it will require routinely adding nutrients (fertilizer.)
Buried decomposing plant materials poison plants, but is this also true of composted cow/steer or chicken manure? Would it be a bad idea to mix this with "Gary's Top Pot" to reduce the need to fertilize, such as for fruiting plants?
Another question: I live in the Arizona desert, and here, we use decomposed granite in place of grass. It comes either screened, or "minus," which is powdery. Would a soil mix ratio of 65% 1/4” minus decomposed granite with 35% Peat Moss be an equivalent mix, albeit much heavier?
I’m in Texas and I’m having trouble finding the crushed pumice or lava rock, about how small do the pieces have to be? Also does the charcoal have to be horticulture grade or can it be charcoal like for BBQ. Do you ship to Texas?
Where in Texas? My local nursery has lava rock and lava sand
San Antonio
BBQ charcoal has chemicals. Dig a ditch and layer it with wood and set it up. Wet it down when it blackens before it turns to ash. David the good has a video on it. You must then soak the charcoal or compost it or else it will sequester your nitrogen
@@innerjon I’m also in San Antonio. Did you ever find a source?
@@rhondawells1295 I’ve been doing fine without the charcoal and I’ve been getting the pumice from amazon.
Thanks for the videos, I REALLY appreciate them and am learning so much! Two questions: first sand out on the west coast is all silicon dioxide based, but I live in South Texas (Victoria), and a LOT of the sand available here is calcium based due to the fact that this was all reefs not that long ago geologically. Can calcium based sand make a workable topsoil? Or will that doom me to failure? Second I would love to buy some of your top soil for growing avacados in large containers but it doesnt seem like you guys ship your top soil. Or is it available if I buy it in bulk? If you cant ship it, do you know of any similar product that can be shipped or is available in Texas?
Can you suggest an effective method for eradicating ant infestation of the soil? I’m assuming that the ants will defeat any attempt at growing a garden.
What sand should we use
Just found your videos and Funny I’ve never had any problems with plants from nurseries or big box stores and have left them in pots for way over 3 years for some plants ,Great way to create a problem to sell a product .
😂
Awesome!
Is coarse sand not as good as round sand?
What about Zeolite? There are gardeners hyping about using zeolite
More!
Can any buddy suggest me good and cheap potting mixture for dragon fruit
Can someone please tell me what kind of sand is used? Please
I usually use Quikrete All Purpose
Hi Gary,recently moved to a new home and brought some of my trees down. I have several avocados and several citrus as well as other trees. Not sure if I should plans avocados near pomegranate, apple or cherry. Till I figure where is the best place they have remained in pots. Any advice?
I would say to look up what the diameter will be of each of the tree's dripline when they are mature. Then space them far enough apart so they can grow and mature to their natural size without interfering with each other.
Also consider which trees will be tall (like avocado and macadamia) and which will be short or that you plan to keep short ( like apple and peach) for harvesting. Arrange those so the tall ones do not shade the short ones.
Before you start planting your good trees... remove the useless trees with invasive water sucking roots (California Pepper , Brazilian Pepper, Pine, Mexican Fan Palm ) and the fire prone and dangerous ( eucalyptus aka: mankillers ).
Another popular weed tree that landscapers love to infest neighborhoods with is the Carrotwood tree. Get rid of that junk tree. If you like the look of the Carrotwood tree then replace it with a Macadamia or a grafted female Carob tree (or a grafted Santa Fe carob which is a hermaphrodyte and has both male and female flowers).
would top soil be a good option as a potting soil or is it 2 wet? what if mixed with sand? at what percent? I feel like I need cactus mix for tropical fruit trees cause of the wet cool winters and springs
If by top soil you mean what they call "top soil" at bulk soil distributors or building materials stores, I would shy away from that, usually because there is a substantial amount of ground up wood and/or compost in that mix. A soil being too wet usually isn't a problem, as long as there is no organic matter involved. Cactus mix is the same deal, with most cactus mixes on the market containing a large amount of "composted forest products" (aka wood/sawdust). Something like a sandy loam mix would be best, or a mix of peat moss and other minerals like pumice, sand, perlite.
yea I swear every bag at the store is all just bark these days lol I knew there was something wrong with that osmocote seed raising mix.. horrible stuff lol, how necessary is the peat moss? do you think you could get away with just sand or white quartz sand and a thick mulch of compost if you was in Portland or somewhere around there? thankyou from Tasmania Melvin below and I are your new biggest fans weve been killing tropical fruit seedlings for years and have been trying to figure it out together lol
Peat moss is not super necessary, we just like to use it because it holds the moisture a lot better than sand. Yes, strictly sand with a mulch layer on top is good, basically anywhere.
yess! awesome thankyou
Gary's Best Gardening would you recommend a specific ratio of pumice, peat moss, sand , clay for the “ideal “ potting soil? Thanks
What about for tropical plants.
The same soil can work for any type of plant. It just depends what you want as a result. If you want faster growth...make the soil more permeable with better airflow. If you need more moisture retention...make soil soil more porous with more sand or silt or even a bit of clay or vermiculite. If a higher acidity is required you can increase the peat moss content up to 50% without loosing permeability in the future. Just do not use organic matter, other than charcoal, peat moss or rice hulls, as a soil component.
@@GarysBestGardening Thanks - is there an online forum to discuss these things in more detail? There seems like a lot of misinformation... What's with the "best soil in the world" claims being midwestern, for example, when that is not very sandy or volcanic? Wouldn't "the best soil in the world" for growing in general be a volcanic soil with lots of rainfall and good temperature? Even if "the top soil" is not very deep, then it seems a locally deep enough top soil could be engineered just as well using these methods...
Gary do you ship to Ireland ?
Unfortunately, we aren't able to ship to Ireland. Our distributor does not do international shipments.
3:45 17:28 the moment she knew she frd up 🤣
. A old man told me that his best tasting tomatoes, came from red clay dirt garden. HA.HA.HA
Hey Gary, i think there's some confusion happening here - you defined the organic content as protozoa, worms, roots, bacteria etc - that's not the same as organic content! the bulk of the organic matter is in detritus, dead bacteria's and worm poo!
I believe healthy soil with carbon content around 6-8% is the idea content, and this is made up of that decaying matter. so i guess if we're measuring weight for weight itd be only 70-80% mineral content.
Also regarding fungal diseases due to woodchips in soil - that's only if they use too much water and bury the wood chips. And as far as im aware most decomposition fungi are different to the ones that attack living tissue. Happy to be corrected because this would mean my sandy property is good to grow ahah!
What about permaculture? Great video, toxic decomposition gases from microbes make sense, but it contradicts much of the information available on RUclips. How do you view permaculture?
Everything Gary said makes sense in his context but I would venture a guess that he's never used quality compost. I'm not blaming him because compost today means any broken down organic matter. The toxic decomposition gases you refer to occur only in anaerobic conditions. The beneficial microorganisms in quality compost aggregate the soil which creates porosity to keep things aerobic. Without the beneficials and the proper amount of aerating media (ie: perlite), anaerobic conditions will occur. Check out Dr. Elaine Ingham of the Soil Food Web on youtube. She's probably the world's leading soil microbiologist.
@@MrWoodsli i think his context must be in farming dealing with 8' layer of material. I guess compost might be a problem at that depth.
But my beds are 2' deep pure leaf compost.
I get incredible yields.
Am i doing something wrong?!
He is also talking about pots. Well it IS easier to wipe depleted compost from the top of a potted plant than REPLACING all the soil. So using sand is easier? Idk
Arg then he says "don't mix compost to sandy soil. It creates toxic environment for roots"....I'm outta here.
@@TheRainHarvesterIf you’re growing annuals they’ll do fine in compost. It’s the long term perennials that suffer from compost that decomposes too much over time, like after a couple years
What do you think of worm casings?
We like worm castings, we prefer to mix them with compost and leave them on the top of soil however, contrary to popular opinion.
Happy
This is a rehearsal for those 2 hour long videos.
Sand is best except for high nitrogen phosphorous crops like marijuana corn etc then i like to amend.
Yikes. This guy has some very serious and fundamental misunderstandings about how soil functions.
LMAO, Russians love to live in trees was your onscreen translation 15:08
3:43 (hi!!!)
This guy lost all credibility when he said adding sand to clay soil to amend it. According to the University of Arkansas, adding sand to clay soil make more dense soil. I have that exact problem. I will take my own experience and university of Arkansas over this guy any day.
Excitement with post and ground beds first before you discredit him. Some of the stuff is pretty accurate. Many nursery guys use sand for cuttings and works great.
Same experiment here.
Add sand to heavy clay soil and BOOM! You've made concrete 😂
That moment your homie sends you this video. 11 out of 10.
Whilst your video is interesting but quite technical, I feel what the viewers want to know is what can we amend our soils with to maximise soil health and thus grow healthy plants, compost and other organic matter added to the soil will encourage beneficial microbes as well as increase soil water retention. In one of your previous videos you mention that avocados really benefit by their leaves falling to the ground and breaking down and eventually being incorporated into the soil (that's composting) and used by the plant for nutrition.
Compost is not really a dead ground up tree, it is a complex mix of decayed organic matter which when mixed into impoverished soil will greatly improve the soil health and microbe population. I appreciate you need to sell your products, but nature has made compost for millions of years...
david And nature mostly deposits the compost on the surface of the soil rather than incorporated all through the root zone. Compost is great but just applied on top over the plant’s roots rather than under the surface.
You apparently didn’t understand the video at all - not too surprising for someone who describes it as “quite technical”. He never advised against using compost, he just stated that it should be used on TOP of the soil rather than mixed in with it. This is how nature does it. The organic material doesn’t eventually become part of the soil below, it releases nutrients down into the soil as it decomposes. Nature doesn’t magically take a shovel and mix it all together at some point.
At no time did I get the impression that he was trying to “sell” a product - there was very little focus on his potting soil. In fact, he was very up front about the ingredients so as to enable people to source and make their own potting soil. If all you got from this video was a sales pitch, I’d say you have a lot more problems than just your soil. Perhaps try going elsewhere if you don’t agree with his methods (you seem to feel you have all the answers anyway) rather than leaving comments attempting to discredit him. No one’s stopping you from planting everything in pure compost if you so desire - some of us have learned from experience that it doesn’t work.
Ok... so plants *actually* grow in inorganic matter.
But where's the blinded study comparing compost-grown plants and plants grown in your inorganic, "permanent" substrate?
In other words, your argument assumes we can't do it better than nature does it. And technology proves that in many areas of natural science, we can actually improve on nature. IE hyper concentrating carbon dioxide in to aquariums to make landscapes not possible in nature