I learned about this a couple months ago and I started transferring some plants I had growing in a compost based soil into a perlite-peat soil. Specifically, I had a couple of citrus trees that were dying slowly and now they are pushing insane growth out. It literally took a week for the plants to respond. I also did this with strawberries and the same thing is happening. Insane growth and massive leaves. Whenever I want to add nutrients, I’ll just top dress with an organic fertilizer, compost or a liquid organic fertilizer. It works great.
I don’t find the compost in my mix to be any problem. I do 3 parts compost and 3 parts peat or coco coir and 1-2 parts of Perlite. It holds very well and has barely compacted any over the last few years. So as long as you mix in something to help the drainage like perlite/pumice/sand/lava rocks growing in a compost heavy mix is totally fine I have found.
You could theoretically grow a woody perennial plant (tree or shrub) like avocado for many, many years in a hydroponic setup with an aquarium airstone or other means to maintain constant oxygenation for the roots. Once the seed (i.e. the avocado stone) has been depleted of nutrient reserve by the growing young seedling plant, the stone will wither away, and nutrients will then have been be added externally (i.e. water-soluble fertilizer dissolved in the hydroponic water). Or, in an organic setup, some hydroponic growers have fish species like tilapia, etc, to provide fish manure, which gets broken down by microbes to water-soluble nutrients, which are taken up by the plant roots.
I thoroughly enjoyed and learned yet again from another one of this gentleman's seminar. My thanks! I have seen some of his videos before and follow his words, and I have yet to have lost another avacado tree. Prior to I lost 2 from nursery in the crap medium, they give ya from root rot. Have yet to experience that now with both mango or avacado trees.
I now have most of my container plants in your soil. Could I use the cheap potting soil (which I have lots of) as compost on top of your soil for fungi and bacteria to break down for nutritional needs?
I never kept records of what I was doing, but I filled up a lot of five gallon buckets and other containers with various combinations of potting mix, clay soil from my yard, dried leaves, kitchen scraps, peat, etc. Only the tomatoes could grow through it all. Most stuff had a about six inches of roots and then black sludge in the container. Always disappointed when I went to remix the used soil for next year.
Hello Gary, I've been binge watching all your videos. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I'm a beginner gardener and I live in Europe in a very rainy climate, oceanic, it's the northwest peninsula of France called Brittany. I am on a budget and from what's available at local stores, what mix would you recommend? There's peat moss, sand, and a mix of perlite and vermiculite, and charcoal. I will be growing in fabric pots because I'm currently renting. I would like to do some berry bushes in some plastic containers too. So I was thinking that even though the perlite/vermiculite mix can get gummy it might be ok because I'm doing fabric pots so water could evaporate and I'd be mixing it with peat moss, charcoal, and sand. There's no pure perlite or pumice readily available. Am I ok in thinking this? Also, what do you think about growing perennials in fabric pots? Some people say not to because the roots grow through the fabric and when you want to finally plant your perennial in ground or change pots, the plant dies because the roots get too damaged. Thanks for any help!
Hello Gary, I’m near Detroit Michigan. I can’t get your Top Pot anywhere near me. Can you let me know the details of your mix? (1) Is the pumice fine granular / is there a grade or number? (2)What kind of sand? Play or mason or …?
thankfully they seem to have changed now. for a long time all the young orchids came in tiny pots filled tight with peat moss. if you didnt re-pot with better media, orchid was dead in a month or two, as it suffocated. the peat moss as substrate for orchids was a purely marketing idea.
@@marcuswelby921Gary’s Best Top Pot is 35% peat moss 30% pumice 20% perilite 10% sand 5% charcoal. Mix it up however, but I don’t recommend much above 50% peat moss. Gary’s Best Acid mix is 50% peat moss 50% pumice. 😉
Thank you Gary, the blind however choose to remain blind, the commenter above just proved it with his uneducated reply. He still doesn’t understand how in the world the plants would get the minerals, so you have to film another video for him but make it under 30 seconds. See People like this tend to have short attention span and believe in climate change. Forever sheep @aquapros916
Nope, just a firm grip on soil science and its role in providing energy to a photosynthesizing plant. I never said you cannot grow a plant in inert media...I said the further you get from living soil, the closer you get to hydroponics... Which is a fact.... According to this hypothesis being given here... We may as well grow dragon fruit in rockwool ....which is also "mineral based"
@@jondoe5536 look man, I don't have any beef with hydro.... Fast growth, big yield... Some folks swear by it. But let's call it what it is.... It's media... It's inert... It's not soil... I will say this... I challenge somebody to grow 2 cuttings from the same plant side by side... One in organic living soil and the other in inert media of your choice...when they bloom, taste test the fruit and come back here with some feed back....
@@aquapros916I think he has some great information. However there is a few things he is off on. Like the claim that mixing compost into your garden soil will make sewer gasses that spoil the soil. He also exaggerates greatly on how fast organic growing medium breaks down and the chance of root rot in those mixes. He often says the regular potting soil goes bad after 9 months however I have had my organic blends for over 4 years without them compacting or breaking down much. That’s a mix mainly of compost, coir and perlite. I think as long as the living organic soil has good drainage perhaps with the help of some perlite and or pumice it is going to last 5 years or more.
@@Rocketman0407 look into "no till" or "low till" living soil.... The more time that passes, the more the soil builds..the better the soil gets.... It's doesn't degrade...you can reuse it over & over again... Soil with compost DOES NOT create sewage gasses.... If it's c02 were talking about...ok, but plants create and thrive off that naturally.. Now... Organic matter DOES tend to compact the soil....over time... Some can take longer than others... But that's also not an issue if you plan ahead for it...don't want soil to compact? Add more drainage!! Sand..perlite..pumice..lava rock...whatever... No longer a issue to worry about. Again... I'm not saying this guys wrong and you can't grow plants this way..... But call it what it is.... This isn't soil gardening. It's hydro...
@@aquapros916I agree. Only thing I disagree on is calling this hydro. At least his mix has around 40% organic matter. 35% peat in the mix itself and he recommends mulching with compost and wood chips on top.
If theres no compost or castings, it is not soil. Lifeless soil is just dirt, the more inert the media is... The closer you are getting to "drain to waist hydroponics"... Dan grow rockwool is made primarily of rockdust...which could be classified as "mineral based" sure... But without any cationic exchange going on... What makes the minerals available to the plant? Any plant that photosynthasizes its energy from light will need some sort of soil web to deliver nutrients to the plant through bioavailability.....
In nature, even worms come to the surface to take a shit. And that is the part of duff layer Gary talks about. Water passes through the duff layer, takes nutrients with it and delivers them to the roots that live in the mineral part of the earth. It's not hard, just don't mix those two layers. Listen to Gary, not some people that just talk and don't even grow plants.
If you watched until the end you would notice that he addressed this. It's inert because the abundance of nutrients from the compost rots the roots. When a plant is young or recovering, overabundance of nutrients inside the soil will kill struggling plants. Natural soil, in nature, does not have a abundance of organic material inside of it. The soil food web works both ways.
![Summer Walker - Heart Of A Woman [Official Lyric Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/SFddctbZzw8/mqdefault.jpg)
Wow!! This just explained a lot of my frustrations! It’s the soil!!
I learned about this a couple months ago and I started transferring some plants I had growing in a compost based soil into a perlite-peat soil. Specifically, I had a couple of citrus trees that were dying slowly and now they are pushing insane growth out. It literally took a week for the plants to respond. I also did this with strawberries and the same thing is happening. Insane growth and massive leaves.
Whenever I want to add nutrients, I’ll just top dress with an organic fertilizer, compost or a liquid organic fertilizer. It works great.
you don't find that peat attracts gnats?
@@liberty7361 I don't find that at all.
I don’t find the compost in my mix to be any problem. I do 3 parts compost and 3 parts peat or coco coir and 1-2 parts of Perlite. It holds very well and has barely compacted any over the last few years.
So as long as you mix in something to help the drainage like perlite/pumice/sand/lava rocks growing in a compost heavy mix is totally fine I have found.
@@liberty7361 nope!
@@Rocketman0407 yeah, in my experience it’s the exact opposite. As long as I keep compost as top dress, everything is fine.
Thank You!!!!
Gary Matsuoka - “ it’s not the water that kills the plant, it’s the lack of oxygen around the roots that kills them”
Best way to put it! 🙏🏼
Amazing how the avocado can live and grow in water, without fertilizer.
You could theoretically grow a woody perennial plant (tree or shrub) like avocado for many, many years in a hydroponic setup with an aquarium airstone or other means to maintain constant oxygenation for the roots.
Once the seed (i.e. the avocado stone) has been depleted of nutrient reserve by the growing young seedling plant, the stone will wither away, and nutrients will then have been be added externally (i.e. water-soluble fertilizer dissolved in the hydroponic water). Or, in an organic setup, some hydroponic growers have fish species like tilapia, etc, to provide fish manure, which gets broken down by microbes to water-soluble nutrients, which are taken up by the plant roots.
I thoroughly enjoyed and learned yet again from another one of this gentleman's seminar.
My thanks!
I have seen some of his videos before and follow his words, and I have yet to have lost another avacado tree.
Prior to I lost 2 from nursery in the crap medium, they give ya from root rot.
Have yet to experience that now with both mango or avacado trees.
I now have most of my container plants in your soil. Could I use the cheap potting soil (which I have lots of) as compost on top of your soil for fungi and bacteria to break down for nutritional needs?
I never kept records of what I was doing, but I filled up a lot of five gallon buckets and other containers with various combinations of potting mix, clay soil from my yard, dried leaves, kitchen scraps, peat, etc. Only the tomatoes could grow through it all. Most stuff had a about six inches of roots and then black sludge in the container. Always disappointed when I went to remix the used soil for next year.
Hello Gary, I've been binge watching all your videos. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I'm a beginner gardener and I live in Europe in a very rainy climate, oceanic, it's the northwest peninsula of France called Brittany. I am on a budget and from what's available at local stores, what mix would you recommend? There's peat moss, sand, and a mix of perlite and vermiculite, and charcoal. I will be growing in fabric pots because I'm currently renting. I would like to do some berry bushes in some plastic containers too. So I was thinking that even though the perlite/vermiculite mix can get gummy it might be ok because I'm doing fabric pots so water could evaporate and I'd be mixing it with peat moss, charcoal, and sand. There's no pure perlite or pumice readily available. Am I ok in thinking this? Also, what do you think about growing perennials in fabric pots? Some people say not to because the roots grow through the fabric and when you want to finally plant your perennial in ground or change pots, the plant dies because the roots get too damaged.
Thanks for any help!
💪
Is this the prelude to the cannabis video? Or is this the video of the principles of growing cannabis?
I grew cannabis with this soil method and had the best results me and everyone I know has ever see
Hello Gary, I’m near Detroit Michigan. I can’t get your Top Pot anywhere near me. Can you let me know the details of your mix? (1) Is the pumice fine granular / is there a grade or number? (2)What kind of sand? Play or mason or …?
What do you think of leaf mulch, such as oak leaf mulch?
You mentioned that the soil mix is 30% pumice, 20% perilite and 10% sand. What is the other 40% the completes the mix?
35% Peatmoss and 5% charcoal.
He mentions it in different videos.
Is this potting mix good for Japanese Maple?
thankfully they seem to have changed now. for a long time all the young orchids came in tiny pots filled tight with peat moss. if you didnt re-pot with better media, orchid was dead in a month or two, as it suffocated. the peat moss as substrate for orchids was a purely marketing idea.
Sand means silica sand ?
Can't order it.
Is your soil available any where on the East coast of the United States???
Making your own is easy; is peat moss and perlite or pumice available to you?
Yes! I purchase each one u mentioned. Just unsure of the ratios for each one.
@@marcuswelby921Gary’s Best Top Pot is 35% peat moss 30% pumice 20% perilite 10% sand 5% charcoal. Mix it up however, but I don’t recommend much above 50% peat moss. Gary’s Best Acid mix is 50% peat moss 50% pumice. 😉
@@BrandonDePriest527Thank you everyone I appreciate it!!!
@@BrandonDePriest527 If you keep giving away the secret recipe, how is Gary suppose to get rich selling bags of soil?
Thank you Gary, the blind however choose to remain blind, the commenter above just proved it with his uneducated reply. He still doesn’t understand how in the world the plants would get the minerals, so you have to film another video for him but make it under 30 seconds. See People like this tend to have short attention span and believe in climate change. Forever sheep @aquapros916
Nope, just a firm grip on soil science and its role in providing energy to a photosynthesizing plant. I never said you cannot grow a plant in inert media...I said the further you get from living soil, the closer you get to hydroponics... Which is a fact.... According to this hypothesis being given here... We may as well grow dragon fruit in rockwool ....which is also "mineral based"
@@jondoe5536 look man, I don't have any beef with hydro.... Fast growth, big yield... Some folks swear by it. But let's call it what it is.... It's media... It's inert... It's not soil...
I will say this... I challenge somebody to grow 2 cuttings from the same plant side by side... One in organic living soil and the other in inert media of your choice...when they bloom, taste test the fruit and come back here with some feed back....
@@aquapros916I think he has some great information. However there is a few things he is off on. Like the claim that mixing compost into your garden soil will make sewer gasses that spoil the soil.
He also exaggerates greatly on how fast organic growing medium breaks down and the chance of root rot in those mixes.
He often says the regular potting soil goes bad after 9 months however I have had my organic blends for over 4 years without them compacting or breaking down much. That’s a mix mainly of compost, coir and perlite.
I think as long as the living organic soil has good drainage perhaps with the help of some perlite and or pumice it is going to last 5 years or more.
@@Rocketman0407 look into "no till" or "low till" living soil.... The more time that passes, the more the soil builds..the better the soil gets.... It's doesn't degrade...you can reuse it over & over again...
Soil with compost DOES NOT create sewage gasses.... If it's c02 were talking about...ok, but plants create and thrive off that naturally..
Now... Organic matter DOES tend to compact the soil....over time... Some can take longer than others... But that's also not an issue if you plan ahead for it...don't want soil to compact? Add more drainage!! Sand..perlite..pumice..lava rock...whatever... No longer a issue to worry about.
Again... I'm not saying this guys wrong and you can't grow plants this way..... But call it what it is.... This isn't soil gardening. It's hydro...
@@aquapros916I agree.
Only thing I disagree on is calling this hydro. At least his mix has around 40% organic matter. 35% peat in the mix itself and he recommends mulching with compost and wood chips on top.
If theres no compost or castings, it is not soil. Lifeless soil is just dirt, the more inert the media is... The closer you are getting to "drain to waist hydroponics"... Dan grow rockwool is made primarily of rockdust...which could be classified as "mineral based" sure... But without any cationic exchange going on... What makes the minerals available to the plant? Any plant that photosynthasizes its energy from light will need some sort of soil web to deliver nutrients to the plant through bioavailability.....
It can not be underestimated how stupid your comment is. Plus it is obvious you didn’t watch the whole video. Keep living in the dark. Sheep.
In nature, even worms come to the surface to take a shit. And that is the part of duff layer Gary talks about. Water passes through the duff layer, takes nutrients with it and delivers them to the roots that live in the mineral part of the earth. It's not hard, just don't mix those two layers. Listen to Gary, not some people that just talk and don't even grow plants.
If you watched until the end you would notice that he addressed this. It's inert because the abundance of nutrients from the compost rots the roots. When a plant is young or recovering, overabundance of nutrients inside the soil will kill struggling plants. Natural soil, in nature, does not have a abundance of organic material inside of it. The soil food web works both ways.