Make your own organic soil

Home made rich organic soil

Making your own soil is so easy - you don't need to buy it. This home made soil is great for the garden and self watering planter boxes.
Here is a detailed description of how we make it.
Ingredients for making soil:
Compost - composted fruit and vegie scraps from kitchen, garden waste, grass clippings. Do not put meat scraps and bread into compost - it will attract rats. Weeds with seeds we put in a bucket full of water - that way seeds get drowned (are not viable any more) and get great weed tea ( liquid fertilizer) on top .
Cow manure - let it soak for  a few weeks
Sheep manure - is very mild and can be used direct
Horse manure - it is a hot manure so let it soak for a few weeks before use
Wood chips from tree maintenance - let them weather in pile for a few months.

Organic soil heap

Mushroom compost - get it from a mushroom farm, either in bags of mushroom soil where mushrooms were growing ( you might still harvest some mushrooms from these bags) or get a trailer load ($30) direct from the mushroom farm.
Mushroom compost is rich in organic matter and low in nitrogen. It's alkaline - I applied fresh mushroom compost on the top of a herb bed and nearly killed all the herbs,  so let it age for a couple of months before use.

Coffee grounds - we collect a huge amount of coffee grounds from a local coffee shop. They are rich in nitrogen and other substances as well as a great source of carbon which is very important for soil.
Dolomite -  use as a soil sweetener - a handful per one meter  square. Rich in Calcium and Magnesium. Don't use it if your soil Ph is alkaline as it would increase the alkalinity.
Rock dust (crusher dust) a handful per one meter square. Sprinkle it on the garden twice a year.

Final result - Rich organic soil

Charcoal/ash - from camp fire - smash charcoal into small pieces ( about 5mm) and soak them in chicken manure liquid. Charcoal acts as a sponge sucking nutrition in as it's very porous. Then it slowly releases nutrients into the soil. Charcoal in the soil assists with water retention. ( It absorbs water when wet and releases it when dry) Charcoal is a great source of carbon. Ash contains a lot of minerals particularly potassium and trace elements.


Quantity: one wheelbarrow of all compost and manure ingredients, a couple of buckets of coffee grounds and half a bucket of dolomite and rock dust.

Put all ingredients in layers on a pile and mix it up. Shovel this pile to make another pile and then shovel it back.This way all ingredients will mix up nicely.
Let it sit (weather) for a few weeks and your rich organic soil is ready to use.