Hello! Does anyone here make their own soil mixtures without purchased materials? If you look for home made soil, its usually just a mix of bought ingredients like peat moss, coco coir, perlite etc. Peat moss is fossil, coco coir and perlite is certainly not from around here so definitely transported long ways.

Now, I’m no gardener but I can see that all the native plants around me don’t have any of that luxury, yet they thrive. Compost is the next obvious answer, but if you haven’t yet had time to establish one, what options are there?

I’ve successfully grown plants like tomatoes, strawberries, herbs and salad in a mix of gravel, local manure, topsoil and rotted wood.

I am looking for recipes and information on such mixes as I often struggle with drainage which killed my cucumbers. I need huge amounts of gravel to keep the silty manure from clogging up my pots but 3kg pots become quite silly too and the gravel makes repotting an almost sure death to any roots I want to move.

What are the consequences of using uncomposted organic materials? Some gardeners say soil acidity usually solves itself through microbes, yet the common saying is that it must be composted first.

Happy gardening Cheers