It might sound weird but, there are many incredible Uses of Charcoal in the Garden. If you want to develop a healthy garden, please watch this episode till the end.
There are many types of charcoal available to purchase. But the good news is charcoal is very inexpensive to buy, though online prices are a bit on higher side than offline purchase. You get Hardwood and Softwood charcoal. Hard wood charcoal is best for gardening. Will tell you why as we proceed further. You also get special charcoals like coconut shell charcoal, bamboo coal, horticultural charcoal, activated charcoal and so on. It doesn’t matter, you can just use hard wood charcoal for your garden.
PURCHASE LINKS:
Wood Charcoal https://amzn.to/3FsyoNh
Coconut Charcoal https://amzn.to/3KTRKw3
Let us discuss the benefits of charcoal in gardening.
10. FILLING YOUR POT BOTTOM: Charcoal is porous and light weight and filling your container with pieces of charcoal at the bottom of your container, instead of using heavy weight rocks and pebbles, reduces your pot weight and you can lift or move your pot easily. This is a great boon for terrace gardeners.
9. CHARCOAL MULCHING: You don’t always need straws and twigs for mulching your top soil. You can use spread small charcoal pieces and enjoy the benefits of mulching. Mulching creates a protective covering over the soil surface and prevents moisture evaporation from the soil. It also helps to prevent weed growth over the soil.
8. GARDEN DÉCOR: Using a layer of small pieces of charcoal as mulch, especially around light-colored plants is a nice and unique way to create a different look in your garden!
7. AS AN ANTI-FUNGAL: Mixing charcoal to soil is an effective strategy to treat or prevent fungal infections in plants, especially succulents and adeniums which are more prone to fungal rot. Just include 10% of small pieces of charcoal in your potting mix to keep harmful fungi at bay.
6. INSECT KILLER: Sprinkle powdered charcoal over your plants. This helps deter many insects like the voracious beetles which can create havoc in your garden or on your crops.
5. PESTICIDE RESIDUE REMOVAL: The absorption qualities of charcoal powder, especially activated charcoal, helps in neutralizing the harmful effect of pesticides. Mix 500 grams of charcoal powder to 1 gallon of water (1 gallon is 3.78 litres). Spray or sprinkle this over the pesticide treated plants. This is very useful in edible gardening.
4. REDUCE FERTILIZER FREQUENCY: Charcoal will also absorb any fertilizer you put into the garden and will hold it over a long period of time, providing the plants a slow, steady supply. Here, you need to know one thing – Hard wood holds more nutrients than soft wood.
3. INCREASE SOIL PH: If your soil is highly acidic like PH of 5 or below, you need to increase the soil ph to desired level. A soil ph of 6.0 +/-0.5 is considered ideal for most plants. The potassium content in charcoal and also wood ash raises the pH balance of the soil and neutralizes the acid. Just don’t add too much ash, because if you increase the soil ph too much – like over 7, the plants may not do well, because most of the nutrient absorption in soil happens at a PH of around 6.0. So, How much of charcoal to add per container or per plant? You can add 100 gms or max 200 gms of charcoal per standard container – like a 12-inch container. Of course depending upon your soil PH level. You can read a detailed post on soil ph and its importance in improving flowering HERE.
2. IN POTTING SOIL: Charcoal acts as an excellent soil conditioner, thanks to its low cost, and in fact it’s a suitable replacement of lime in soil additive mixes. It makes the soil a well-draining soil which is very important for plant growth. It is the high porosity of charcoal that benefits plant soils because it offers more of the oxygen that plant roots need to stay alive.
1. REMOVES BAD ODOURS IN SOIL AND COMPOST: You can sprinkle charcoal powder over your compost to reduce foul odors that may arise during composting. Also, when included in potting soil, charcoal soaks up the nauseating odors of compost and manure, while leaving the nutritional integrity of the mixture intact.
Urban gardening or small-space gardening in containers is on
the rise! And the number of people growing plants indoors is also on the rise.
The most important aspect of container gardening is the potting medium used,
because this, along with light and moisture will be the most important factor
to help your plants grow healthier and disease free.
I never use the commercial potting mixes available, which are infact too expensive.
I rather prefer to make my own homemade potting mix recipe for both my indoor
and outdoor plants
Now, lets start looking at the ingredients we use to prepare our indoor soil mix, one by one. We will list out the formula or the recipe with the proportions of each ingredient used, shortly.
- Garden Soil: This forms the major component of an outdoor potting soil recipe because one of its major functions is plant anchorage which is very important for outdoor plants which can easily knocked down by strong winds. We will use garden soil in our indoor potting mix too but in smaller quantity.
- Cocopeat or Peat Moss: I prefer cocopeat because its easily available and inexpensive and has a neutral PH. Plus mixing this with garden soil removes the compactness of garden soil and makes it well draining. This forms the major ingredient of our indoor potting mix. Its available as a compact brick or in powdered form. The coco peat brick can be easily reconstituted into cocopeat powder by mixing it in water. One brick of about 5 kgs will give you a large volume of upto 75 liters of cocopeat powder.
- Compost: like vermicompost or decomposed cowdung or horse dung powder or both. Compost manure is an essential component of any potting mix to provide the major and minor plants nutrients like the NPK – nitrogen phosphorous and potassium along with the trace elements. We have already discussed this in our previous episode on the basics of indoor gardening.
- Neem Cake Powder: This is optional. But adding this will take care of any fungus and harmful bacterial growths and protects your plants.
- Bone Meal Powder: This is again optional but very useful if you are growing vegetables or flowering plants indoors under grow lights. This will induce flowering and fruiting if mixed in potting soil.
- Perlite, Vermiculite or Pumice: All these serve the same purpose of making a well draining potting mix plus adding a good aeration system for roots. Among these Vermiculite should be cautiously used, because it holds lot of moisture and can rot you plants especially succulents. Vermiculite can be used for water loving plants like lucky bamboo and others. Pumice and Perlite are the best options. Among these two, the main drawback of Perlite is it gets crushed into powder if you use it along with too much garden soil and in this case pumice is the best if available. Garden Pumice or horticultural pumice is available in various grades or sizes and it does not get crushed unlike perlite. You can find the links to purchase these items online in the description below.
Now quickly, before the formula
or recipe, lets know the difference between Potting Mix and Potting Soil.
Potting Mix is simply a mixture of all the above ingredients minus the garden
soil. That’s means it is a soil less medium. On the other hand, Its called
Potting soil when you use garden soil in the mixture. That’s simple! But most
often these two terms are used synonymously.
Well, here in this recipe, considering the importance of plant anchorage, we
will use garden soil too but in small quantity.
Now lets look into the actual recipe of this indoor potting soil.
- Cocopeat forms about 40 to 50 percent of this mix.
- Garden soil about 10 or 20 percent.
- Perlite or Pumice or both about 20 percent
- Compost like vermicompost or Cow dung compost or a mixture of both 20 percent depending on what you want to grow. For veggies and flowering plants, you can increase this to 30 percent. For ornamental plants 10 to 20 percent is sufficient. This can also be added later on to the top layer of the soil – a handful of it per container once or twice in a month.
Optionally you can add 5 percent bone meal plus neem cake powder.
Let me start with the 3 P’s of Successful Gardening.
1. Planning your Garden
2. Potting Mix Preparation and
3. Planting
So, Today we will discuss on the second P of gardening, that’s Preparing the best potting Mix for your plants based on some useful scientific concepts. Please watch the video till the end. First we will discuss the Criteria for the best potting soil for your plants and then the formula or the recipe for the best all-purpose universal potting mixture for your gardening.
Well, You need to Understand this Point: Why cant I just dig up the ground and use this soil for my plants? This is because we have two major limitations of this:
1. Compaction or hardening of soil – mainly with clayey soil which can suffocate the roots.
2. Lack of Nutrients in the soil- that’s the Major NPK elements (Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium) and also the minor trace elements.
Hence, the need to prepare your own potting soil arises.
Hold on friends, some more important concepts to learn before I disclose my recipe. A few criteria you should be taking care while preparing your potting mix.
1. DRAINAGE: We all know, too much water can rot your plants. So a well draining soil that quickly drains out water within a particular duration of time is important for all plants. This is the most important criteria for growing succulents and based on this you adjust the proportions of stuff like sand, perlite and other stuff.
2. WATER RETAINING CAPACITY: This is quite opposite of the first factor. So we have to add materials in such a way that the water should neither drain out too quickly nor it should stagnate in the container.
3. NUTRIENTS: This is a very important criteria in container gardening. We have to add certain nutrients into the potting mix so that your plant can produce flowering or fruiting at right time and grows in a healthy manner.
Having said that, Now Lets Start making our Potting Mix with the best and easily available ingredients.
I am showing you two formulae, One you can use purely for teres gardening which is very light weight and will not have any compaction. This can also be an ideal seed starting mix so that the seeds can push the light weight ingredients in its germination process and also to some extent sterile.
And the second one is our all purpose mix for most of our plants. You can change the proportions as per your requirement, but generally this mix will be useful for any plant. So the formula is:
1. Good quality Garden Soil about 40 percent (by good quality I mean, it should not have large stones or other large sized stuff in it).
2. Cocopeat or Peat Moss: 30 percent. If you do not have this, you can use about 10 to 20 percent River Sand. Adding more sand may result in too fast drainage which might be useful for succulents and cacti.
3. 20 to 30 percent Compost like decomposed cowdung powder or Vermicompost or leaf compost or a mix of these. These first 3 ingredients should be the minimum for your plants.
4. You can further fortify this with 5 percent of any of these or a combination of these, that is Bone Meal powder for flowering and fruiting + Neem Cake or Any oil cake Powder for anti microbial and antifungal effect for root protection.
5. Then you can also add Trichoderma or pseudomonas powder and also some beneficial fungi called Mycorrhizae. You can watch a detailed video on these useful soil fungi from a link at top right corner of this video and also in the description.
The Second Formula of Potting Mix is a light weight mix suitable for roof top gardening and also as a great seed starting mix. Here you do not use garden soil, but only
1. Cocopeat or peat moss (50 percent)
2. Compost like decomposed cowdung powder or vermicompost (30 percent)
3. Perlite or Vermiculite about 20 percent (You can check out my detailed video on the differences and benefits of Perlite and Vermiculite from a card link at top right and also from description.
4. You can optionally add the same 5 percent ingredients like bone meal, neem mix, mycorrhizae etc as discussed earlier.
So, Today we will learn on this topic and use 5 simple steps to revive or rejuvenate expired or old garden soil.
The soil is the most important growth medium for plants which provides them the necessary nutrients and moisture for proper growth. The useful life of a potting soil recipe depends on whether or not it is currently in use. Todays focus is mainly on unused potting soil and how to recharge it with few simple steps. The regular or the used potting soil with plants growing in it has the necessary activities in it like the beneficial microbial activity and you feeding the plants regularly with fertilizers and so on. So what happens with Unused potting soil. It actually lasts roughly about six months before it degrades in quality with depletion of nutrients and the beneficial microorganisms go into dormancy that is a state of inactivity. But one point to remember: the used soil with plants growing in it should be replaced every one or two years for best results in container gardening.
Now the 5 Important Steps to Reuse old potting soil and revitalize it and how to make potting soil or the best potting mix:
- Remove old plant matter like the roots, twigs or leaves. Pull out any dead plants and weeds and other garden debris.
- Fluff and till the soil, make a layer of about 3 to 4 inches. Break up any large clods as you loosen the soil. And sprinkle some water on the top and Dry it in sunlight for atleast a week. You can cover with a polythene sheet after 2 days so that weeds do not invade this layer and also this protects from rains if any.
One Simple Hack here to check whether the soil is ready for further processing. Squeeze a handful of the soil into a tight ball. Flick the ball with your fingers. If it falls apart, the soil is dry enough to work. If the ball retains its shape or only develops a slight dent, the soil is too wet and must dry for some more time before you can proceed to revitalize it. - Soil PH Test – This step is Optional. You can do a soil ph test before and after the process of adding nutrients. Based on this you can adjust the nutrients to properly adjust the soil ph to your desired level. You can check related videos on this like wood ash in gardening, and also Vinegar or Alum in gardening to make it more acidic or alkaline and many other similar videos at my channel – https://youtube.com/gardentips.
- Adding nutrients to the soil – Mix it with fresh compost like decomposed cowdung powder or any Compost at a 1 :1 ratio or atleast 30 percent. To combat fungus and other harmful pathogens organically you can add about 10 percent Neem cake powder if available. Optionally you can add some gypsum and lime dust and other nutrients or components like bone meal powder, little Epsom salt, and other stuff, like how we make our all purpose or the universal potting soil mix. You can check out my video on this topic from https://youtube.com/gardentips.
- Mixing: Mix it thoroughly – this is also an important step so that your containers get everything right in proper proportions – neither too less nor too much.
- Then lastly, If you do not plan to use it right away, Always store the soil covered and in dry areas with low humidity and away from dampness.
We will first start with Definition and Composition of Topsoil:
Have you ever been to a river bank and noticed different layers of soil? You might have observed that the top layer of this soil was dark colored and lush. This is topsoil, often referred to as the A or O horizon in soil. In soil classification systems, topsoil is known as the “O Horizon or A Horizon,” therefore, it is the very top layer
Take a closer look at the image on screen. Notice the dark layer of topsoil where the plants root themselves.
Topsoil is defined by the top two to seven inches of soil that has the greatest organic matter content and microorganisms. Organic matter is what is left after plant roots, stems and leaves decompose. Topsoil is made up of carbon and nitrogen, microbes and larger creatures such as worms, beetles and other insects. A fertile topsoil also has concentrations of nutrients including potassium, phosphorus and iron. Topsoil varies depending on geographic location and climate, as well as human activities.
Often, the blacker the topsoil is, the richer it is in nutrients, and the stronger its earthy smell. Rich, nutritive topsoil is able to hold on more water. Consequently, greater nutrients and water availability allow topsoil to be more productive in terms of plant growth. Farmer’s try to manage topsoil to allow for a reduction in dependence of chemical fertilizer and additives to prevent disease.
What Does Topsoil Do?
Most importantly, topsoil provides nutrients to growing plants. This is because this region of soil does the main biological nutrient cycling, providing needed carbon and nitrogen molecules for plants to grow.
Topsoil is the home to a diverse community of microbes that do this cycling. More importantly, the more diverse a microbial population is, the less soil diseases or plant diseases occur, reducing a farmer’s reliance on herbicide or pesticide because the soil community ensures healthy crops.
Topsoil is required to plant lawns and gardens. When building a new home, people search for topsoil to ensure a healthy lawn. Gardeners tend to till in topsoil into their gardens to increase nutrient cycling, organic matter and water holding capacity. This makes sure that their time and effort in gardening is well worth it because the soil is healthy to provide a productive, bountiful garden.
Again Stressing on the Importance of Topsoil in Gardening,
The Plants generally concentrate their roots in and obtain most of their vital nutrients from this layer thatst the topsoil layer. Actual depth of the topsoil layer can be measured as the depth from the surface to the first densely packed soil layer known as subsoil.
So, When starting a gardening project, it is crucial to check whether or not the soil is satisfactory. Different types of plants vary in their nutrient needs and preferred soil conditions, many are strongly adapted to particular conditions.
Topsoil is the primary resource for plants to grow and crops to thrive and the main two parameters for this are Carbon and Nitrogen. The Carbon provides energy and Nitrogen is a tissue builder and plants require them in a range of ratios to enable suitable growth. An optimum figure for Topsoil is a ratio of less than 20:1. This ensures that the soil has a suitable energy reserve as well as tissue building material to enable the plants to thrive.
A variety of soil mixtures are sold commercially as topsoil, usually for use in improving gardens and lawns, e.g. container gardens, potting soil and peat. Another important yet not commonly known use for topsoil is for proper surface grading near residential buildings such as homes. “The ground around the home should slope down six inches for the first ten feet away from the home. This can often be done by adding topsoil (not sand or gravel)
Topsoil Erosion
A major environmental concern known as topsoil erosion occurs when the topsoil layer is blown or washed away.
SO, that’s it in brief about a new topic – the TOPSOIL.