Soil from Scratch

I've made a lot of things in my life and followed a lot of recipes, but this was the first time I made dirt. Well, technically it's potting soil and technically Jay made it and technically it's the third year that he followed this recipe, but, well, you get the picture.

Why make dirt? It's not for mud pies, I'll tell you that! We are planning to grow and offer for sale about 100 hanging baskets of cherry tomatoes. We also are selling hundred of tomato, pepper, and cucumber seedlings. That takes a lot of soil. And, I don't know if you've noticed, but bags of potting soil can get pretty expensive...well, expensive for dirt, anyway.

So, my always inquisitive husband searched and researched online and found a recipe for potting soil. Just like most cooking, it's a lot cheaper to make this from scratch than it is to buy it premade. It also lets us control the soil type a bit, adjusting the ingredients to increase the water absorption and decrease the watering frequency.

So how do you make dirt? I'm not sure how many of his secrets Jay wants posted here, but it looks something like this (photos by K):

Which then turns into this:

Soil from Scratch