When putting new planting beds in your yard, it’s important that the soil you use is rich in both nutrients and organic material. A good recipe for soil in planting beds consists of:
- 4 parts potting soil
- 1 part compost
- 1/2 part bone meal
- 1/4 Epson salt (magnesium sulfate)
Watch this video to find out more.
Further Information
- How to Amend Soil Around Shrubs and Garden Plants (article)
- Guide to Soil Amendments for Your Garden (article)
- How to Fertilize Plants with Epsom Salts (article)
- What Is Dirt, Anyway? (article)
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Danny Lipford: When you ask someone advice on what’s the right mixture for establishing a new planting bed, you’ll get just as many opinions as the number of people that you ask about it. See what Tricia says.
Tricia Craven Worley: Well Danny what you say is true. There are so many ways to put together a good soil, but I have a particular mix that I feel is pretty well safe. And that is to use four parts of potting soil, and one part of compost, and then about a half part of bone meals, and a quarter part of Epson salts. Let me show you.
Now the Epson salt that we use – you think that it’s salt, but it’s actually magnesium sulfur. And why we put this in is it gives some mineral addition to the soil. It works out really, really well.
Danny: What about the bone meal? What exactly does that contribute?
Tricia: Bone meal is so important for establishing good roots. And bone meal is something that a lot of people that plant bulbs, they know all about bone meal. And again, it really lends a very important part to the soil – there is nitrogen and phosphate, two very important minerals that make it a rich soil.
Danny: Okay and basically you just mix it all together and I’ll tell you what? Once you do get it mixed you can tell that’s some pretty rich stuff.
Tricia: Oh, isn’t it beautiful!
