Choosing Better Container Garden Soil

Plants growing in containers often use nutrients very quickly, so you should add fertilizer or compost regularly. You can buy water-soluble compounds or liquid fertilizers such as fish emulsion. With watering and drainage every day, you may need to fertilize about once a week.

Read the packaging of the soil mixtures carefully, as they vary in composition depending on the type of plants you will be growing. For example, you would not use an African violet soil mix, for tomato plants.

You can create your own container garden soil mixture by purchasing a bag of potting soil from the garden center. One general example of a good soil mix, is one part potting soil, one part peat moss and one part coarse sand.

This basic recipe can be adjusted depending on the types of plants you intend to include in your containers. For example, certain fruit, like tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes and peppers, are considered heavy feeders, so for every three gallons of soil recipe, you may add half a cup each of fish meal, bone meal, kelp meal, and garden lime.

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