I wanted to share a little on the potting soil we use for the plants in our #nursery:

What we are looking for is a medium that drains easily, yet retains moisture. The cost is also a factor.

Since we pot mostly perennials, I also am looking for a fungally dominant potting mix vs. bacterially dominant as you'd have with fresh compost.

Wood chips around here are easy to get by the truckload, and I use well rotted ones for the basis of my compost mix. And by "rotted" I mean "rotted": They look like soil and are completely broken down by fungus, it takes about 2-3 years.

On top of the wood chips I add about 5% by volume charged biochar. About half of this is sifted to 1/4" + and the other half of the biochar is right out of the leaf vacuum I use to crush it up. The biochar is charged with azomite, sea minerals, worm casts, and effective microorganisms (EM-1). We make the biochar right here on the farm. It serves both to provide and retain nutrients and moisture as well as provide drainage:

Then worm castings sifted to 1/8" and finer at around 5% by volume. I also raise the worms for the casts, the current system involves growing them in 4'x8' Waste Management Bagsters:

Finally about 1 quart of activated EM-1. This is 1 oz Terraganix EM-1 mixed with 1 oz blackstrap molasses in 30 oz of water:

This all gets mixed up by hand, and then we use it to pot our plants.

I mix it in a gorilla cart which will provide enough for about 25-30 trade gallon pots.

#grownostr #permaculture #fungi #plantstr #garden