What great garden or potting soil contains...

Soil management is probably the most important aspect of an organic or natural gardening approach, but figuring out how to get it right for your pot/container/grow-bag garden is probably even more important.

In most cities, getting garden soil means going to the nursery – but we aren’t really sure what goes in to some of the garden mixes available commercially. Also, soils in containers degrade over time as erosion due to excess water, direct sunlight and nutrition uptake of the plants take their toll.

But one thing is certain – when you get the soil mix right, the results are amazing!

Here are some of the traits that you need to look for (or develop) in your soil, depending on what you want to grow:

• Good stable medium, especially if you are growing taller plants or fruit trees
• A balance of organic nutrients and micro-organisms, which will provide a good balanced diet to you plant (don’t even think NPK)
• Good drainage characteristics, because water-logging kills more plants than a lack of water. At the same time its important to ensure that the water doesn’t dry out to fast either.
• Good heterogeneous texture so that there are air gaps maintained in the soil (some small stones are a good idea)