Which Soil is Best 💲🌋🧿️💲 Top Soil vs Garden Soil vs Potting Soil

this video is all about soil and selecting the right kind of soil when you go out and buy bags of soil or you buy bulk soil do you know which one to pick and what the differences are in this video i'm going to try to clarify that we're going to look at different soil options i'm also going to have a look at soilless material because those are incorporated into soil a lot of the times and finally i'll look at specific garden situations and recommend the soil for you what do i recommend for containers raised beds a new vegetable garden now before we get going i have to introduce you to some of my friends i'm standing in the middle of my 40-foot arbor and i built this specifically for growing clematis and here are a couple new ones that i really love the one beside me here is john paul it's the first flowering it looks great nice white flowers with a nice dark eye in the middle the other one i really like is this one here called ramona it's a very large flower really nice blue color so far this one has not flowered a lot for me i always get a few blooms later in the season which is great because most of the other clematis are starting to be finished how do you select the right soil for your garden to answer that question we're going to have a look at different types of soil options and then we're going to discuss which of those options are the best for various situations in the garden there is no one right soil for everything you do in the garden you want to match the right soil for the right application here are some very common soil options topsoil triple mix garden soil and sand in north america there are almost no regulations that control what each of these are to be honest i could take any kind of garbage put it in a bag and call it topsoil or triple mix or garden soil this is one of the big problems with trying to buy soil you really don't know what you're getting unless you go and actually look at it or you trust the supplier i'm going to go through and describe each one of these and tell you what it should be if you look at the soil on the ground you'll find the very top layer is usually some sort of vegetation below that is a few inches of what is normally quite dark good soil and that's the topsoil as we go down deeper into the soil profile the soil usually gets browner and browner or gray or yellow as in this slide but it loses that blackness and the reason is that that black color is due to organic matter and the farther you go down in the soil the less organic matter you have this topsoil can be a couple inches or could be as much as a foot in some places and that's good soil because it has all this organic matter many municipalities have regulations that require developers to remove that topsoil before they start building that creates these piles of topsoil and they're required to use it in an eco-friendly way and one of those ways is to sell it to gardeners now this is particularly good soil or it can be the problem is that in areas with a lot of development this soil gets piled up and could sit there for five or ten years before it's used by the time you get it a lot of that organic matter will have decomposed and a lot of the microbes that were in that soil are also dead and gone all topsoil is not equal triple mix is usually made up of one-third soil one-third peat moss and one-third compost but to be honest i'm not sure what you get when you order triple mix and i suspect that the ratios depend very much on what the prices of each component where you happen to live in a lot of places the soil is the cheapest one and so they may be heavy on the soil side this is a really nice soil for growing things because it has a lot of organic matter in there and the compost and peat moss provide lots of air and they hold a lot of water the one problem with this mixture is that two-thirds of it is organic matter and over time that organic matter decomposes so over time this material shrinks and you have less and less and less all the time but the material does grow really good plants now garden soil could be just about anything there's no real definition of this material it could be just top soil could be bottom soil it could be triple mix or it could be any combination a lot of people add the label black to garden soil so you get something like black garden soil and they do that because gardeners know that black soil is better and so that makes people buy the product the real problem with this one though is that you don't know what it is so for the most part i suggest you stay away from it the next product you could use is sand a lot of people suggest using sand to mix in with a clay soil to lighten it it adds better drainage to that soil well it doesn't really add drainage to the soil because the sand is only going to be mixed into the top few inches of soil but it can make that clay soil a little easier to dig now other people claim that if you add clay and sand together you make something hard like concrete that's not really true what the sand does is coat the particles of clay and it does make the soil easier to dig the problem is to make a big change you have to add a lot of sand to your soil and most people don't add nearly enough the other thing to understand is that that sand doesn't add any organic matter it doesn't add any nutrients so it's really not making the soil better for plant growth but it does have a use in certain applications if you're going to get sand for your garden or maybe for potted plants there are different kinds of sand what you see here and what you get on a beach is sand that's very polished the particles are round and smooth and they pack together fairly well and that's not what you want for a garden instead what you want is something called builder sand or sand that's for making mortar the sand and these mixes are more irregular and sharp they don't have the rounded corners and so they don't pack as much they work much better in soil now here are some other things that people call soil but a much more correct term would be a soilless material and these include things like compost heat moss core vermiculite and perlite now you're probably familiar with most of these but core may be new to you core is made from the outer husk of coconuts and this is a waste product of the coconut industry and it's ground up and turned into material that looks very much like peat moss now there's a controversy about using either peat moss or core some people feel that peat moss is not a sustainable product and we should stop using it and that's simply not true we have huge peat moss resources and the amount of new peat moss that is naturally made every year by nature far exceeds all of the peat moss that's used and in fact 99 of the peat moss that's used every year is used in heating and agriculture the small amount that we use in pots really is insignificant some people feel that core is a better product because it's a waste product from the coconut industry so we might as well use it the problem is that it has its own environmental concerns it requires huge amounts of fresh water to clean out the salt in the core and that's a problem in places where this is made which includes india and sri lanka which have very limited amounts of fresh water making this material is also very dusty and there are large health concerns about the factories making this material in north america we have large deposits of peat moss and if we use that we don't have to ship in core all the way from india a lot of people ignore the cost of transportation to the environment if you want to read more about this topic have a look at my website gardenmyths.com where i've written several articles about the sustainability of peat and core one of the characteristics that all of these soilless materials have is that they add a lot of water and air to the mix and so they're a good addition to soil the problem is that some of them don't provide any nutrients now compost slowly degrades and adds nutrients to the soil but the rest of the items on this list adversely no nutrients to plants i'd like to have a look at one other property of these soilless mix components and that is something called cec the cation exchange capacity don't worry about this technical name i'm going to simplify this so that you really understand what this means cec is a measure of how well a material holds on to nutrients a high cec means that it holds on to them very well and a low cec means it doesn't hold on to them at all let me explain what this cec is all about i'm going to take potassium nitrate as an example but what i'm going to explain here applies to all nutrients potassium nitrate is a common component of fertilizer and its formula is kno3 but when we put potassium nitrate in water it breaks up into two separate molecules there's a potassium plus molecule and an no3 minus molecule in water these two exist separately and float around independent of each other and you'll notice that both of these have a charge the potassium is a plus charge and the nitrate is a minus charge now this is really important for understanding nutrients in soil what the charge does is make these molecules act like little magnets plus and minus attract each other so if we take the water away these two molecules will come back together and form potassium nitrate but in water those magnets stay separate what happens when these molecules bump into a piece of clay well the clay is also charged and clay has both plus and minus charges so both the potassium and the nitrate stick to clay the clay holds onto these nutrients and for this reason clay has a high cec value even though clay is holding these nutrients they're not being held so tightly that plants can't use them so when a plant root comes in contact with this piece of clay it can absorb the potassium or nitrate from the clay and absorb it into the plant so this clay molecule is kind of like a little refrigerator for plants it holds on to the food for plants until the plant's ready to come and get it and that's why it's so important for the soil now some of the material we've been talking about has a low cec and some of it has a high so here's a list of the low cec material sand silt perlite and vermiculite all have low cecs which mean they don't hold on to nutrients so if you have a pot full of perlite and you fertilize that pot and then water it the water will just wash all the nutrients out the bottom none of them will be held onto the perlite and the same is true for the other items on this list this is one of the main reasons that sandy soil is not very nutritious when we fertilize sandy's soil the nutrients don't stick to the sand they just go right through the soil that means that sandy soil needs to be fertilized a lot more now this is really important when you're trying to put a soilless mix together because if you use material that doesn't hold nutrients it's not much good for plants this list on the other hand are the high cec materials and these include peat moss core compost and clay when nutrients come in contact with these materials they stick to them because all of these have charges on them they all act like little magnets and they hold the nutrients tight enough so that water doesn't wash it away too quickly now let's summarize the properties of these soilless mix materials they all provide air and water to the mix when it comes to providing nutrients compost is the only one that releases nutrients when it decomposes when peat moss and core decompose there are no nutrients in those materials so none is released to the soil vermiculite and perlite also don't contain nutrients the fourth column tells us which of these actually hold nutrients that might become available through fertilization or through decomposition compost peat moss and core have the high cec and hold nutrients and the other two don't why is all this so important if i'm going to create a soilless mix i have to make sure that i have nutrients for my plants the item on this list that is most useful is compost because it not only provides nutrients when it decomposes but it also has all these charges and it holds those nutrients until plants can use it peat moss and core aren't quite as good but they're a better choice than vermiculite and perlite whether you're mixing a soilless mix or you're adding these things to real soil keep these things in mind if at all possible use compost it's the best option vermiculite and perlite just doesn't add much value to a mix that you're making for plants now let's look at some situations in the garden and decide on the best soil option let's say you want to fix a low spot in the garden maybe it's in your lawn and you've got a little divot that you want to raise up or perhaps you have a bed where the soil is settled and you want to raise that soil i recommend using topsoil if you use something like triple mix it just shrinks too fast and in a couple years you have to come along and do the job all over again even topsoil has a problem that way because the materials usually sieve to get all the stones out and it's kind of fluffed up because you buy this in volume but at least topsoil doesn't settle nearly as much as triple mix what about containers what kind of soil should you use in containers well there are a couple options here the first one is to use some kind of soilless mix and in fact most people go to the store and buy a bag of soilless mix that material usually has a lot of peat moss in it or it could have core in it plus a bit of vermiculite and a little perlite and maybe a little fertilizer but in most cases that material is the soilless material and there's very little nutrients in it now this grows great plants the plant roots get lots of air lots of water as long as you're fertilized regularly nutrients aren't a problem and plants grow really well this is the option i like to use and it's a bit non-traditional i use about 50 garden soil and my garden soil has a fair amount of clay in it and then to that i add about 30 soilless mix maybe some peat moss and 20 compost there are two reasons for doing this one is that garden soil has nutrients in it and so they're feeding my plants the clay in that garden soil holds moisture much better than any soilless mix or even compost i end up with a container that needs to be watered less often and i have to fertilize less often which means a whole lot less work for me and my plants grow just as well in this mix as they do in a traditional soilless mix by the way at the end of the season don't throat the soil you have in your containers you can use it again next year soil and soilless mixes do not get old if they settle a bit top them up with new material and plant all right let's say you want to create a new bed you've got a lawn you want to get rid of it and you want to turn that into a flower bed or maybe a vegetable bed how do you go about doing this step one is to remove the grass and weeds then what i like to do is add compost the reason is that most soil around a home does not have enough organic matter and i want to raise the amount in that soil six inches of compost would be great most people only add two or three inches and that works quite well too but add as much compost as you can then rototill it in or dig it in by hand get it all mixed in really well then plant and mulch now this is the procedure for creating the bed the first year in all subsequent years you don't do any rototilling and you don't do any digging in the second year in the third year simply put some more compost on top and let nature take it into the soil what about an existing bed you have perennials and trees and shrubs those are permanent plantings you simply can't dig up the whole thing what do you do with those beds well i don't try to put soil onto those beds you have to live with the level that you have but what you can do is increase the amount of organic matter in there and you can mulch mulch does two things it adds organic matter to the soil and maintains a higher moisture level in the soil both of which are good for plants in an ornamental bed with flowers and trees and shrubs i like to use wood chips i just layer them on and i always keep a layer of two or three inches on the bed you can also add some compost the problem with compost is weeds like to grow in it so if you're going to use compost it's better to put the compost on first and then put wood chips on top and that will cut down on the amount of weeds that you have if you have an existing bed that you use for vegetables you don't want to use wood chips the problem with wood chips is that if they get dug into the soil the microbes start decomposing that wood and they suck nitrogen out of the soil to do that and they may take the nitrogen away from your plant roots so your plants don't grow as well so wood chips don't work quite as well in a vegetable garden there i like to use straw that straw tends to stay above the soil and doesn't get dug in slowly decomposes so you have to replace it every couple years but in that process is adding organic matter to the soil again if you want to add some compost before you put down the straw that works quite well too you don't really want to put soil into these gardens because they already have the soil what they're really missing is the organic matter how about raised beds these are very popular these days so you've made yourself a really nice set of raised beds and now you have to fill them what do you use well option a is triple mix i mean it grows great vegetables the problem with triple mix is that it settles it's two-thirds organic material that organic material decomposes over time so the level gets lower and lower every year few years in you have to buy more triple mix to top up your beds another option is to mix top soil and compost so these beds be filled mostly with topsoil but maybe 10 compost so what you have here is a mix that has mostly soil in it a bit of organic matter it's not going to settle nearly as much as the triple mix but it will still grow very good vegetables so this is actually my preferred mix for raised beds and by the way you can have raised beds without the cost of making walls all you have to do is raise the soil up 6 inches 12 inches and you have almost all the benefits of raised beds let's talk about topping up existing beds i see this as a very common spring ritual people go to the garden center load up on bags of black soil take it home and spread it around all their gardens i've never understood why people do that if an existing bed is really low and you have to add soil adding an inch of soil isn't going to make a difference you really have to rip out the whole bed and start over again i think people do this because for some reason they think they have to add new soil to the garden as if their old soil just isn't good enough we got to get some fresh soil added to the garden and so we put this inch or two of new black soil over everything and we feel that's good for plants well adding more soil on top of existing plants is not a good idea they don't like it what these gardens really need is more organic matter these beds have lots of soil that's sand silt and clay material what they're missing is organic matter so instead of adding soil to these beds what you should be doing is getting yourself some good compost and adding that to soil over time that will raise the soil level a little bit but more importantly it will get incorporated into the soil through the action of soil microbes and dew worms and insects and that will make the soil around the roots better i hope you've learned some things about soil and selecting the right one but there's a lot more to knowing about soil and i think this is absolutely critical for gardeners remember that plants are growing in that soil and most of the culture and care of plants comes from the soil if you don't understand soil you don't understand how the nutrients and soil work with plants you're going to always have difficulty growing plants once you understand the soil gardening becomes so much easier now i've written a book specifically for gardeners called soil science for gardeners the book is broken up into three sections part one looks at the basic information about soils and nutrients and microbes part two helps you go through and assess your own soil and determine the problems you have and part three helps you put together a personalized soil remediation development plan so that you build good soil long term i also have several videos on soil and some of these videos show you how to test your own soil if you're interested in those click on the link i hope your clematis grows well as these guys

Channel: Garden Fundamentals

Views: 5,733

Rating: 4.967742 out of 5

Keywords: soil, garden soil, top soil, potting soil, peat moss, coir, coco coir, perlite, vermiculite, raised beds, containers, vegetable gardens, ornamental gardens, bagged soil

Id: kphMc_Rkz_o

Length: 23min 51sec (1431 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 10 2020