Native soil for indoor growing

I haven’t started any garden plants inside for years, I do start some in outdoor, unheated cold frames. Some of those are started in pots in my own mix and some directly in the ground. The mix is the crumbly part off the bottom of a rot pile, I don’t call it compost because it has not been properly mixed and turned; it’s just the sifted crumbly stuff from the bottom of a pile of old corn stalks, or bean vines or whatever is handy. I mix it with some straight soil and dry black locust leaves and maybe grass clippings that I collect and save over winter. It isn’t perfectly consistent from year to year, sometimes I go down to the river and get a bit of sand. I amend the ground with that same mix in the starting beds. I don’t use cell packs or things like that, I just pull or lift transplants with a hand trowel.

I have clivia miniata growing in the same pot with the same soil for over ten years and night blooming cereus in the same pot for over twenty years. Christmas cactus have been in their pots for five years. They all go outside in summer and spend the winter with limited light, low temps and little water. Sometimes in spring, when I clean the aquarium and pond filters, I water them a little with the black stuff that comes out.

1 Like

From Wikipedia

Polyacrylamide is of low toxicity but its precursor acrylamide is a neurotoxin and carcinogen. Thus, concerns naturally center on the possibility that polyacrylamide is contaminated with acrylamide. Considerable effort is made to scavenge traces of acrylamide from the polymer intended for use near food.

This makes me hopeful that the stuff intended for gardening is on the safer side and worry that the stuff in diapers is considerably dangerous.

It’s hard for me to know what I’d do if I lived with a water shortage, but from my vantage in the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”, it sounds like pretty iffy stuff.

1 Like

I’ll keep an eye out for any warning signs. So far, I’ve seen nothing but positives. Few tips for soil improvement are universal – this may be a great fit for my specific soil and climate.

1 Like