What soil to grow plants in?

[tortoisesurprise]

My daughter received a Western Hermanns for her birthday. She has been getting Baby's food from the health food store or out of our garden, but she wants to grow plants inside for the winter. Specifically, she wants to grow African Violets and spider plants. We're trying to find safe soil to grow the plants in, but everything we find contains fertilizer. What is safe to grow plants in?

 

[solidsounds17]

I think they recommend you mix store bought soil with your natural soil outdoors and then wait 6 months to get the fertilizer out.

 

[AgataP]

What I do I only plant weeds from my garden nothing used on it!
And I use like two spoons of organic soil from my garden - that is about 3 years old and nothing added and the rest is covered with coco coir and orchid bark. Things grow no problem.
Also for any wheat grass I use trays of amazon that don’t use soil just h2o and when grass is long I pull the whole thing and transplant it into the enclosure.
I am trying the same method with other weeds.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

Bagged local topsoil is what I use.
But your area might have more sand?
Spider plants and Pathos grow in anything

 

[Tes]

Perhaps your local garden centre has something like biological or market garden soil? That's what I use to grow plants in, as they don't contain any fertilizers.

 

[Agathaade]

My plants are in tall pots with regular soil inside that my tortoise can’t reach. I let the leaves trail down. The african violet wouldn’t trail down though. I have spider plant and pothos in mine.

 

[turtlesteve]

Make your own potting mix.

Base recipe:
75% pine bark or fir bark
10-15% peat moss
10-15% inorganic (perlite or sand)

For plants that like dense soil, add more peat. For succulents or cacti, add more perlite / sand. For plants that need a high soil pH, add a small amount of lime. In all cases use a small particle size of bark if you can get it.

If tortoises will have access to the soil, do not use perlite.

This saves a huge amount of money versus buying soil, and works better too - most potting soils decompose in a year and will kill plants that need good drainage if you don’t re-pot annually. I can make this mix for about $1.50 per cubic foot.

Steve