My Homemade high power soil mix!

Hello everyone as the sun was out today I decided to mix up my own 'Bat Mix' for use this summer. Its totally non scientific and any advice would be appreciated, this is roughly how I have used bat guano over the years in the garden minus the perlite!. The end result seems good and im sure it will do well, although I repotted a poppy and after a good water it did not drain through as quick as i hoped (with a bed of broken pottery, stones etc at the bottom), im thinking something like coconut hair would be perfect to open up the soil a bit although ideally id like a free substitute! Any suggestions welcome!
Next time also I will use 100% home made compost from a few locations or some peat free rather than the JAB bagged stuff in the pics.
The best thing is a made this up myself this morning ( 400 litres minimum ) for a total of �£35 and an hours hard labor and I shall not be adding any extra nutrients this year. You could probably reduce on the costs if you shop around or choose different ingredients.
Longwinded Photo blog below, with captions.

The ingredients.



3 x J Arthur Bowers 70 litre compost. �£10 +
Generous helping of mums home made compost, approx 120 litres



Approx 3 kg of fresh Bat Guano. 20 kg �£50 +
2 - 3 kg Cavemans Rock Guano added. 20 kg �£30



2 shovels of Ashes from the bonfire added to the mix



1 bag non toxic sand. �£3.00 + 1 Kg Bone meal, found in shed



40 litres perlite. �£15 for 100 litres



Turned and finished - slightly aching!.




This is the 'Bat Mix' packed back into the bags the ingredients came from, plus a full Miracle grow bag
(which will never be in my mums garden again!), bin liner and half a dustbin. Easily 400 litres.



My Costs:
j arther bowers 3 x 70 litre bag �£10
bag of non toxic sand �£3
Bone meal 1 kg �£1.50
Bat guano - Fresh & Rock (based on purchase of a 20kg each)
3kg x fresh 3kg x rock �£12.50
Perlite �£8 (based on 100 litre bag @ �£15)

Any questions or feedback much appreciated, and I have 1 bag going spare if anyone wants to collect from Beckenham, Kent!.

 

Welcome Caveman, and well done. I am a great believer in mixing my own stuff rather than paying potty prices. Though I have never been as adventurous as you.

I am on clay, so I have spent quite a bit of time improving it with added sharp sand, grit and organic matter. Being clay I don't bother about extra feed, as I believe that clay has a lot. But that's for border plants, where I always compost the cut back foliage and later add it back to the border. If nothing is taken away from the soil, my view is that I can't be depleting it. Veg it a different matter, of course, as you are removing material and not returning the resultant compost.

For seedlings and pots I just use 2/3 compost and 1/3 sharp sand, plus a regular liquid feed. I am always intrigued as to why people use Perlite, it seems to be very expensive and does little more than sand, ie increase drainage. But all the experts use it, so I must be wrong.

 

Isn't this the same as that other thread?

 

Hi Peter thats a really constructive post thank you, Perlite is supposed to retain moisture as well as keep the soil loose for root development and drainage so i guess its multi functional, but for my garden its not really needed more sand will do fine next time and be half the price. It does however bring a bit of sparkle to the soil if you like that sort of thing Interesting about the properties in a clay soil will read more into that now.