Making Homemade Soil

The number one issue I have seen with bagged soil is that it often doesn’t have enough aeration and drainage for ideal raised bed gardening. In most cases you can mix in some extra perlite to bagged soil to improve that.

Secondarily, some bagged soil is low on nutrients. Apart from mixing in some compost, an organic all-purpose fertilizer can be great to provide general slow release nutrition that doesn’t risk burning your plants.

Creating your own soil from scratch is nice because you can make sure your mix doesn’t have too many wood chips or other less ideal organic matter. If you are getting soil in bulk, the best option is often buying it from a local garden center or plant nursery that makes it in bulk. Just make sure not to accidentally by topsoil because that will compact in a raised bed.