There is no such thing as perfect soil… Or is there?
Without a doubt every soil environment is different and is
dependent on its inputs and just like life, what we put in we get out.
I have had to work with many different soils in my time and
some of them have been very challenging, in those days it always involved a sweaty,
messy shlep of digging up and turning over, some places have been so bad that
bar bringing in bakkie loads of expensively bought stuff, I have sieved
and revitalised entire gardens using permaculture principals. But all that
started to change once I took the responsibility of making my own growing
medium for raised beds and SFG, and although initially reluctant to use
fertilisers I have come up with a number of recipes for controlled environments
that I find work quite well.
The Pipe Planter is a very unique controlled environment and
the growing medium just as much so, and though your plants might survive in
normal garden soil for them to thrive we recommend our own composition
consisting of 10% worm castings, 50 % proper compost, 20% vermiculite , 20%
coconut coir and Some bone meal.