The Soil Mix Slowly POISONING Your Garden Beds

Pete moths, cocoa core, perlite, vermiculite. This is what the internet tells you to put in your raised garden beds. But if that is what you are doing, you are slowly building a ticking time bomb that is poisoning your garden. On this video, I will show you what you should be filling your raised garden beds with instead for a fraction of the cost of these overpriced products that will produce better results and last a lifetime. If you're new to the channel, please subscribe. Hit the bell for notifications. And check out my Amazon store and Spreadshop links in the video description for everything I use in my garden and awesome custom apparel and gear. When we go to big box stores and we buy these big bags of potting soil or we make our own at home out of things like Pete Moss, cocoa core, perlite, vermiculite, what we are actually making isn't soil at all. This type of potting soil is a misnomer because this is not soil in the traditional sense. The correct term is actually potting mix, not potting soil. These ingredients create a soilless medium specifically designed for container gardening. Potting mix is designed to create a light, airy medium that provides excellent drainage while still retaining adequate moisture. That's because real soil in the earth is heavy and dense. If I took a shovel and I started digging up into the earth and dug out that soil and placed it in this container, this pot would weigh so much more than an equalsized pot with potting mix growing in it. And it would probably produce subpar results because the native soil would be too dense for a small container like this. Some native soils are so dense, it could actually kill the potted plants growing in them due to lack of arration. Native soils can actually suffocate roots when you put them directly in containers with no modification. The problem with potting mix is it just doesn't last. While potting mix does contain things like perlite and sometimes vermiculite, the vast majority of the volume of the mix is made out of Pete moss andor sometimes cocoa core plus forestry products like shredded bark. Pete moss, cocoa core, forestry products are all organic matter. and organic matter naturally composts and quickly decomposes. So, while potting mixes are initially a dream to work with and they start out beautiful, light and lomy, within 3 to 5 years they decompose into a heavy mucky silt. That beautiful light airy mix collapses into a heavy squishy muck. That's why every 3 to 5 years you need to pull your trees out of their containers, prune the roots, and refresh the mix. Soilless potting mix can go sour because it rots and collapses over time. Knowing all of this, imagine my horror when I see articles and YouTube videos all over the internet of people telling gardeners to fill their raised garden beds with these soilless potting mixes. If you are doing this, not only are you spending an enormous amount of money filling your raised garden beds with these materials that have become outrageously expensive, but you are creating a ticking time bomb that is going to rot and collapse on you. When you fill your raised garden beds with Pete moss, cocoa core, perlite, and vermiculite, the initial product is usually beautiful to work with. It feels so light and airy and it's easy to sew seeds directly as well as transplant your seedlings. Initial results are often incredible too that first year or two. But then something happens. The Pete moss in the cocoa core begins to rot and the mix goes from light and airy to heavy and dense as it rots. It starts compacting in on itself. And this forces you to constantly work in new Pete moss, cocoa core, perlite, and other soil amendments to lighten it back up to compensate. Garden soil is supposed to get better over time as you work in more and more organic matter, but yours is actually getting worse, and you're constantly fighting [clears throat] its decomposition. Raised garden beds should be filled with garden soil. And when I say garden soil, I don't mean those big bags of pre-made mix at big box stores labeled garden soil. Those are usually just cheaper potting mixes that have been bulked with more shredded bark to reduce the cost of the product. I mean, real garden soil. Real garden soil is a blend of top soil and organic matter, which is typically a mix of top soil and compost. The top soil component is what makes raised garden beds work because top soil naturally contains sand and clay components. These components are inorganic. So the natural bacteria, fungi, and other microbes in the soil do not decompose them. They stay intact over time. So where a raised bed filled with Pete moss and cocoa core will collapse into an anorobic slop without constantly adding fresh soil amendments, real garden soil will always maintain some degree of aation and drainage because the inorganic components of the top soil don't break down due to micro decomposition. Real garden soil won't sour on you after a few years like container mixes made out of potting mix will. In fact, with regular compost amendments to your garden, real soil will get better and better over time. Here is how you should be filling your raised garden beds. Go to Google Maps and type in mulchard. You will likely find numerous mulch yards within the delivery radius of where you live. And most of them will offer a garden soil they make on site and deliver to your home by the cubic yard. Read the reviews of all the different places. Choose a favorite and then physically drive there and look at their garden soil pile. Inspect it with your own eyes. Touch it with your own hands. It should be a massive pile they make on site and then they order in local manure and mix it together with compost, constantly scraping the ground with a backhoe and turning the earth into the giant pile. Don't buy from places that get stuff delivered and dumped into stalls that they just resell. You want a place that builds and maintains their own pile. Then just order a truckload of the garden soil and have it delivered to your home. have it dumped on your driveway or in a corner somewhere, wherever you can fit it. Then use a wheelbarrow or dump cart and just fill your raised garden beds. You don't have to do this all in one day or in a weekend. You can do this at your leisure. Just cover the pile with a tarp if it's going to rain so it doesn't wash away. Bonus tip. If you order an extra yard or two, you can then spread the excess compost around the bases of all of your fruit trees and landscaping in a circle around the root areas to fertilize them for the new growing season. This is how I filled every single one of my raised garden beds. It is all locally made blends of top soil and compost delivered to my home for a fraction of the price of these inappropriate potting mix recipes. An entire cubic yard of garden soil costs less than this single bag of perlite right here and way less than this bag of vermiculite. So, not only are you going to get a much better product that improves over time instead of decays, but it'll save you tons of money both upfront and in the long run, but what if you only have one or two raised garden beds and you just can't justify getting a truckload of garden soil? Well, you can just go to the big box store and buy bags of top soil and compost. You'll want to mix them half and half. So, if you need 20 cubic feet of soil, buy 10 1 cubic foot bags of top soil and 10 1 cubic foot bags of compost. Then, just blend them together evenly. I'll link to a video both above and down in the video description that will show you exactly how to do this. This costs a small fraction of what potting mix recipes cost because top soil is the very definition of dirt cheap by comparison and it won't collapse on you over time like raised beds filled with Pete moss or core will. But to be clear, even if you are using a proper garden soil inside your raised garden beds, you are still going to have to amend your soil every year. That's because good garden soil still contains an enormous amount of organic matter that will rot over time. So, your beds will still sink a little every year. They just won't totally collapse on you into a mucky silt like a potting mix will because all of the inorganic components in the top soil will maintain a level of irration and drainage at all times. So, they will sink less than an improper potting mix. And the plants themselves take nutrients from the soil, don't forget. So, you still need to add organic matter and nutrients every year to replenish what the plants take. Every late winter, I get a small load of compost delivered to top off my beds a few inches, as well as spread compost circles around all of the fruit trees and landscaping in my yard for the new year. All gardens need annual amendments, but proper garden soil requires a lot less maintenance and improves over time instead of degrades. But that begs the question, can I just dig up the earth and fill my raised garden beds with my native soil or just grow directly in the earth itself without using raised beds at all? Maybe, but probably not. Quality soil is actually very rare. That is why farmland is so coveted, expensive, and surprisingly regional. Our homes are not built on prime agricultural land. Most likely, most of us are living on top of clear-cut forests and piles of fill dirt that have been compacted these days. So, if you are blessed enough to live on generational farmland, you may be able to do this. But most of us have junky soil that's either too sandy, too heavy, doesn't drain well, drains too quickly, not enough organic matter, or it's riddled with pathogens like nematodes. To garden directly in the earth, most of us would have to order numerous truckloads of garden soil and use heavy equipment to spread it 8 to 12 in deep in a giant plot, then add to it every single year for many years to condition the soil over time. Unless you have acorage and you own a tractor or you want to start a market garden, raised beds are just going to be easier and cheaper, especially for backyard gardeners. Also, where I live on the southeastern coast of North Carolina, my garden would literally wash away if I were growing my crops in ground. I have to grow in raised beds to prevent erosion because of our deluge rainfall in the summer. My plants would be floating down the street if I were growing in ground. There is a reason why when you look at a satellite view of the southeast, you don't really find farmland until you reach an hour drives inland. It just rains too hard on the coast. So consider your rainfall, if you have heavy rains. It is really a bear to grow in ground. So in summary, do not fill your raised garden beds with potting mixes. Pete moss, cocoa core, perlite, vermiculite. They do not belong anywhere near your raised garden beds. Not only are they outrageously expensive, but they will decompose rapidly and require constant costly soil amendments to keep the mix viable for planting year after year. And they will bleed your wallet dry. Instead, order a truckload of proper garden soil, which is a blend of natural top soil and compost that will stay well draining and airrated and improve over time. Or make your own with a 50/50 blend of top soil and compost at home. Not only will you save huge amounts of money, but you'll have better results over the long term. So, hopefully now you understand the difference between potting mix and garden soil and when you should use each. No matter what you decide, I'll place links down in the video description for the materials to make both, as well as how-to videos that will show you how. So, everybody, I sure hope you found this video informative, helpful, and entertaining. If you did, please make sure to hit the like button, subscribe to the channel, and please ring the notification bell so you're notified when I release more videos like these. Again, for any of the products that I featured in this video, I place direct links down to them in the video description for your convenience. For everything I use in my yard and garden in real life, that is all linked in my Amazon storefront. So, expand the video description, click on the Amazon storefront link, and you'll see everything I use in real life. And while you're down there, check out my website, the millennialger.com, for homemade custom merch and all things gardening if you want to support my channel. Thank you all so much for watching, and I hope to see all of you again on the next video. Let's play a little joke on Dale. Oh, Dale, are you ready for your breakfast? Oh, he's coming. He's so excited. Oh, we have so much hunger for Dale. That was not the reaction I thought you were going to give me. I thought you were going to look at me sideways like what? Where's the rest? Where's the rest? Where's the rest? He knows where it is. Okay, Dale. No more bad jokes. I'm serious this time. Sorry, buddy. It's just so fun to tease sometimes.

In this video, I share how to fill raised garden beds with real, healthy garden soil. Thousands of gardeners are incorrectly filling raised garden beds with expensive items like bagged potting mixes, peat moss, coco coir, perlite and vermiculite. Potting mix is NOT garden soil, and if you are using these products in your raised bed garden, the soil mix is slowly poisoning your garden beds! Stop wasting money filling raised beds and use correct ingredients. • How To Fill Garden Beds (Small Quantity): https://youtu.be/c-BRQwfVn8Y?si=IKCnEJU0pfai_PcD • How To Make Potting Soil: https://youtu.be/t3kx5PhCJU8?si=8_bk1rskrh_g9w-V I use the following products* were featured in this video or used for raised bed gardening: Dump Cart (7 Cu Ft): https://amzlink.to/az0pQNZ06Lunl Gommeted Tarps: https://amzlink.to/az0ug8B43ERbr Soil Sifter: https://amzlink.to/az0x2xCzz4bmp Grow Bags (Black): https://amzlink.to/az0UDaVzkSLWi Grow Bags (Tan): https://amzlink.to/az02kBaExY5sL Raised Bed Kit (4ft X 2ft): https://amzlink.to/az0ktdU6Rchev Raised Bed Kit (6ft X 3ft): https://amzlink.to/az0hxdXuWxOzA Raised Bed Deep Kit (6ft X 3ft): https://amzlink.to/az0yqCyIL7rzw Raised Bed Kit (8ft X 2ft): https://amzlink.to/az0nNwse4vGKF Perlite (4 Cu Ft): https://amzlink.to/az0TQC2E7HBcd Vermiculite, Coarse (4 Cu Ft): https://amzlink.to/az0H2MWaQez0l Vermiculite, Medium (4 Cu Ft): https://amzlink.to/az0iSi6DU72K1 Coco Coir (10lb): https://amzlink.to/az0XNoEahXL7x Pruning Snips: https://amzlink.to/az0S6BULZGPmi Thicker Row Cover, 1.5oz/yd, 10x30FT: https://amzlink.to/az09JmFkSWHQS Watering Wand: https://amzlink.to/az0O3ZfEhftZ8 Weed Barrier: https://amzlink.to/az0yusYtZsmmk Shade Cloth: https://amzlink.to/az01boLJy9JNI Insect Netting: https://amzlink.to/az0H5tKMYxP2O Alaska Fish Fertilizer [5-1-1] (Gallon): https://amzlink.to/az0Jhw8liNoe3 True Organic All Purpose Fertilizer [5-4-5]: https://amzlink.to/az0lVAel6Wss7 Espoma PlantTone [5-3-3] (36lb): https://amzlink.to/az0gylQKIH3hO Espoma PlantTone [5-3-3] (50lb): https://amzlink.to/az0dh0dYaye1l Espoma Bone Meal (10lb): https://amzlink.to/az0KAuCOZcPgQ True Organic Blood Meal (3lbs): https://amzlink.to/az0jNeCruTl6a Azomite Trace Minerals (44lb): https://amzlink.to/az0qPn4i34Eol Jack's All Purpose [20-20-20] (1.5lb): https://amzlink.to/az0JG0Dv6Da0h Jack's All Purpose [20-20-20] (25lb): https://amzlink.to/az0F6FgxdhKjO Jack's Blossom Booster [10-30-20] (25lb): https://amzlink.to/az08lv7ZJFnUu • Full Amazon Store: https://amzlink.to/az0yli4Cz0iXX TABLE OF CONTENTS 0:00 Introduction 0:36 Potting Mix VS Garden Soil 3:07 Why Raised Beds Need Topsoil 5:16 How To Fill Garden Beds Correctly 7:17 How To Fill Small Garden Beds 8:01 How To Amend Garden Soil 9:09 Can I Garden In Native Soil? 10:53 Summary Of Raised Garden Bed Tips 12:34 Adventures With Dale If you have any questions about how to fill a raised garden bed, how to grow a vegetable garden at home, how to grow fruit trees or the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, please ask in the Comments below! ******* MY WEBSITE https://www.themillennialgardener.com/ ******* VISIT MY AMAZON STORE FOR PRODUCTS I USE MOST OFTEN IN MY GARDEN* https://amzlink.to/az0yli4Cz0iXX ******* CUSTOM MERCH! https://shop.spreadshirt.com/themillennialgardener ******* SUBSCRIBE TO MY 2ND CHANNEL! https://www.youtube.com/c/2MinuteGardenTips ******* SOCIAL MEDIA → INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/millennialgardener/ → X (@NCGardening) https://x.com/NCGardening ******* ABOUT MY GARDEN Location: Southeastern NC, Brunswick County (Wilmington area) Zone 8B, 34.1°N Latitude ******* *As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. © The Millennial Gardener #gardening #garden #raisedbedgarden #vegetablegardening #vegetablegarden