Importance of Soil

Lately I've been thinking about ways to improve my plants' health. I have had some plants that seemingly are growing very well and suddenly they become weak and look sickly. Some of them also have pests. I was reading stuff online as well as watching videos which had an emphasis on the soil used to grow plants. Thinking about the growing conditions of my plants, I began to think that perhaps this is my issue. I mostly used the prepared soils from companies such as Miracle Grow. While this seems convenient, this might not be the best thing for my plants. 

While going down my rabbit hole, I learned about other important components for soil such as coconut coir, peat moss, perlite, vermiculite, and pumice to name a few. Many of these are considered soil amendments. Amendments in the sense that you are amending the soil with components that it might otherwise be lacking. So while Miracle Grow soil is useful and convenient, their cactus soil is lacking grit, such as gravel or pumice, that cactus and succulents really need to thrive and for healthy roots. So it turns out that the soil you buy from a store is a great starting point. I purchased a large (3 gallons!) of pumice from Amazon and created a 50-50 mix of the Miracle Grow cactus soil and pumice. This creates a soil that drains so much better which is very important for the root systems of cactus and succulents. I've purchased a few other items such as coconut coir and perlite and have started making other mixes for my house plants. It's early, so I can't preach about the benefits of making my own soil mixtures yet but I have my fingers crossed. I'll share them online if they turn out to work well. 

One last material I want to mention that I recently discovered is Earthworm castings. This is basically organic material that has been processed by worms - or worm poop. It sounds disgusting but plants apparently love this stuff. It provides great organic material and nutrients that are essential to healthy plants. I picked up an 8 quart bag from Home Depot and to my surprise it just looks like dirt and smells just like dirt. Maybe dirt is just worm poop in the end? But I'm starting to experiment with worm castings in my plants and hoping for some positive results to report on later. 

Earthworm Castings... worm poop!

Is worm poop just dirt?