Soil for indoor plants

It is a very controversial question which soils are better - purchased or of their own preparation, peat in the soil is good or bad, why do plants grow better on some mixtures containing peat, and die on others? Is it convenient to grow plants on a hydrogel and why pH is so important. These and other issues are covered in this review article based on the forum.

How to procure land

A.M. Zaitsev (Alex):

Peat is the most valuable natural biological material. Improves soil structure, its water-air properties. Being the basis of the habitat of any plant and a moisture regulator, it provides optimal conditions for growing plants.

Not being rich in the presence of macro and trace elements, it contains unique components: humic acids - stimulants of growth and development; aAmino acids are necessary to convert some nutrients into a form available to the plant. It has bactericidal properties, great getter capacity, is equally necessary for any type of soil.

Peat is conditionally divided into two groups:

• Light (or light) - peat of the upper layer of the reservoir with a degree of decomposition of up to 15%. This young poorly decomposed peat characterizes a small specific gravity - from 150 to 250 kg/m3, a large gas and water absorption capacity, but a lower content of humic and amino acids, due to the incompleteness of decomposition processes;
• Heavy (or dark) - peat of the lower layers, with a degree of decomposition of more than 15%. This is a more "mature" peat, with a specific gravity of 350 kg/m3, a high humus content, but less gas and water-retaining properties than light.

In floriculture, peat is used in its pure form, as an improver of the structure of the treated soil, for accumulation and long-term retention of moisture, as well as an environment that contributes to an increase in oxygen exchange processes.

I do not want to give my plants trouble in nutrition, gas exchange and always add this component when cooking the soil.

I prepare the soil from equal parts: lowland peat ventilated in the air for 2-3 years, sheet humus from under centuries-old limes, humus of horse manure, garden land, turf land, coarse sand from springs with the addition of a small amount of ash of alder firewood, crushed hardwood coals.

I scrolled through some citrus books and found only positive peat reviews everywhere. I will quote from the book by I.S. Konashkov "Citrus fruits near Moscow" 1954. "Peat freshly cut from a swamp has great acidity and therefore is not only unsuitable as an organic fertilizer, but even has a harmful effect on crop and plant growth. But if peat is pre-prepared, it will be the strongest, most effective and cheapest fertilizer. It ennobles the soil, improves its structure, makes the soil hygroscopic, which is very important for indoor citrus crops..."

To collect full-fledged, nutritious soil outside the city, you need :

1. Remove a layer of soil under old linden or birch trees no more than 5 cm, it is advisable to sift the soil, i.e. separate large and not rotted clods of earth and twigs - this is leafy land. By the way, take more careful land from mixed forests, if coniferous humus prevails, then the reaction of the soil is acidic, it is still advisable to collect soil from under deciduous trees, except for oaks, beware of willow, it also has a lot of tannins.

2. Remove the top layer of soil from clover meadows with a thickness of 10 cm and upholstered the land located between the roots of grasses, then sift - this is sod land.

3. All kinds of humus can be found at livestock farms and stables. Animal feed is brought and stored in the same places. Small particles of feed constantly remain on the soil, over the years they rot - this is plant humus. It is better to take humus from stables, but cattle (cattle) humus is suitable, high-quality humus peat is also mined there.
As an additional component to the soil, I always add land from mole heaps - this is already sifted and nutritious land, because moles live only on fertile soils.

4. Nettle grows only on fertile land, the acid reaction of such land is close to neutral, citrus grows perfectly on nettle soil (soil with a neutral reaction of 7 pH, lower acidity - the soil is considered acidic, higher - alkaline). I specially checked the acidity of "nettle soils," it is approximately 6.5 pH, nettle practically does not grow on other soils. It must be collected in spring or early summer before the seeds ripen on nettles. Gently shake off the earth from the rhizomes, remove the pieces of the roots, preferably sift it. And if nettles sprout in pots, then there is nothing wrong with that - her dear is in the salad.

On soil preparation:

I avoid thermal treatments (calcination, steaming), now when changing the soil I use fresh soil and there must be all kinds of worms, millipedes, ants in it. The soil for transfers in the spring is aged in winter in the garage at low temperatures, soil freezing does not work, since even in the most severe frosts the air temperature in the garage does not drop below 0 degrees.

On a bucket of soil, I add half a liter of crushed birch or alder coal and two handfuls of ash from the same rocks. Large coals are good instead of drainage in pots, only when transplanting you need to be more careful - often the roots of plants penetrate and wrap around the coal drainage and transplant with it.

Soil from the store

Participant in the citrus growing conference, fdta:

Peat and its processing products - from top fibrous peat to completely decomposed peat humus - are the basis of all soils sold. Composts are quite expensive, and much less accessible, their composition is extremely variable (and the constant supply of the same type of compost is extremely difficult and expensive), and there is no need to include them in large quantities. Natural components (sod, sheet earth... any land of natural origin), it is almost impossible to use in industrial production, deposits form only peat, and there can be no question of any constancy of composition.

There are, of course, still available raw materials - spent soils of greenhouses. But this is not even suitable for digging up city flower beds. It's not just pest and disease infestation (this is just solvable), everything that can be destroyed is destroyed in such a substrate, in fact, it is always phytotoxic to one degree or another.
And there are no more options for the base.

By the way, among some growers there is an opinion that peat is not suitable for citrus and other fruit trees. I do not say of course, but I suspect that it was written by one of the old authors (based on its acidity), and then it began to wander from book to book. In addition, peat from each field has its own characteristics. Perhaps the matter is in the structure (for example, European citrus fruits are supplied in a heavy dense substrate (unlike top peat in all other potted). Although again, for example, all the plants from China that I saw (mainly mini-trees, bonsai, ficuses, citrus fruits, alocasia, cacti) were in alumina (in appearance it is just clay), the plants themselves are often very well grown .

The land sold is tightly sealed bags with a wet substrate, in which there is a lot of organic matter and decomposition processes have not faded. If anaerobic conditions are created, the corresponding microflora develops, its metabolites are usually toxic to the regions and some of them do not quickly decompose and weathered. I suppose that this is one of the reasons for the frequent picture (along with an excess of easily soluble salts) after transshipment into such soil - with the next transplant (a year and a half later), it is found that the roots did not go to the new substrate at all (localized only in the old coma), the border of which stands out sharply, and even there is not in the best condition.

By the way, a sharp slowdown in the drying rate of the earth after transplantation (all other things being equal to temperature and illumination) speaks precisely of a violation in the operation of the root system .

And this is not all - buffer properties (the ability of the substrate to maintain a constant concentration of salts and pH when watering, drying, adding fertilizers), the state of soil microflora.

In short, the difference between natural soil and purchased soil is huge and it's not about peat (in domestic soils it is more often like sifting peat (a very small fraction), but often (in the Garden of Miracles) some kind of heavy fine-structured fraction that behaves like peat when watered (after drying with great difficulty it is saturated with moisture). I have associations with low-calorie brown coal screening.

Producers have another temptation - the spent soil of greenhouses. On its own, deoxidized top peat (with a coarse fiber structure) is an excellent component and even a substrate base.

Also, many have a vermicompost as a component. When finished, it has a very characteristic and stable structure. There are no traces of it in the Garden of Miracles, except that they grind it into dust for incomprehensible reasons? Or add a kilogram per ton?

I use just forest soil, trying to avoid tanning and choosing the most structured (as small a fraction as possible) and as dark soil as possible.
For example, Chinoto on a tangerine seedling (or rather not tangerine, but what is usually sold in spring with many seeds like tangerines) a month and a half after transplantation (photo on the left), in a year it will have a very tightly intertwined root system, from which the old soil will be difficult to shake out even with a strong desire.

When I came to work in a flower salon, we had only "Garden of Miracles," then "Green Sprout," much later we managed to convince the authorities to buy German ASB (by the way, it is based on fibrous top peat), now this is the only thing that I recommend to use in its pure form.

Vermicompost is a very good thing, the praises that are sometimes sung to him are justified when it is really him and with a sufficient degree of processing. I kept a small population of California worms at home at one time when I was doing cacti. For their sowing, the soil must be sterilized. It is unrealistic to maintain sterility in crops, and you have to either keep it drier (then you lose a lot of growth), or use fungicides (also not very effective and inhibits growth), or after sterilization restore normal microflora with vermicompost, which turned out to be the most effective.

Why purchased soil is not suitable for cacti is easier to explain. It turned out that an excellent result is obtained by screening out a fraction less than 1-1.5 mm (everything that is smaller is thrown away) - a "granular," breathable substrate is obtained, which simply excludes stagnation of moisture and oxygen starvation of the roots. And when it comes to the soil from the store, it is proposed to try to sift it in the same way, but in this case there will simply be nothing left of it.

Zeolite for plants

As part of the soil for plants, including citrus fruits, and especially cacti and succulents, zeolite filler is becoming more and more popular. It is a group of minerals of volcanic origin insoluble in moist environments. It is used as a drainage, increasing the air permeability of the soil, improving its structure. Where to get a zeolite: Easiest of all cat litter. Read more about this component of the substrate: Zeolite for plants.

Examination of store soil for flowers

In April 2013, the St. Petersburg Public Consumer Organization "Public Control" together with the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Leningrad Interregional Veterinary Laboratory" of the Rosselkhoznadzor of the Russian Federation conducted several versions of store soils in terms of quality indicators.

And although only 10 samples participated in the examination, this gives us some idea of ​ ​ what soil we plant in and why they are sick. For example, in the soil sample for all indoor plants "Flower" (LLC "Fasco +," Moscow region) phosphorus and potassium turned out to be almost three times more than indicated on the package. And this is a very common soil, sold throughout the country. And, in addition, if Fasco has violations in one of the soils, then where is the guarantee that there is no exaggeration in the entire line of soils.

A lot of interesting things have been written about the Sad company: "during public inspections for five years (2008-2013), violations of their own technical specifications were noted. So, in 2011 and in 2012, the manufacturer did not report nitrogen, potassium and... the earth itself to its soil. And before that, in 2009, on the contrary, he went too far with macronutrients."

Rosselkhoznadzor specialists found frankly dangerous specimens from various soil options for seedlings. So, peat mineral soil "Tomato. Pepper. Eggplant "(Garden LLC, Leningrad Region) and soil for houseplants" Flower City "(ZAO" Monostroagrokhimservice, "V. Novgorod) showed a complete discrepancy between the declared information on the packaging. Peat soil "Tomato. Pepper. Eggplant" contain phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen 2-3 times less than the norm, and the pH acidity of the soil was 3.29 (at a rate of 5.5-6.5). With such acidity, the soil is completely unsuitable for growing any plants that are indoor, that garden, without exception. Of all the violations, the most harmless was the excess of the importance of the soil - the norm is 45%, and the manufacturers overestimated it by 10-15% - simply by adding moisture for weight (to reduce the cost of the product).

According to the results of checking the quality of soils, only three samples did not have any complaints from specialists. These are the universal nutrient soil Terra Vita (CJSC MNPP Fart, St. Petersburg), the Universal peat soil TM Ambulance (LLC Torfozavod Agro-Peat, Leningrad Region) and the Exo universal soil (CJSC Seliger-Holding, g Tver)

Citrus soil

Participant of the citrus growing conference, tsitrys:

The most fertile soil is one that allows you to increase the maximum area of ​ ​ healthy, glossy citrus leaves with the same volume of soil in containers, without fertilizing and other similar favorable conditions (irrigation, lighting, air humidity, etc.).

I also do not trust store soils, for several years I conducted experiments after all planted orange seeds rotted in store land with favorable substrate humidity and temperature, and in ordinary turf, in which I did not even think of growing, everything sprouted! I was so confident in the purchased suspensions that I believed more in the underdevelopment of the best selected seeds!

He conducted the experiments as follows: he took ordinary white cups of yogurt (approximately 100 ml), poured a different earth into each of them, planted one stone in each glass, watered so that the earth was wet and pasted a strip of wide tape. To have gas exchange, on each side it left a crack of about 0.5 cm. Scotch retained moisture, and it was necessary to water less often several times. When the seeds sprouted, he cut holes in the tape opposite each seedling.

Oranges increased the largest area of ​ ​ healthy leaves in fat, dense, forest loam and loose ground with 2-meter thick nettles, half less in turf, in store like in turf if it is not defective and a successful batch. Among the store tried only "Florabel-5," "Delight," "Florad."
In the defective batch of "Delight," bones and transplanted seedlings with two leaves rotted.

Soil acidity, composition, hydrogel application

About soil acidity

Question: I have a neutral soil reaction in several pots of pH. I never manage to make it slightly acidic. Apparently citric, ascorbic acids, etc. quickly decompose. It is too early to replant plants. How can soil be radically acidified?

Jah - Citric and ascorbic acids have a slightly acidic reaction. This is expressed in the fact that they react with alkalis, but being dissolved in a large volume, they give an almost neutral reaction (imperceptibly on a litmus test). Either add more (or more often) or use a more active acid, but this is dangerous for obvious reasons. In principle, you can experiment with a weak nitric acid solution. But here is another nuance. Most acids have the same pH in some range. Let me explain with an example. In a glass of water, at least one spoonful of acetic acid, at least two - the pH will be the same. To achieve the desired pH in a pot with earth, in theory, you need to take some acid with such a pH, and water it with a solution of earth until the acid reacts with all the alkalis and reaches a certain concentration. Which could end badly.

Question: In my opinion, all alkalis with acids react with the formation of water and salts. Another thing is that the formed salts may not be at all useful for the plant.

Jah - Not all salts give a neutral medium. Salts of citric acid of alkali and alkaline earth metals will be basic salts, that is, their medium will still be alkaline, since citric acid is rather weak. To get neutral salts - you need inorganic acids, such as hydrochloric, sulfuric, nitric - but experiments with them are quite capable of destroying plants.
Most organic acids are weak. It is possible to acidify the soil, as I believe, with potassium sulfate - after all, when potassium is "selected" from this compound by the roots, there will remain a sulfate ion that neutralizes the alkaline compounds of calcium and magnesium, which most often give the alkaline environment of the earth, without being demanded by the plant in the same volumes as potassium.

I wrote these tips so that everyone thought three times before doing something about the acidity of the soil.

In general, it seems to me that a pH greater than 7 (alkaline soil reaction) is a whole range of problems that are unreasonable to solve head-on. I agree that watering with a solution of citric acid (and other organic acids) is useful for the formation of soluble salts (organic salts of many insoluble bases dissolve well) - but the alkaline reaction of the soil is a consequence of the fact that it lacks many important ions, or an excess of some not too popular. In theory, normal soil in nature has a slightly acidic environment due to two factors - the neutral balance of the acidity of ions and the presence of organic acids formed during the life of bacteria. Calcium and magnesium (the main problematic elements) with organic acids form the main (alkaline) soluble salts, which can further increase the pH (that is, make the reaction more alkaline).

I use peat soils, simply because we have nothing else in our stores, and everything is growing more or less normally. I prepare the soils like this: I take a bag of Terra Vita (it seems, produced by Fart), for 10 liters of soil 2-3 liters of vermiculite, a bag of 4 bio-gels in dry form (each bag is designed for 1.5 liters of ready-made gel), sometimes I add drunk tea about a liter or two. I mix all this in a large planter - and forward.

Vermiculite significantly improves the mechanical properties of peat, and coconut fiber, perlite and other inert additives are also added to Terra Vita, but they are not enough there - without vermiculite, it strongly shrinks when dried. And I add the gel so that the water keeps and does not sour at the same time. And by the way, funny as it may seem, with gel the soil "walks" less when dried. When planting seeds or transplanting/transshipment of plants, be sure to spill Fitosporin.

Question: V. Dadykin talks about the use of the Underground Spring hydrogel. I did not pay much attention to whether this gel is in our stores, but it became interesting to try. I would like to ask if anyone else has experience with this miracle gel? In my opinion, this is a great way - to save plants for vacation outside the home.

Jah - I add a gel (only of a different brand) to the soil, in the amount of about one and a half liters of the finished gel per 5 liters of soil. Only I bring it dry. It is called Bio-master, it is much cheaper than all analogues - about 10 rubles per bag, from which one and a half liters are obtained. I like that the soil after adding the gel dries out more slowly - and most importantly, it does not shrink into a dry lump that does not absorb moisture. It is rather difficult to pour a plant with it, except to approach it with diligence. I think that if you search, you can find it. As I see it, I buy it like that - rarely where it is on sale.

Question: How to water plants with hydrogel. If you get 1.5 liters from a bag, and when the soil still dries up, what happens? Is the gel greatly reduced in volume? How much water does it take to restore soil moisture with gel?

Jah - The fact is that the gel swells quite slowly, and not necessarily to full volume. I water all my plants in the same way - before the appearance of water from the holes in the pot, the gel does not have time to swell too much in such a time. After the end of irrigation, it swells a little more, and the soil becomes not wet, but simply wet - also a blessing. And it remains moist even when exactly the same plant in exactly the same pot is already sitting in dry soil on top. The gel shrinks during this time, leaving small voids in the soil... In general, watering is the same, only less often and more safe in terms of the bay.

Vita - Bought something close to a hydrogel - soil conditioner "AS-GUMI" (humic water-absorbing polymer). In his description, I really liked one phrase: "Indispensable for long-term transportation of plants" The package says: AC-GUMI is a dry powdered non-toxic polymer product with the addition of humates. Manufacturer: NPP VIOST LLC, Moscow.

On the recommendation of the manufacturer, you should take 1 g of gel per 1 liter of soil and soak it in a glass of water for 1 hour. I took about 2 g of gel for 2.5 liters of soil "Garden of Miracles" (peat and quickly dries up) and soaked in a 0.5 liter jar, an hour later the whole jar was filled with swollen hydrogel, but the largest grains of gel were no more than a pea. The soil with hydrogel was used to transplant young plants into small pots (usually they dry out quickly) and bonsai (which is difficult to shed evenly in the usual way, and each time it is too troublesome to immerse in a basin of water). The fourth day after the transplant, everyone has evenly moist soil, I'm still satisfied.

2 months have passed: the plants feel normal, the soil of course dries up slower, but you also need to water more, if it is still dry, when it dries, the soil does not "set."

About soil and plant transplantation