Crafting the Ideal Soil Mix for Thriving Edible Plants in Singapore

Written by on in Urban Gardening Tips

Last updated on 27 Nov 2024

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Today, we’re diving into a crucial aspect of gardening that often goes overlooked ā€“ the soil mix.

Singapore’s native soil is predominantly clay-based, a double-edged sword in the world of gardening.While it retains nutrients like a champ, it also holds onto water a little too well, risking waterlogged roots for your beloved edible plants.

It’s a frustrating balance for Kaya Leaf gardeners who can’t afford to water our green babies every day. How do we find that perfect balance?

On the flip side, many of us bring home plants from nurseries only to find them in soil that drains faster than we can say squirtle to the rescue.

If you continue to water your plants like this, you’re gonna have a pretty nasty utilities bill surprise at the end of the month. (Source: Tenor)

Creating the Perfect Soil Mix… For Your Lifestyle

Whether you’re an incorrigible globetrotter, unapologetic couch potato or closeted tree hugger, here’s some guidelines to crafting the ideal soil mix to suit your lifestyle.

Pssst we’ll talk about key components and will share tips on specific mix rations in the next section!

1. Start with a Suitable Soil Base: Use a high-quality and organic potting mix as your base. It’s designed to be light and fluffy, providing a good foundation for drainage and aeration. We’ll touch on exact component volumes for a good starting soil mix later on in this article.

2. Amend with Organic Matter: Add homemade compost to enrich the soil with nutrients. This not only feeds your plants but also improves moisture retention ā€“ crucial for our climate.

3. Introduce grit like Sand or Perlite: To counteract the heavy clay soil, incorporating sand or perlite can enhance drainage, ensuring that water doesn’t linger too long around the roots. Ideal size is 1-4mm.

4. Balance is Key: Aim for a mix that’s nutrient-rich, retains moisture well, but also allows excess water to drain away. The term for an ideal soil mix for most edible plants is “loamy”. Loamy soil is dark and fluffy.

Your lifestyle, your soil mix. We try do not judge. (Source: Tenor)

5. Exceptions Exist – for some moisture loving plants like pandan, they prefer “clayey” soil which holds water well. The other extreme is “Sandy” soil which is poor in retaining water and nutrients, perfect for your succulents like cacti!

6. Self watering pots? Err on the side of more well draining soil! – as the wick in most self watering pots constantly pull water into your soil mix, a soil mix with more grit prevents water logged soil and (gasp) root rot.

7. For an optimal mix for young seeds or seedling? – purchase a high-quality soiless and sterile seedling mix or make your own by combining 2 parts volume of peat moss for moisture retention and a light texture, 1 part perlite for improved aeration and drainage, and 1 part vermiculite to aid in moisture retention and nutrient absorption. 

Understand your plant’s natural habitat and mimic the soil mix to these conditions.  For example, most mediterranean plants like rosemary, thyme, and mint are found in sandy, nutrition poor soil experiencing rare bouts of rain.

Well-draining mixes help the soil to dry out sufficiently between each time you water your drought loving cacti or mediterranean plants. A good way to know when to water is to put your finger 2cm into the soil and only water when it feels dry.

Help your succulents stay healthy with well draining soil (Source: Kaya Leaf)

Here’s a Good Starting Soil Base to Customise Further for your Lifestyle and Plant Needs

I’m sure you’ve noticed that your new plant from a local nursery tends to dry out very quickly within a day.

The reason is because the soil used by most nurseries in Singapore is ā€œtoo well drainingā€.

Why?

Singapore nurseries water all their plants daily. Having extremely well draining soil helps them manage their plantsā€™ diverse water needs.

When you bring the plants home and canā€™t keep up with the daily watering schedule, youā€™ll observe signs of insufficient watering very quickly (e.g. dried leaf edges).

Dried edges are a sign of insufficient watering. On the contrary, entire leaves turning yellow means youā€™ve been too generous with your plants watering sessions! (Source: Kaya Leaf)

To deal with this, replace the nurseryā€™s soil with one that has a lower percentage of sand, pebbles or inert materials to slow down the draining process and retain moisture better.

An example is one to two parts of organic potting soil to one part of inert materials like perlite.

You can also use home made or store bought compost to mulch the soil surface around your plant to improve moisture retention.

Here are some soil mixes you can start off with for your edible plants:

Recipe 1 (soil, compost, perlite)

  • 1 part in volume of loamy and organic soil mix which you can buy from most online stores.
  • 1 part in volume of grit like sand or perlite. Look for those with grain diameter between 1-4 mm.
  • 0.5 part in volume of organic material like home made or store bought compost. If your soil mix already comes with fertiliser, this component is optional. Save your compost for mulching around 6 months later!
Loamy, good quality soil is dark and fluffy. All you need now is the right amount of grit and compost for healthy plant babies. šŸ˜ (Source: Kaya Leaf)

Recipe 2 (coco noir, compost, perlite)

  • 1 part in volume of coco peat/coco coir
  • 1 part in volume of perlite (choose those between 1-4mm in grain size)
  • 1 part in volume of home made or store bought compost

Recipe for young seeds or seedling (peat moss, perlite, vermiculite)

  • 2 parts in volume of peat moss for moisture retention and a light texture,
  • 1 part perlite for improved aeration and drainage
  • 1 part in volume of vermiculite to aid in moisture retention and nutrient absorption. 

Before putting your preferred soil mix into your pot, add a 1-3cm layer of grit at the bottom of the pot for excess water to drain, and to allow your plant’s roots to breath.

If your plants are drying out too fast (dried edges) because of your wanderlust lifestyle, increase the amount of organic material like compost.

For plants in self watering pots and often suffering from waterlogged soil (entire yellowing leaves, rotting stems etc), you know the drill. Give them more grit!

That’s your over watered plant telling you I told you so. (Source: Tenor)

Conclusion

Finding the perfect soil mix for your plants can be a challenging yet rewarding endeavor. By understanding the role played by each soil component, you can create an ideal soil mix to balance the needs of your plants and your watering habits.

Happy gardening, Kaya Leaf readers, and may your green spaces flourish!