After surveying over 600 customers during the 2025 winter period and hearing your feedback, I thought it would be good to re-do this guide and equip our customers with the confidence to create their own living soil blends using the highest quality ingredients we've been able to source Australia Wide.
We receive daily phone calls from customers across Australia (yes, we're old-school and still have customer service on the "blower"!) looking for the mythical soil recipe they think we're hiding from them. The reality is, the perfect recipe will vary based on local and seasonal factors like rainfall, temperature, and humidity. What we do have to offer is the best living soil "recipe" to launch your growing journey with and adapt as you go to meet your local demands.
What I want to give you here is a foundation that actually works, that I personally trust and use myself, but most importantly a recipe my team can help you troubleshoot if required. The world doesn't need another rubbish recipe that someone pulled off chatgpt and posted to reddit.
The Foundation Recipe: Simple, Effective, Proven
A widely used and trusted recipe to set the foundation is as follows:
Base Living Soil Mix (Equal Parts):
- 1 part Peat Moss, Coco Coir, or Leaf Mold
- 1 part Compost or Worm Castings (we suggest a 70:30 blend)
- 1 part Perlite, Pumice, or Lava Rock
Once you've mixed these equal parts, your soil is ready to be used immediately for seed raising and propagation. If you have picky seedlings, you may exclude some of the compost mixture. However, if you use a high-quality, screened, and matured compost like the one available on our website, you won't encounter any issues planting seeds in this soil.
Adding Nutrition: Feed Your Soil Biology
To add nutrition, growers have several options based on the plants they want to grow and their nutrient needs. This soil recipe works well for most herbaceous plants and vigorous growers with the addition of dry amendment fertilizers.
We offer pre-blended, ready-to-use kits that make it easy for new gardeners. Our Go & Grow + Bud & Bloom nutrient kits are a great choice for those looking for a 100% organic option.
Budget-Friendly Alternative: Working with What You Can Get
Look, a lot of folks think you need designer blends or expensive inputs for good soil, but let's be real—plenty of us are starting with what's easy on the wallet. Most commercial compost mixes out there? They're usually a mashup of green waste (like FOGO bins), shredded pine, and a hit of synthetic nitrates to help everything break down faster. They even use untreated pallets sometimes—hence the stray nails.
Here's how it goes: to keep things moving (and to tick off the regulatory boxes), big operators often pump air into these piles. That forced aeration helps them churn through the material in record time, but as soon as that minimum "cooking" period is up and the stuff looks dark and earthy, it's straight into bags—no matter if the biology is thriving or not. The result is a product that looks finished, but honestly, it's got next to no living microbes left—just composted under pressure, fast and hard, with little room for diversity or those really beneficial soil critters to survive.
If you want truly living soil from this base, the trick is to see these commercial mixes for what they are: a blank slate. Set it aside for a few months, ideally on the ground where local worms and microbes can do their thing. Better yet, inoculate with quality compost, worm castings, or even a shovel of healthy garden soil. Give it time, let nature rebuild what the industrial process wiped out, and you'll end up with a rich, vibrant soil that's truly alive—without having to splash out on boutique ingredients.
Building with Budget Materials:
- Start with a quality local potting mix (pine-based can be fine, just remember what we mentioned above - it just needs time)
- Source a quality compost to make sure you can kickstart your soil with all the microbes and life it contains. (call around and suss the suppliers ingredients first!)
- Include ¼ cup each of Go & Grow + Bud & Bloom nutrient kits
The dry amendment kits will feed the biology you're adding through the compost. Think of it as providing a buffet for the microbes while they get established.
Critical Timing for Budget Mixes (Don't Rush This Bit!)
Depending on the amount of pine/duff materials in the cheaper potting soil, it's recommended to let these mixes break down further for 2-6 weeks. During this time, it's important to aerate the soil mix at least once a week.
Pro tip from years of soil building: Add the aeration component at the end. This not only reduces the volume you need to turn each week, but it can also prevent porous materials like perlite from becoming "saturated" before being placed in their final container. Aeration sources like Scoria/Lava Rock are best added when filling your final container to maintain the best soil consistency.
The pine materials need time to start breaking down and become food for your soil biology rather than competing with your plants for nitrogen. Trust me on this one - patience here saves you months of disappointing growth later.
Want to Take It Further?
This foundation recipe will get you growing successfully, but there's so much more you can do to optimise your soil for specific situations.
Growing in containers? This is where things get really interesting. Our optimised container recipe takes this foundation and tweaks it specifically for the challenges of pot growing - better drainage, improved moisture regulation, and amendments that work in confined spaces: Building the Best Soil for Your Potted Plants.
Ready to give it a go yourself and save money shipping in good potting soil? Our comprehensive guide covers everything from advanced soil biology to regional adaptations across Australia: How to Build Australia's Best Garden Soil (Complete Guide 2025).
These detailed guides dive deep into:
- Container-specific soil optimization and ratios
- Advanced soil biology principles (it gets fascinating!)
- Seasonal adjustments for Australian climates
- Troubleshooting when things go wrong
- Long-term soil maintenance strategies
- Regional adaptations from Darwin to Tasmania
Start Building Today
All the ingredients mentioned in this recipe are available through our online store with Australia-wide shipping, or visit our Bellambi location where you can get hands-on advice and see the ingredients before you buy.
Do you still have questions about how to adapt this recipe for your specific part of Australia? Give us a call or drop us a message from the contact us page. Our team genuinely enjoys helping gardeners succeed with living soil, whether you're starting with premium ingredients or working with budget-friendly alternatives.
If you follow our guide above, we can guarantee the difference between average soil and truly living soil is often just one or two small tweaks from what you're already doing. Let's make sure you get it right from the start, it's easier for us both!
Remember: Great gardens start with great soil. This foundation recipe will get you growing, and our detailed guides will help you master the art of living soil over time. No shortcuts, just proven methods that work in Australian conditions.
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