• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Home Garden Joy
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Gardening Basics
    • Seed Starting
    • Composting Basics
    • Vegetable Gardening
    • Growing Fruit
    • Growing Herbs
  • Recipes
    • Canning and Food Preservation
    • Vegetarian Meals
    • Salad Recipes
    • Soup Recipes
    • Dinner Recipes
    • Dessert Recipes
  • Books & Classes
    • Classes
    • Books
    • Books for Christian Herbalists
  • About
    • Writer Jeanne Grunert
    • Advertise
    • Awards and Accolades
    • Privacy Policy

Soil for Container Vegetable Gardens

April 18, 2017 by Jeanne

Today, my friends, you can call forth your inner science nerd. Today, we are discussing the exciting, the stupendous, the wonderful world of SOIL! That’s soil for a container vegetable garden, and in case you were wondering – yes, it does matter what you use.

Ready? Let’s dish the dirt on soil.

 

The Right Soil for a Container Vegetable Garden

I decided to write an entire article on soil for a container vegetable gardenssimply because this is one of the most frequently asked questions I get when I lecture on the topic.

Soil – not dirt, which is what you vacuum from your carpets – soil is an absolute miracle. The soil in your yard right now took millions of years to form. Wind, water, and erosion breaks down

Wind, water, and erosion breaks down rocks into tiny particles. Bacteria, fungi, and insects break down carbon-based matter, such as leaves and grass, into nutritious particles called hummus.

And it all mixes together in a gorgeous brown stuff we call SOIL.

Now here’s the secret to a great container vegetable garden:

Go to your local garden center. Choose a bagged potting soil that includes a slow release fertilizer. Buy the bag. DONE. You now have soil for a container vegetable garden.

“Wait,” you ask, “is that IT? You’re supposed to be some kind of expert on this stuff, Jeanne…and that’s what you do?”

Yes, that’s what I do. And here’s why.

Types of Soil

Most people starting a container vegetable garden want to use the soil in their yard. After all, it’s free and plentiful. You just dig it up, fill your pot or container, and you’re all set.

Unfortunately, the soil in your yard may be far from ideal. An ideal mixture of soil, nutrients, and particles to provide aeration and drainage is the best mixture for your containers.

Soil consists of particles. Particle size matters to your plants. Fine particles cling together when wet, making it hard for the plant’s roots to penetrate into the soil and take up the nutrients they need. Larger particles may be so coarse that water drains through too quickly, and the plant cannot take up the nutrients it needs.

The picture below shows three examples of very different types of soil mixtures:

  1. Seed starting mix is a commercial mixture ideal for the germination of seeds. It doesn’t work well for a container vegetable garden. It is light and fluffy thanks to the small, fine particles, peat moss, and plenty of vermiculite (the white grains in the soil).
  2. Clay garden soil doesn’t work well for container gardens, either. It’s fine particle size means that the soil particles stick together. That’s how bricks are made. This handful was dug up from my own yard. I tested the pH with my handheld pH meter and it’s around 4.2. Most vegetables need a pH between 5.5 and 6.5, so they’d struggle to get the nutrients they need out of this soil. (There are many types of soil, by the way. I just used clay as an example because that is what I have in my Virginia garden. You may live near the ocean, in which case you probably have a sandy soil. Some lucky people have loam. For more on soil, see Dishing the Dirt on Soil: Garden Soil Basics)
  3. Potting soil from the garden center. This is what I consider to be the ideal mix for a container vegetable garden. It’s the right texture – not too light and not too packed. It contains peat moss, a natural compost, along with vermiculite for drainage and tiny green grains of fertilizer.

Bagged potting soil with the ingredients identified.

Soil from my garden. Yours may be better or worse, sandy or loam. If it looks like this, though, it’s not great for vegetables and containers.

 

Don’t Be Penny Wise and Pound Foolish

Some people try to skimp and avoid buying potting soil. “Why should I buy it?” they ask, “when I have a backyard full of soil?”

That’s like an Olympic athelete eating only junk food. Eventually, the athelete won’t have enough nutrients to build muscle, strength, and stamina.

Your plants need the right balance of nutrients and soil for nourishment and to sustain healthy growth and development. Good vegetables come from healthy plants, and healthy plants grow from great soil. Don’t skimp on your soil!

So when starting your container vegetable garden, the best soil in my opinion for container vegetable garden is bagged potting soil. Pick your brand, buy it local, and start your garden.

 

Happy gardening. Keep growing!

Jeanne
Jeanne

Jeanne Grunert is a certified Virginia Master Gardener and the author of several gardening books. Her garden articles, photographs, and interviews have been featured in The Herb Companion, Virginia Gardener, and Cultivate, the magazine of the National Farm Bureau. She is the founder of The Christian Herbalists group and a popular local lecturer on culinary herbs and herbs for health, raised bed gardening, and horticulture therapy.

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares

Filed Under: Home Garden Tips Tagged With: soil

Follow me on social media

Like
Follow
Follow
Follow
Follow
Previous Post: « What Size Pots Are Good for Container Gardens?
Next Post: Should You Start Your Container Vegetable Garden with Seeds or Plants? »

Reader Interactions

Trackbacks

  1. 9 Watering Tips for a Container Vegetable Garden - Home Garden Joy says:
    April 27, 2017 at

    […] one mistakes I see among backyard gardeners. They spray the hose on the leaves of the plant and the soil remains dry. Always aim water at the soil, where the roots of the plants are buried. That’s […]

  2. How to Start a Vegetable Garden says:
    February 23, 2018 at

    […] in pots, containers or a raised bed garden, you can skip the soil test since you will add bagged potting soil to these containers or […]

  3. Your Guide to Soil - says:
    March 1, 2019 at

    […] Soil for Container Vegetable Gardens […]

Primary Sidebar

Let’s Connect!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • YouTube

Featured

logo of the american horticulture society

Home Garden Joy was featured by the American Horticultural Society on #plantchat.

We were featured in Porch.com and answered reader's questions about indoor plants.

Writer Jeanne Grunert

cover of plan and build a raised bed garden

Find all my books on Amazon.com

Gardening Articles

a white bowl filled with vegan creamy cauliflower soup made with orange cauliflower

Vegan Creamy Cauliflower Soup

a close up of a pink Christmas cactus flower on a wooden table

Schlumbergera x buckleyi – Christmas Cactus

red celosia flowers in the garden

How to Save Flower Seeds

savory on a wooden table

How to Grow Summer Savory

Footer

a woman holding a popover with the cream interior revealed and two other popovers on a plate

Best Popover Recipe

This is the best popover recipe ever! It was easy to make and turned out delicious popovers. This was my first time making popovers, and I can’t remember the last time I had one, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. As usual, I turned to my trusty Fannie Farmer 13th Edition Cookbook and found…

Read More

Christmas present under the tree

Christmas Gifts for Gardeners: Your Holiday Gift Guide

Are you looking for Christmas gifts for gardeners? This is your holiday gift guide to find the perfect present for that special gardener in your life! Ready? Let’s go shopping! Christmas Gifts for Gardeners: Your Holiday Gift Guide Maybe you’re searching for the perfect Christmas gifts for gardeners in your life. Or perhaps you are…

Read More

a white bowl filled with vegan creamy cauliflower soup made with orange cauliflower

Vegan Creamy Cauliflower Soup

This recipe for vegan creamy cauliflower soup offers a tasty, filling comfort food for cold winter’s nights – all without any animal products. The secret to its amazing taste is a combination of dried summer savory and parsley stirred liberally into the simmering vegetables. Here’s the full recipe and instructions for my vegan creamy cauliflower…

Read More

a close up of a pink Christmas cactus flower on a wooden table

Schlumbergera x buckleyi – Christmas Cactus

Schlumbergera x buckleyi – Christmas cactus. So many people love these plants, but so many people also don’t know how to take care of them. Now, part of that is the name – Christmas cactus. Unfortunately, whoever discovered them in the rain forests thought they were cacti, and so they received this unfortunate designation. In…

Read More

Copyright © 2023 Home Garden Joy on the Foodie Pro Theme