Best Soil For Growing Vegetables [Easy Fall Vegetable Garden] (2023)

Introduction

In this episode I will be starting a multi part series to show you how to start growing your own food right now! I’ll be showing you how to plant a fall vegetable garden, and how I am experimenting with different soils to determine what type grows the best vegetables. Kellogg, Miracle Grow, or Homemade soil? Stay tuned and let's find out! In Part 1 I’ll be showing you how to plant Beets and Kale.

If you want to see everything I am planting this fall check out Planting My Fall Vegetable Garden Part 1. youtu.be/u5QVo9h4m3I

By popular demand checkout how we will be following up this video, and it all starts with how to start a garden youtu.be/5nSGuextCNY . This will continue the series with a much needed refresh of videos highlighting how to grow almost 20 types of veggies in ONE raised bed. And for those of you that are gardening in small spaces, we will be gardening in grow bags and pots as well so we can all be successful.

For this experiment I will be growing what I believe to be the most common fall vegetables that people would enjoy
Beets
Kale
Lettuce
Carrots
Radishes
Spinach

All these vegetables will be divided between 5 grow bags for each type of soil. Both soils will be planted with the same varieties of seeds and be tended to in the same manner.

I purchased:
10 (15 gal) grow bags from amazon: VIVOSUN 5-Pack 15 Gallon Plant Grow Bags, Heavy Duty Thickened Nonwoven Fabric Pots with Handles: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VWU37QG/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl

5 bags of Organic Kellogg Raised Bed Soil at 2cuft and and
6 Bags of Organic Miracle Grow Raised Bed Soil at 1.5 cuft

Both brands of soil were the same price ($7.97) per bag but the Miracle Grow was only 1.5 vs 2 so I ad to buy and extra bag.

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Video

Hey, guys, it's phil again, from earth, nails and tails.

And I have what I'm very excited for this.

Episode is I'm going to be showing you newcomers how to start growing today.

So what I have for you right here, if you look down, I have grow bags and bags of soil.

So all of these things that you can get pretty readily.

And as I said, you'll, be able to get started growing today.

So I'm going to be doing a spearmint for you guys.

I bought some kellogg's brands for kellogg, brand soil.

And I also bought miracle grow brand soil, and I bought five bags of each.

And I also bought 10 grow bags.

So I'm going to be planting my fall vegetables and these and I'm going to be comparing how the vegetables perform in each type of each soil as well as my garden.

So that I can help you figure out which soil is best and also help you new guys that are newer to growing start growing today with just a grow bag and a bag of soil.

So both of these here are 797 from home depot.

So pretty affordable for someone to be able to go out and grab a bag of soil that costs ten dollars and plant some vegetables that the vegetables that you're gonna plant in it you're gonna get more than ten dollars with vegetables out of that bag.

So for me, I think it's a great investment and you're also learning something along the way.

So I'm only going to be doing a small portion of this video today, because of where I am in the season, I can only grow certain vegetables.

So right now I'm going to be starting kale and beets.

But later on as the season gets a little cooler, I'll, be planting some cold, colder, season vegetables, like lettuce, spinach, radishes and carrots.

Those are all of the vegetables that I'm planting in these grow bags for you guys so you're going to learn exactly how to grow those vegetables in these videos.

So as you can see over here, I have a bunch of miracle grow.

And then over here, I have a bunch of kellogg's.

So I know I have them opposite here, but I'll switch them.

So I'm gonna talk a little bit more now we're gonna take a close-up of each bag and show you what's in each bag.

And then after that, we'll get growing okay, guys.

So as I said, I have the grow bags that I bought off amazon and I'll make sure I leave a link to those in the description below I'm, not affiliated with this company in any way, it's, actually the first time I'm trying it.

So I can't even give you a recommendation if they're good or not I'm, trying them the first time myself so I'm, hoping that they work out.

They were rated really highly on amazon.

So I'm, hoping for good results.

Anyway, let's get back to the whole point of this video is that you can buy these grow bags on amazon and get them within a couple days right? As we all know.

And what I'm doing here is I'm going to be testing two different types of soil.

So kellogg is a really well known brand for gardeners, it's supposed to be very good soil.

And then we also have miracle grow, which most gardeners would say is really a chemical company, but they've been trying a lot harder lately to compete with the other more natural topsoil raised bed mixes.

So we're gonna am gonna be doing a test for you guys as to figuring out which soil is best either miracle grow or kellogs and I'm also gonna be comparing the results to the soil that I have out in my garden.

So if you want to see what I planted this fall in my garden, make sure you check out the video above and you'll, be able to see what I planted.

But in in my garden, I have a mixture of one-half topsoil and one-half compost.

And then I also use worm castings azomite kelp meal and various other natural fertilizers, which I can also link in the description below.

But I have a lot of nutrition in my soil.

And the reason I use topsoil and everyone should use topsoil in their garden is because it has a mixture of sand, silt and clay.

And ideally for a vegetable garden.

You want to have a equal mixture.

So one third, each of those, which will help with proper moisture control and nutrition and the growth development of your plants roots so that's going to help your plants grow the best, and then the compost will help to condition your soil to make it even more readily available for your plants, but let's see what we have inside of this soil here.

So if we go and read these these, both pretty much say, the same thing.

This product is formulated from one or more of the following peat processed forest products and or compost and shag and peat moss and or coir, poultry litter alfalfa meal bone meal, kelp meal, earthworm castings.

So this has a lot of the same things that I put in my soil.

However, it also has formulated products like we don't know exactly what that means right? But I know in my soil, I have topsoil.

And then it also has the nutrition breakdown or your macronutrients, which we have nitrogen phosphate.

So your npk ratio, phosphate and potassium.

Then this one also has calcium.

So we have nine percent or 0.9 percent 0.08 and 0.09 and 0.02.

So this is the nutrients nutrients that are immediately available to the plants.

Once you put them in the soil, there will still be a trickle flow of nutrition throughout the life of the plant and of the soil, all right so that's, the miracle grow it's.

And both of these are organic by the way just to make that clear and they're, both raised bed soil.

And then we have the kellogg's raised bed and potting mix organic plus and then let's see what the ingredients say here again, this product is regionally formulated with organic materials, including one or more of the following processed forest products, recycled forest products, arbor finds pete humus or hummus.

I think pretty sure it's pronounced humist or compost, perlite, coir, shagum, peat moss sand, ground, dolomitic limestone, gypsum organic fertilizer.

So to me right off the bat.

This definitely seems like a better product.

But again, we'll see just the the mirror the ingredients that are in here and then going down to the macros.

We have point three percent nitrogen point, one percent phosphate and then point one percent potassium.

So these this bag also has much more nutrition than the raised bed soil from miracle grow.

Another thing that I do have to say is that this bag is two cubic feet.

And this bag is 1.5 cubic feet.

And for me here, where I am both of these bags cost the exact same price, they were 7.97 a bag so to that might seem like a lot, but just think about how many vegetables you're actually growing in this amount of soil.

So just keep that in mind when you're buying a bag, you know, it might seem like a lot, but just think about how much you're getting out of that bag of soil.

And again, this is for people that don't have the space to be able to create a huge garden.

You can go on amazon buy these grow bags, buy a bag of soil and you're growing your own food it's, this literally as simple as that and that's, why I'm creating a video this video? Because I want you guys to get out and start growing your own stuff with whatever you have available all right? So, as I said earlier in today's, episode I'm only going to be doing beets and kale, which are things that I can grow in the current temperature.

If you want more information about what vegetables that you can grow right now, make sure you check out my other video, which I'll link up above and that'll talk about more about zones and your first frost date and how that affects what vegetables you can plant.

So make sure you check out that video, but let's get started on this.

So from amazon, as I said, I bought these grow bags.

And I think they were about 27 dollars for five grow bags.

And these are 15 gallon ones.

So from this company, you can buy different sized grow bags, again, I'm, not affiliated with them in any way.

And this is the first time I bought them.

So I hope they hold up.

So 15 gallons should be able to hold this whole thing in here.

So we're gonna find out.

So as I said, I'm, just gonna like look how simple it is, you know, if you're looking behind me like yeah, you're seeing the garden.

And like how planned out and how much soil that takes, but I literally just bought this bag from amazon.

And then I bought this soil from home depot.

And or you can get it from lowe's, and I filled it.

Now I have my garden right.

And now we're, ready to go so I'm going to do the same thing with the miracle grow.

So this will be the kellogg.

So I'll move these.

And then this bag here is going to be the miracle grow.

And as I said and I'll make sure I keep these separate in my garden.

So we can track them properly over the whole process.

But as I said before the miracle work grow actually has less soil and it's 1.5 cubic feet.

So I did have to buy an extra bag to get the same amount of soil as the kellogg.

It actually still seems to fill it up just as nicely.

So I may have not needed that extra bag, but if I'm planting a root vegetable like a carrot or a beet, I might want that extra depth for that plant.

So I mean, looking at these soils close up, you know, the uh, cal, I mentioned, it had some perlite, which is this white stuff in here, which helps with nutrition uptake by the plant and also helps with aeration.

And then you see the miracle grow here, which they both have a pretty good soil consistency.

So so far I'm happy with both of them.

But you can see here this one's a little bit darker, which is telling me that this one has some more compost and more nutrition in it.

So I think off the bat that this one is going to perform better, but we'll find out.

So now we're going to plant our kale and our beets.

So unfortunately, this isn't going to be the best experiment because really experiments you want to do them over and over and over and over to get results right? But unfortunately, I can't plant that many kale plants in here.

So I'm only going to be planting like two or three in here.

So I'm gonna make three holes and I'm gonna plant my kale in there again, make sure you watch my other video for how to plant these, but always read the bag.

First right, this says between 65 and 85 degrees fahrenheit and then you're planting them at a half inch to or one quarter inch to one half inch I'm going to take these guys and then sprinkle them.

You know, I'm just going to sprinkle two or three in each hole and I'm doing the same variety for all for both these types of soil.

So in this in these two bags, and I have four other bags for each variety, which I'll be growing the other vegetables in later in the year, but they were they're all gonna have the exact same variety plants and I'm gonna be taking care of them the exact same way.

So we'll really be able to see which one is going to produce the best.

So these are going to go one half inch deep again, based off of the package here.

So I'm just going to, you know, poke my finger around here.

They want about four inches.

So I'm, just gonna poke my finger around here like every four inches or so.

And the one thing really cool thing about beets is I've also talked about this in my other video is that the seeds are actually clusters of seeds.

So you don't need to have you don't have to plant more than one ancient repeats.

Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, all right.

So we got we got three kale plants, which will probably get thinned out to one or two, honestly, because kale actually needs a lot of room.

And then we got eight beets in here.

So I'd say, that's, pretty good for this small space.

And then we're gonna do the exact same thing in this bag, it's already planted the kale.

So I'm, just gonna stick my finger in here.

Go every three or four inches.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven eight.

So we've got the same number of plants in each bag all right guys.

So I know it didn't give you a lot of details about each specific vegetable.

But honestly, you really don't need that much as long as you're reading the bag properly, it'll, tell you what to do as the season goes on and I'm planting more vegetables in each of these bags, I'll go deeper into how you're going to fertilize these, how you're going to take care of them if they need supports or not.

But after I plant these I'm going to make sure I soak these really really well.

So that the soil is at least one to two inches deep.

So do a deep do a watering on each of them, wait a little bit come back and then water a little bit more and then stick your finger in the soil to make sure that the water has penetrated deeply into the soil in order to get the most up-to-date information about how these plants are growing.

And when I'm going to be doing the next succession or the other plants that I said that I was growing like lettuce, spinach, carrots and radishes, make sure you hit the subscribe button and hit the alert button.

So that way you'll know when I upload my next video again, my name is phil, and this is earth, nails and tails.

And I hope you guys enjoyed.