In a hot humid climate, the all-peat bagged mix is either a brick (dry) or a swamp (wet), and both kill the same roots. After two lost seasons I switched to a bucket recipe and haven't bought a bag since.
| Ingredient | Parts | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Rehydrated coco coir | 2 | Wets evenly, holds air when saturated |
| Coarse horticultural sand | 1 | The drainage insurance in monsoon month |
| Finished compost (sieved) | 1 | Fertility and microbial life, nothing sterile about it |
| Slow-release organic pellets | 1 handful | Because I forget to fertilize, statistically |
Soak coir first — genuinely overnight, not the ten-minute kind; re-wetting dry coir is stubborn and if you skip it the bucket drinks your watering can before the roots get anything. Then mix everything damp, not dripping. Squeeze test: a handful should give a few drops, never a stream.
The mistake: using play sand. Play sand is fine powder disguised as sand, and it will absolutely make concrete. If water doesn't pass through your hand-tested handful in a few seconds, that sand isn't coarse enough.
Results after one full season: same watering schedule drains in half the time, chili roots came out white to the bottom of the pot for the first time, and the only complaint is that the mix is lighter than bagged stuff so tall pots need pebbles in the bottom third — not for drainage (a myth I believed for years), but so physics doesn't introduce itself to your basil on a windy day.