No Need For Pricey Soil Sifters — The Much Cheaper Alternative Waiting For You At Thrift Stores

If you like making your own soil mixes instead of buying bagged potting mixes, whether you use homemade compost or garden soil, you'll want some type of tool that you can use to sift out any rocks and other debris. This will provide you with a nice base for adding the remaining ingredients to your own potting mixes. While you can purchase specific soil sifters, they can be a little pricey. If you want to save yourself some money, do what TikToker Alla from Naptime Garden has done and head to your local thrift store for a deep frying basket.

Essentially, the creator doesn't like buying bagged potting mix because it's heavy to cart home and can be expensive. Rather, she takes soil from her garden, sifting it into a wheelbarrow to remove rocks and stones before using it for her potted plants and seedlings. The deep fryer basket works extremely well at sifting the soil, and you can find one of these often quite cheaply at thrift stores and garage sales. Purchasing a new soil sifter, on the other hand, can set you back anywhere from about $20 up to $70 or more. 

These wire mesh baskets are generally made from stainless steel, so they'll hold up well to being used outdoors. Try to get one with a handle, as that will make the sifting process really easy. You can also use a deep fryer basket to sift regular potting mix so that it's fine enough for seed-raising, or to easily sift gravel out of soil or sand that you might want to add to a raised bed.

Whether you're using your own compost or sifting soil from your garden with your deep fryer basket, you should never just use this on its own in your containers. Garden soil, especially, is just too heavy and doesn't have the right structure for growing healthy potted plants. This means it will become waterlogged quickly, depriving the roots of air. Plus, it could contain insects, weed seeds, and even diseases, unless you pasteurize it first. For an easy way to sterilize large batches of soil, you'll want to fill an old baking tray with around 3 or 4 inches of the mix and put this in your oven, which you've preheated to 200 degrees. When the soil reaches a temperature of 160 degrees, you can turn off the oven but leave the soil inside for another thirty minutes. This should kill the weed seeds and any harmful pathogens in the soil.

@naptime.garden

I don't really have a great reason for not buying bagged soil—honestly, it's heavy and I don't feel like spending the extra money. I'm sure there are all kinds of benefits to different store-bought mixes, but this has worked really well for me the last six years... so I'm sticking with it. And my frying pan basket has been working great for me for soil sifting for my own diy formulas. #gardeningtiktok #thrifted #soilsifting #gardeninghacks #repurposed

♬ original sound – Alla's Naptime Garden

Any soil or compost you sift yourself should be used as a base to which you add other ingredients to create the best DIY soil mixes for the most popular houseplants, as well as for any seedlings you want to raise. Essentially, compost or soil should make up only around ⅓ of the total mix. To this, you want to add other materials such as perlite, vermiculite, coconut coir, sand, and composted bark. You don't have to add all of these; instead, experiment with combinations until you find exactly what works best for you. What you want to end up with is a nice, fluffy mix that can hold moisture but also drains well. Don't forget to add some slow-release fertilizer, so your plants can get the nutrients they need for healthy growth.