Hey I’m looking to make my own living soil, and have had great results with Build a soil 3.0.
It’s insanely expensive to ship the soil from Colorado.
So I’m looking to make my own, id like to substitute or find a reasonable deal on something locally that will work without resorting to perlite.
Thank you
If your up for some manual labor you can get bags of lava rock and bust them up a bit works great just real heavy
You can closely replicate that soil pretty inexpensively if you have a hardware store close by.
Mix equal amounts of Peat moss/compost/pearlite.
You can get fancy and add rock/glacial dust/Azomite. But if you’re on a budget, you can get by without them.
Then you can add your inputs by topdressing with a good granular organic (Espoma Flower Tone is my personal favorite) and or compost teas.
This is of course a very basic growing medium but will work very well especially if you’re on a budget. And you can add ingredients to your recipe as you go along until you find what works for you.
Cheers, Dozer.
You can get pumice pretty cheap horticultural grade off Amazon.
I need several cubic feet of it, and Amazon prices it to reflect the price it cost to ship it.
Biochar/natural charcoal broken into your desired size will work. Just make sure it’s charged with some nutrition
The ‘secret sauce’ for DIY soil is EWC (earthworm castings).
Look into setting up a ‘worm farm’… Works very well for recycling your used soil.
Cheers
G
You could use rice husk …although big amount might be expensive.
Ask look at landscaping places might have bulk pumice for cheep I got quoted for a truck bed full for a few hundred bucks that would make up like 500-600 gallons of soil
Thank you .
I’ve been mixing some red lava rock from our yard in mine. Plants seem happy with it so far. Sold cheap at the garden / hardware stores. Former residents here liked it way too much, so mine is free. 
I’ve also gotten good prices on pumice at a local small nursery where most things are kind of expensive.