Your best bet, with what you have, is a mix with at least as much perlite as peat, + some garden lime - leave the other ingredients out - use the compost in the garden & fill holes in the yard with the garden soil ..... or add it to the garden/beds. Al

Ainadaliel, Soil- the natural soil or dirt that is outside in the garden naturally, containing leaves, worms, whatever, but your exsisting outside dirt. Soil-less potting mix- Used for POTS only, made specifically for pot use, containing larger fragments for the plants to allow their roots to "breathe" and drain well. Most soil-less potting mix also contains some kind of fertilizer because the plants can't get the natural fertilization in the soil outside, like leaves, worm castings, ect. Where are you starting your plants? Most people start them inside in the winter, which would mean you aren't planting them in the ground. So, if you start babies inside, you want a pot with soil-less potting mix. When they get big, and you want to plant them outside in your garden, then they go in your soil(which is your dirt outside in your garden bed) mixed with compost. I don't know what fungus has to do with anything, if you get fungus on them inside, the drainage isn't good and they aren't getting enough fresh air.

here is a simple tree and shrub mix from Dr Bert Swanson, retired professor of horticulture (specialization in nursery management) at the University of Minnesota: 5 parts composted wood chips (wood chips which have been composted for a year with fertilizer, in his case, turkey manure, added to the chips) 2 parts peat moss that is a very simple mix. a mix used here at the nursery I work at is 5 parts peat 2 parts sand 2 parts topsoil 2 parts bark chips a lighter version of the above mix (for plants that need more well drained) 5 parts bark 4 parts peat 1 part sand I agree with Brian - Promix is expensive, but it is really good. The fact that it is weed seed free is important. good luck to you. PP

I think you guys are both way off the mark, and Glib is setting himself up for a soggy soil that will collapse quickly and some intense N immobilization with the addition of materials that break down rapidly, not to mention the extra heat associated with rapid composting. When you think of container media, think STRUCTURE. Forget about the soil's ability to feed the plants (that's monkey easy) and focus on it's ability to hold the right amount of water and air. Compost can't do that. No matter what you THINK, using a large compost fraction (or any other fine material like peat, coir, sand, topsoil ----- is going to provide you with a soil that retains a soggy layer at the bottom after a thorough watering. This is what you DO NOT want, because water/nutrient uptake is an energy driven process that requires fuel (photosynthate) fuel to be burned in the presence of O2. W/o the O2, there is no way to drive the process and the plant suffers for as long as the O2 level in the soil is insufficient. Ideally, you would BASE your soil on a very larger fraction of coarse material that retains it's structure for long periods (is mineral in composition or breaks down very slowly - like pine bark). This coarse material would comprise more than 75-85% of the volume of the medium. You could then add a small fraction of compost, peat, or a mineral like Turface to adjust the water retention to a favorable level. Adding coarse material to "amend" finer material doesn't work because the fine material simply fills all the air space between the large particles, leaving you with the same drainage, aeration, and soggy soil level you would have had using only the fine material. The idea is to create a soil that holds all or most of it's water inside of soil particles - on the surface of soil particles - and at the interface where soil particles contact each other, and none or little of its water between soil particles. That's not achievable using compost, peat, coir ....... Al