How to Make Cocopeat at Home (Beginners Step-by-Step Guide)

We all know the benefits of using coco peat in the soil of our houseplants. It has fantastic water retaining properties, helps to maintain proper aeration in the soil, and most importantly it is eco-friendly. But can we take it to another level with sustainability? Can we learn how to make cocopeat at home ourselves from locally sourced coconuts?

Making cocopeat at home is easy. Once you learn the steps (using this guide), you’ll wonder why you didn’t try it earlier. There is a bit of a process involved with processing the cocopeat once you have extracted it from the coconut shell. However, the applications of cocopeat for your gardening and agricultural activities are endless.

Welcome to today’s feature article at the Garden Bench Top, where we are going to provide you with a detailed step-by-step instructional guide for making your very own coco peat at home.

We’ll also explore the best methods of storage for coco peat, as well as the benefits of coco peat for your garden.

So if you are ready for some home gardening DIY, grab your gloves.

What is Coco Peat?

Coco peat forms part of the coconut husk that holds the external coconut coir fibers together in the shell. It is the pith of the coconut shell, and is a light and spongy material that is perfect to use as a growing medium.

Coco peat ticks all the right boxes for us, because it is environmentally friendly, completely organic, our plants love the stuff AND it is repurposing materials that would otherwise end up in landfill.

How to Make Cocopeat – Step-by-step Guide

Okay, enough gushing over how many awards coco peat deserves. Let’s get into what you’re here for – learning how to make coco peat at home.

What You’ll Need:

• mature coconut
• machete or cleaver
• wooden block or chopping board
• container
• protective gloves
• sieve with medium holes (important it is not a fine sieve)

Step 1 – Separate Coconut Husk from fibers

Put your protective gloves on before grabbing the coconut and cleaver. Carefully cut along the outside of the coconut (from top to bottom) into eight sections. This will help you strip the coconut husk from the inside of the coconut.

Begin to strip the husk off piece by piece. The pieces should be coming off in the sections that you cut into the skin. You may need to use the tip of the cleaver to lift the first bit of skin up, but once you get going the skin should come away relatively easily.

Step 2 – Strip the Coco Peat Away From the Hard Shell

Once you have all your pieces, begin to strip away the fibrous spongy material on the inside of the husk. It should come away in thick fibers that look and feel like stiffened string.

Compost the hard outer shell of the coconut (remember we’re going to reuse everything that we can from the coconuts!).

Step 3 – Chop the Fibrous Material into Small Pieces

Grab your wooden block or chopping board and carefully chop the fibrous material in small pieces approximately ½ inch (1.25 centimeters) in length.

Step 4 – Sieve the Chopped Fibers

Once you have finished chopping, process the cut fibers through the sieve over a container. The goal is to get rid of the thick fibers, leaving only the soft water absorbent material for your plants.

Again, compost the thick fibers that remain in the sieve and repeat with a new batch of cut fibers.

The usable coco peat will collect in the container below, ready to be mixed with other growing mediums, like sphagnum moss, perlite and vermiculite.

There you have it, an easy to follow guide for how to make coco peat at home.

How to Make Cocopeat Brick?

When you are making cocopeat at home, it is a good idea to do batches, rather than on a demand basis. But that means you need a way to store your coco peat.

A popular method of storage is to make coco peat bricks. It is a simple and effective way to save space and time.

Simply mix the coco peat with water and wait for the coco peat to absorb all the water. You may need to keep adding water, because it is extremely absorbent. It should turn a dark brown color.

Next push grab some sterilized rectangle containers, and pack the water laden coco peat into the containers. You want to tightly pack as much coco peat into each container as possible. If it is too loose, the brick will likely crumble when it dries, leaving you with a big mess.

Turn the containers upside down and extract a nice coco peat brick, and allow to dry for 24 hours.

Check out this quick tutorial (below) for how to make coco peat bricks at home by H&H Creations.

What are the Benefits of Coco Peat

Coco peat can benefit your gardening in so many ways. We personally love using it as part of our indoor soil mix. Tropical plants, in particular, love a bit of cocopeat in their soil, as it provides a constant source of water for their thirsty root system.

Water Retention Properties

By far, the most valuable property of coco peat is its water retaining properties. Coco peat can hold approximately 10 times its volume in water, which is good news for all your plants.

This combined with the next property is everything that you need to keep a happy thriving garden, indoors or out.

Excellent Drainage Properties

Runner-up to the most important property, but just as important, is coco peat’s ability to expel any excess water. This is important to prevent your indoor plants from developing root rot and attracting unwanted pests.

Creates Perfect Aeration

Once you begin working with coco peat, you will understand how light and airy the growing medium really is. This is important for so many reasons, but for the most part, it allows oxygen to reach the roots for a proper gas exchange process. This ensures your plants are healthy and develop a strong root structure.

High in Organic Materials

Coco peat is a natural and organic material, and therefore it is high in nutrients and minerals. Most importantly, it contains the necessary ingredients for supporting a houseplants’ growth, like nitrogen, potassium, magnesium and zinc.

Eco friendly

We’ve mentioned eco-friendliness a number of times throughout this article, but it is one of our passions as gardeners. Repurposing any material is a big win in our books. So, the fact that we can effectively use the complete coconut, husk and all, makes it one of our favorite fruits to work grow and work with.

How to Store Coco Peat

We have already talked about making coco peat bricks, but how should you store the coco peat bricks once they have dried and hardened?

Keeping your coco peat in a dry, cool space that isn’t exposed to light is the best practice. Keeping it in an airtight container will help to keep out any unwanted bacteria and mold growth.

Coco Peat vs Coco Coir What’s the Difference?

There is NO DIFFERENCE. They are actually the same material, just different names that can be used interchangeably.