Monday, May 28, 2012

Advice for bagged "Garden Soil"


If you are tempted to buy the Miracle-Gro Garden Soil for Flowers and Vegetables please reconsider, depending on how you plan to use it! Be advised it repels water rather than absorbing it.

I just spread 4 bags (1.5 cu. ft. each) of it about 2" deep over the inverted sod on one end of my hugelculture bed, and put the sprinkler on it for an hour to soak it thoroughly so I could plant in it. I thought as a quick-start, it would be better than the cheap bagged topsoil that often has lumps of clay in it.

NOT!!  After an hour of running the sprinkler, I started to plant some winter squash seedlings (Potimarron), and the Miracle-Gro crap was wet barely 1/16" deep (if that) and the rest underneath was bone dry. It has no wetting agent and the water just ran off. Total waste of $24, and defeats the purpose of hugelkultur.

I scraped it all off as best I could, and went to Lowe's and bought Sta-Green's equivalent bagged garden soil (which was also cheaper) and applied it. After 45 minutes with the sprinkler, it was damp almost 1/8" deep, so not really any better than the Miracle-Gro "soil". The remaining 2 bags will go back to Lowe's.

I still have about 40 lineal feet of hugelkultur bed to cover with soil. My initial plan was to use the huge pile of compost/mulch/soil combo scraped off the sheet-mulched area I did last September, because there's plenty of it, rather than buy topsoil. However, my home pH test kit tested the pile at a pH of 9.0 so it's not useful in the garden until I can bring the pH down.

I tend to be wary of home garden test kits, so I also tested the pH in a couple of beds where I have a pretty good knowledge of the pH from previous professional testing, and they tested as I expected... so the pH of the "black gold" is probably close to what the test showed.

So now I have to buy a load of topsoil before I can get on with planting in my new hugelkultur bed.

6 comments:

  1. Yeah, it becomes hydrophobic. Most of those mixes are made up of dried peat (sphagnum) moss and/ or shredded wood filler, plus perlite and added fertilizers. Once you are able to get it properly wet, it will retain moisture. (This happens with some soils.. they dry out so much that they repel water.) Spray water on to it and mix. I used to add in sand & finished damp compost, spray it down with water and stir.. sometimes grabbing a handful and squeezing. After a bit of work it absorbs. I try to avoid any of the bagged "soil" as much as possible by going with a mix of my composts, sand, and some of our clay. Heating the soil mix will sterilize it if needed.

    Btw.. Scott's (maker of Miracle gro/ Ortho and more) is one of Monsanto's buddies. Soctt's has exclusive selling rights of consumer Roundup.

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    1. Thanks for the tips on how to wet it, although with the addition of some topsoil, it's a moot point for me. As I posted above, I usually mix my own, but my available materials were not sufficient to use in this case.

      BTW, I DID know that about Scott's but Thanks for the reminder!

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  2. Great article! I always use Jungle Growth Flower & Vegetable Mix, which I get at Lowe's. It is dark & rich looking, has a nice texture, holds some moisture (very important here in sandy-soiled South Georgia!). Might be worth a try - next time. I also use it in pots, & in a horse trough I am currently growing purple fingerling potatoes in!!

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    1. How interesting! I have used that product, but so long ago that I don;t remember why. Thanks!

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  3. I've found that just about any of those bagged soils are like that if they've dried out (and partial bags have a tendency to get "lost" here between uses, so they're almost always dry as dust!) I always add water to it right in the bag, mix it as well as I can, then let it sit for awhile before I use it. Of course, I'm usually just using it to fill peat pots when I transplant seedlings -- never on the scale of what you're doing.

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    1. I agree and have used it as an additive for potted plants with fair success.

      In the hhe hugel bed, what didn't get all scraped off is now under 2-3" of topsoil, and the seedlings are doing a tad better.

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