Great deal on starter soil?
- Thread starter Ben E Lou
- Start date
digitS'
Garden Master
You will need someone other than me to respond, Ben.
I want to express a caution, however. Consider the choice on the best advice you can find, especially if most of your garden plants will be from your indoor starts.
A wrong choice of soil mix to start seeds nearly ruined my gardening year quite some time ago. The starting window is narrow here and I had to do some real scrambling to begin anew, after a couple of weeks and the soil problem became apparent. I immediately lost track of the name of the product but it came from Ace Hardware and had this great price. It had a cheerful daisy printed on the bag - I never saw that logo again and suspect that I wasn't the only victim of a poor choice.
For years since, I have stuck with the same product. I'm sure it's not the best - for one thing, it's too coarse. Risk-averse and burned once, I'm just not willing to experiment.
Steve
I want to express a caution, however. Consider the choice on the best advice you can find, especially if most of your garden plants will be from your indoor starts.
A wrong choice of soil mix to start seeds nearly ruined my gardening year quite some time ago. The starting window is narrow here and I had to do some real scrambling to begin anew, after a couple of weeks and the soil problem became apparent. I immediately lost track of the name of the product but it came from Ace Hardware and had this great price. It had a cheerful daisy printed on the bag - I never saw that logo again and suspect that I wasn't the only victim of a poor choice.
For years since, I have stuck with the same product. I'm sure it's not the best - for one thing, it's too coarse. Risk-averse and burned once, I'm just not willing to experiment.
Steve
- Thread starter
- #3
Ben E Lou
Deeply Rooted
After I posted, it hit me that I can just experiment. I am planning to start my kale indoors this weekend anyway, so I am just going to try a few seeds in the Home Depot soil and a few in soil recommended by a local nursery and see if there is much difference. Plenty of time to switch gears and only six bucks lost if it doesn’t do well, and if it does do well, huge savings. I went ahead and bought 8 bags while I was there, but verified that I can return the unopened ones in 30 days. Experiment starts today!
so lucky
Garden Master
It looks like it has some added nutrients. Does it give an analysis on the back, like a fertilizer does? Such as 2-2-4? If so, that needs to be considered when you do fertilize. Baby plants can be burned easier than full grown ones.
Personally, I have always had good luck with Jiffy Mix or Fertilome Potting Mix.
Personally, I have always had good luck with Jiffy Mix or Fertilome Potting Mix.
Ridgerunner
Garden Master
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2009
- Messages
- 8,246
- Reaction score
- 10,131
- Points
- 397
- Location
- Southeast Louisiana Zone 9A
I like the experimenting idea. I used the Fertilome Potting Mix which is what the local Mom 'n Pop gardening center used. It worked well for me.
flowerbug
Garden Master
not much starting of seeds in pots here. we don't have the space for it and the greenhouse down the road does a good job so we just buy the few dozen plants we need from them.
what i do know is that seed starting mix is often different than potting and growing mix.
you may find that the mix you have selected there is too rich for some starts, but ok for others.
you can always use it in the gardens. i wouldn't use it exclusively because this is the first season you are using a space and it likely has enough other nutrients already so you can spread it out some more. worms will likely be happy with it.
experiments are always fun.
what i do know is that seed starting mix is often different than potting and growing mix.
you may find that the mix you have selected there is too rich for some starts, but ok for others.
you can always use it in the gardens. i wouldn't use it exclusively because this is the first season you are using a space and it likely has enough other nutrients already so you can spread it out some more. worms will likely be happy with it.
experiments are always fun.
thistlebloom
Garden Master
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2010
- Messages
- 16,473
- Reaction score
- 17,423
- Points
- 457
- Location
- North Idaho 48th parallel
Dr. Earth has reliably good products, and a good reputation at a small nursery up here where they start most of their bedding plants themselves. But I can't vouch for seed starting in it from personal experience.
I'm predicting it will work just fine.
I'm predicting it will work just fine.
- Thread starter
- #9
Ben E Lou
Deeply Rooted
OK. I decided to set up six peat pots with 2 kale seeds in each one:
POTS 1&2: The Dr. Earth Planting mix above.
POTS 3&4: Jiffy Natural & Organic Seed Starting Mix.
POTS 5&6: Soil from my garden. (Everything was started outdoors in the dirt last year.)
The specific seeds planted were Pinetree's heirloom Red Russian Kale. (Item #W350). I planted them at approximately 3:40pm EST today, 12/31/2019. Let's see how they do.
POTS 1&2: The Dr. Earth Planting mix above.
POTS 3&4: Jiffy Natural & Organic Seed Starting Mix.
POTS 5&6: Soil from my garden. (Everything was started outdoors in the dirt last year.)
The specific seeds planted were Pinetree's heirloom Red Russian Kale. (Item #W350). I planted them at approximately 3:40pm EST today, 12/31/2019. Let's see how they do.
