FoxFarm Soil & Fertilizer - what you should know!

What you don't know, but need to know prior to buying FoxFarm Soil & Fertilizer products! I'm taking this opportunity to educate all of the high quality, organic, health conscious, vegetable / cannabis growers in our growing communities. Do you love FoxFarm products? If you do, I'm stoked for you but be very careful using their soils for your gardens. I am aware that every bag, of every potting soil they manufacture, contains a high percent of a raw material they source that is collected from multiple hazardous waste cleanup dump sites. Here is a little back story: FoxFarm is located in the remote parts of Northern California in Humboldt County. Over the years as they have grown, because of our support, they have ran out of local raw materials forcing them to search for cheap alternative raw material components out of the area that they can use in their soil mediums. FoxFarm in desperation reached out to the DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality) for support. FoxFarm and the DEQ partnered up to clean up facilities that are required, by law, to remove millions of yards of contaminated soil from their facilities. Items pulled from these dump sites include, but is not limited too: numerous full rusted and leaking barrels of waste oil, large rubber equipment tires, hazardous chemical waste, steal, metal and a wide variety of other hazardous materials that have leached for decades throughout the soil. I'm told FoxFarm gets this material for free to remove it from the property of their corporate customers. It is then screened and processed at the contamination site (as seen in picture below) a portion of the material is then removed each growing season and blended into all the potting soils they produce, that you plant your garden in. This is a perfect relationships between FoxFarm, the corporate vendors and the DEQ. The vendor has an outlet to remove this contamination that would potentially cost hundreds of thousands of dollars if not into the millions to remove, the DEQ can recommend FoxFarm as a possible solution to their customers forced to remove contamination and FoxFarm has a new product to sell to you for years to come by locking in contracts for each dump site. You may ask how they can do this? How is this ok? Well, since the product is blended with other raw materials, it is deemed to be in small enough quantities to be safe for your use even though I'm told it is one of the highest ingredient percentages used in their formulations. The contamination is then dispersed all over America. This contamination and your risk adds up if you're using 10 bags or 10 pallets or full truckloads for your gardens. If your trying to produce a clean organic vegetable or medicine for yourself or your customers, I feel you have a right to know this. Do your research, educate yourself, call them and push for the truth. You can reach their customer service department at 707-443-4369 which won't be much help so I recommend talking with the COO, head of raw material procurement, or their registration department, better yet ask for the owner "FoxFarm Willy" at his Arizona office at 480-306-7555. Here are the mined piles of contaminated composted forest humas at an undisclosed remote location. . You can visually see that these piles are out of place and have been mined/extricated from the ground for their use.. These piles that they posted on Instagram are 100% deemed contaminated by the DEQ! This is why "Natural & Organic" was removed from their bags and you now see "Smart Naturals". I am NOT telling you to NOT buy their products, but simply advising you of the risk you are taking if you use their products and so you can make an educated and informed decision when you're choosing the right soils for your gardens. Don't just believe that their products are safe just because of the fancy artwork. It's all just marketing which they are good at! They hash tag these phrases #madewithlove -but it's made with contaminated waste, #donttreatyoursoillikedirt - but it IS contaminated dirt!, #growyourown - but it's slowly poisoning your food and medicine, #onlythebest - it's merely a mirage!!!! #behonestfoxfarm #truthbeckons