my indoors babys needed to be in bigger pots. so i needed soil asap. i figured, gee how could MG fuck up something so basic, so i went with the best thing the hard ware store had and got MG organic. WORST DECISION EVER!!! there has been rubber bands, glass, tons of wood chips, PH is off the charts, and worst of all. BUGS! Very tiny little greenish bugs everywhere. about 500 of them on the surface of the soil in each pot. there horrible to have indoors because they are so small. I just wanted to know if i should not even bother with this soil anymore and dump it, re plant these guys in better soil.. and cover my whole area in naturall pest powder, then vacuum for hours and wash my walls. or.. if maybe these bugs arent that bad and you guys have seen them befor in MG organics and i should work around it *balancing ph and trying weed plant safe spray to kill surfaced bugs every few days*
I would ditch and buy something worthwhile. In the mean time start planning on making your own compost and worm castings for a true organic experience.
I just wanted to know if i should not even bother with this soil anymore and dump it Yep. jerry. edit: While you're at it, before you ever decide to support the Miracle Grow/Scotts/Monsanto company again, take a look here, at the "Monsanto Heads-Up Thread". It might just change your mind about supporting this company again. Very bad people. Good luck. jerry.
Glass and rubber bands!! WTF? I used bargain soil years ago that I believe was made by the Schultz co.- not too bad, no nutes, and had the makeup of basically pro mix. I bought a bag of MG organic once just to check it out. It looked to me to be mainly comprised of pine bark, wood chips, and just a sprinkle of perlite. I amended the shit and potted up some pepper plants outdoors. It's the only time in 20something years of gardening I've ever had a fungus gnat and root aphid attack outdoors. Even with a double dose of dolomite the ph was hovering around 5.2-5.5. IMO I would get my plants out of it if I were you. If you don't have access to a good product, it would be far better to purchase some peat,perlite, and some organic goodies from the local big box and blend your own mix than to buy any MG product.
That's all potting soil is - peat moss (hopefully Sphagnum but then again hope springs eternal in the heart of an optimist) & perlite. No matter how you slice it, dice it, analyze it - that's all it is - peat & perlite. LD
For the curious mind I would recommend going to a big box and slice open a bag of MG organic with your pocket knife. I don't know if the makeup varies by region, but here it's mainly pine bark based. And I'm not talking little flakes-there's chunks in it the size of your palm.
I think all organic gardeners/farmers should do this nation wide as a direct action protest against Monsanto. My matte knife is at the ready!
Also make sure whatever you buy is dry and not wet. If the store lets it get wet it isn't sterile anymore.
I prefer my bagged compost a bit moist, not dry. I don't want a sterile compost. I want it alive with microorganisms. But since I no longer buy bagged compost (I make my own compost), it's not a concern for me anymore.
Kind of sub-topic, but I noticed that Ferry Morse now has ownership of Jiffy products.I wonder if they are in cahoots with Miracle grow,Scotts, and Monsanto. The quality of the jiffy starter mix seems to have went downhill as well. I found enough lumber to build a model log cabin in the last couple of bags I purchased.
When you buy sterile soil to go inside and the room isn't naturally balanced like your compost is, it is best not to introduce anything that isn't derived from the environment it is in. If you have a sterile bag to take inside where (I keep it as sterile as possible) there may not be an organism to check the one you introduced, there can be all kinds of mold and fungus problems. Bugs also like to get into the wet dirt and if they are ants or plant consuming varieties there needs to be natural elements to keep them in check. That is easier done outside than inside. If you compost your own soil, that isn't a problem. I personally don't want to see any bugs in my room even if it is a predator that means there is possibly something in there I don't want and it is getting food.
Very true. It's a lot easier to control critters when you don't introduce them in the 1st place. On the flipside of that though, I have a friend who used to do a 4k barnloft grow every winter, and he had every pest and every predator living in that damned hayloft one could imagine. He actually got his soil from digging in the old stables below. About an hour after the lights would kick on there were swarms of ladybugs(nesting under the tin roof), green anole lizards,moths, spiders and more than one oak snake usually. As far as they were concerned it was summer all year up there in that loft. It all worked itself out in that filthy ol barn, but not many of us would be so lucky in a spare bedroom or closet. I hope
I was wondering if when you do the compost thing, Do you ever fertilize or is it an ecological environment that need no amendments?
I agree wholeheartedly with Wee. The very last thing I want is a dry, sterile, dead soil. That goes totally against what I work for - a living nutritious environment. Sterile does me no good. I too make my own compost but have not gotten to the point yet where I have enough "finished" - nor do I have the same ingredients in mine (crab/lobster/salmon) that the high end compost I am able to source here in Maine for 6 dollars a bag gets me - so I buy it, but the very last thing I would want it to be is bone-dry - that means dead or at least very dormant microbes. Right now my compost pile is worm food. I'm driving home right now from picking up another six pounds of Red Wigglers - for the rock bottom price of $75.00. I DO understand about not wanting bugs in yer soil (at least bad ones) and thus wanting it dry, but dry soil can hurt the good life too. Source Quality!! You get what you pay for! Why buy the cheapest shit you can get to try and grow high quality grass? Ya start with crap and yer gonna grow crap. Ya start with high quality and you (could) end up with high quality. Word. Jerry.
Jerry, I wish you guys didn't have to pay so much for wigglers. It seems like highway robbery to me at those prices, but then again I don't know what kind of expenses it takes to produce them in quantity up there. If you've got a good back you can go to a u-dig worm farm here and they run 75 cents to a dollar per hundred. Earthworms(specifically Georgia pinks and wildies) go for a higher price, but that's because they don't stay put in ground beds around here. Anyhoo, all this worm talk has got me chompin at the bit to start mine next spring. I want to go manure free in it to prohibit redworms(skinny little local bastards) and let the wild brown wigglers inhabit the bed, but the worm growers all say to go with the red wigglers because they're more hardy and prolific.
sterile is for laboratories. I want a lush, living, green field of cannabis buds. A few critters here and there never hurt anyone. Key word there is few. Obviously one doesn't want to bring in nasty shit into ones grow room. Like chemical poisons? Knowing what a good bag of compost is, as compared to a bad one, is far better, imo, than a futile attempt to be sterile. A mud farmer being sterile. heh <snerk> A good healthy soil and plant is pretty self regulating. The gardener should know how to enhance this and how to step out of the way.