For a commercial potting soil, this one's pretty good. If the soil wasn't kept outside in the sun and you can tell that by the smell when you open the bag - as long as it smells 'fresh' then you shouldn't have any problems. Don't even think about adding anything other than a kelp/seaweed products for the first several weeks. If you're going to spend the money that this soil sells for, let it works its deal. HTH LD
I'm using roots organics soil and I'm having problems with it. I also added plant success mycorrhizae. It worked fine during the seedling stage, but it started to burn my leaves. I haven't checked the ph, but I have been using distiller water. When I bought it, it didn't smell fresh and it was warm like it had been left out in the sun. Maybe I bought a bad bag.
IamSnake When potting soils which were packed with a fair amount of compost/EWC/etc. providing decent levels of microbe activity and then are mishandled by stores which are used to carrying potting soils that are basically bags of dirt, problems often arise as you found out. You can fix the soil and get the PH online with the original materials chosen by Roots. The easiest way would be to buy the best earthworm castings (EWC) that you can find. What you generally find at a grow store wouldn't qualify as even 'acceptable' - try and find someone who is selling worms and ask about buying 3 or 4 quarts of EWC. Sometimes at local farmers markets you can find someone who is selling EWC or some kind of organic compost. Take the EWC and put them into a 5 gallon bucket and fill it up with clean water. Let it sit for 18 - 24 hours and stir it every few hours. No big deal but keep things kinda moving in the slurry. Pour the slurry on the top of your potting soil. The aerobic microbes will move down destroying the anaerobic microbes that are causing you the problems. Look for a dramatic turn-around in 2 or 3 days. BTW - steer manure is not compost. Neither is horse manure. Or chicken manure. If you go the route of using compost vs. EWC then make sure that the product was made correctly or you will simply be pouring gasoline on burning coals. If you're not sure about the viability of the compost then definitely stick with sourcing and using EWC. HTH LD
Thanks LD. I bought a bag of Black Gold earthworm castings today. I'm going to brew a tea like you suggested.
You'll be fine. In the future you might want to hit your potting soils with this type of tea a few days before you get ready to transplant. It will make the process go much smoother. Let us know how thing move forward by the end of the week after you've applied the EWC slurry. LD