I loathe Miracle Grow Potting Mix

[greenthumbomaha]

Beware MG! I scored a deal on MG in the yellow bag and used it for the second potting up of my early tomatoes. The stuff is heavy, holds water, has sticks and has way too much fertilizer for younger seedlings. It's best to wait until they are closer to plant out for such a dense fertile soil. This was done at 4 weeks. Seedlings are now curling and leaves are turning light green and have dark veins. It's not just tomatoes gone bad. My geraniums cuttings all have puckered leaves. Bigger Amaryllis bulbs are loving it. They can't get enough!

Anyone have success with this stuff at an early stage or did I get a bad batch?

- Lisa

[PaulF]

I have used MG or Schultz or similar for years without a problem. It does have sticks and clods that get taken out when I use it. If there are holes in the bag and it is stored outside it does get heavy. I always make sure I get one that is light so I can put my own amount of water mixed in a tub I use.

There has never been a problem with too much fertilizer for me. Be sure not to use the water retention style. I just hope the formula has not been changed. What I have to begin with is last year's batch. I will watch closely.

[nctomatoman]

I don't use it until the 8 week point, or the final plant out, and mix it with composted cow manure. I use MetroMix 360 for both my seed starter and transplant material - works great. I've tried Fafard 3b, but there is something different about it - my seedlings don't thrive upon transplant, but take longer to "catch on".

[Dutch]

Lisa if the stuff is heavy it may gotten wet. Worse yet if was stored outside at the place you got it from, it could have been last years stock and has been wet for a while which may have caused the timed release fertilizer to all be released and in the mix now.
If the mix is heavy and dark, then this may very well be what happened.
Dutch

[ContainerTed]

I don't like the sticks and larger pieces either. So for my intermediate pot-ups, I overlapped two layers of rabbit wire and simply run the whole bag thru it to remove larger pieces. They get thrown into the main garden to finish breaking down.

Like the others above, I look for a bag that is not waterlogged. If, the bag is still too wet, I simply let it dry out by transferring the mix to a burlap bag and set up a fan. Works for me.

[KarenO]

use seedling mix for seedlings.
KarenO

[greenthumbomaha]

Very good point that this may bag have been outdoors and the fertilizer leached out. I meant it is heavy after "I" water it, and I do have a spritzer so its not a heavy hand watering. I have several bags stacked up that I haven't used that are totally dry to use down the road.

Karen O, my usual seed starter is Espoma or Fox Farms. I wasn't clear on that. I used the good stuff I had on hand on peppers and bought a bag of Jiffy Mix for tomatoes. It isn't as bad as I had imagined for ease of use, but nothing like the higher quality products. I also used two brands of coir for starting peppers, one is great and fluffy the other a horror - dense then dries fast .

Craig, I like the Fafard in the green bag, I think its called Professional Mix. The leading private nursery in the area uses it in the greenhouse for everything from seeds to growing plugs, as well as selling it at retail. I'll hold off on the MG until later in the growth cycle. Its actually going to fill the eight gal 5 containers for the dwarf project grow out.

- Lisa

[AlittleSalt]

Lisa,

This year, I'm trying Pennington Pro Potting Mix.

Like MG - it has sticks. Pennington is the darkest mix I've used. When it is wet - it is black. If you squeeze the water out of it - it is black. When you feel it in your hand - it feels very organic - it looks the same way. I wouldn't even think about potting up with this on a surface that I couldn't wash with a water hose afterwards.

Reading the bag, "In Texas, this product is a blend of composted rice hulls, composted pine bark, Canadian Sphagnum peat moss, perlite, vermiculite, dolomite limestone, fertilizer and a wetting agent."

I just started using this a few days ago. I keep looking to see if the transplants are doing better or worse and so far, I'm unsure.

My reply sounds uncaring, and that's the least thing I mean for it to sound like. I'll let you know how the Pennington mix works out. (Edit) ^^^ I should have written (I understand you are irritated with the results of using MG) - I'll let you know how the Pennington mix works out.

[KarenO]

Miracle grow makes seedling mix.
I use MG seedling mix for mine. Possible I suppose it's different in Canada but it works well for me.
KO

[Father'sDaughter]

I gave up on Miracle Grow Potting Mix once someone here posted about Wondersoil. It was all I used for both up-potting and in my grow bags last year and worked great, but you must keep up with the fertilizing.

[Gerardo]

I gave up on MG a while back and now use kellogg's raised bed and potting mix as my starting point and it does the job. Although I do screen it and the sticks end up as mulch for my citrus trees.

Seed starter this year has been a hydro mix called Growstone GS-3 (got a sample 9 Liter bag) and its been awesome, all I had to do was remove the bigger aerating chunks. Miko inoculated already and VERY fluffy. With an o/n soak batting averages have been great.

Hope they recover from the MG stagnation.

[Labradors2]

I hate MG potting soil too. It always seems to have fungus gnat eggs in it - grrrr!

[disneynut1977]

Originally Posted by Labradors2

I hate MG potting soil too. It always seems to have fungus gnat eggs in it - grrrr!

Same here. 2 years ago, I lost all my fig cuttings and sweet peppers when I potted up with MG potting soil. Mosqito dunks does the trick for stopping the cycle, but that year it was too late and I ended up having to buy pepper plants.

This year, I bought MG potting mix for my winter sowing as it stays outside and I have never had a problem using it like that. When I potted up my bulbing onions 2 weeks ago, all I had on hand that was heavier than the seed starting mix was the MG. You would think I had learned my lesson already, but I used the MG 50/50 with seed starting mix and about 1 weeks after potting those onions up they started to look bad. I ran my hand across them and a few fungus gnats flew up. My jugs of mosquito dunks granules are still packed away somewhere from the move, so I ran out to Countrymax and picked up a small pack of the dunks. I think I caught them early enough and I HOPE i learned my lesson to not use that stuff again for indoors.

[Worth1]

Everything that has been said bad about MG potting mix I have not found in the MG Natures Care Raised bed soil I bought and mixed perlite with.
This is by fare some of the best stuff out of a bag I have ever seen.
Almost no sticks to amount to anything and none of them large.
I cant say enough good about it.
I also dont expect any of this stuff to hold enough nutrients to amount to anything.
If you want that get some plant tone and mix in with it.

Worth

[Cole_Robbie]

I bought and mixed perlite with.

I was scrolling to the bottom to suggest mixing perlite with the MG products, lol. You beat me to it.