For many years I have used different brands of cheap potting mix adding fertilizer etc depending on what I am potting up. Used it as seeding sowing mix too and both have been successful. However the bags are now full of rubbish with lots of big wood chips and today a 2.5 x 2.5cm stone! Even the seeding raising mix that I thought that I would have to now use has wood chunks. Very annoying.
lythande1,
Mar 19, 4:22pm
Always was. It's ground up bark and poo. Always has been.
ambo11,
Mar 19, 5:55pm
Nah the quality of potting mix is shit nowadays, dries out fast, and you could damn near use it for firewood, the bits of bark are that big. I always mix in a bit of blood and bone now, and chicken crap if for outdoor use. Even the so called "quality" ones like Daltons are total crap. Tui from memory was the worst of them all, I now just use the warehouse cheapo stuff and add the above to it. Plants seem to grow okay, but yep the quality has gone.
ianab,
Mar 20, 10:01pm
Basically if you are buying the cheap stuff, buy a couple of bags of fertilizer to go with it. The compost and bark is cheap, the slow release fertiliser costs $$. But you can get decent results with the cheap stuff, and throw in some generic fertilizer (blood and bone or NPK) as the plants start to grow.
valleygirl16,
Mar 21, 7:30am
The last 6 bags (the cheap stuff from mitre 10) was full of worms. Is that not a good thing
colin433,
Mar 22, 1:47pm
unfortunately we have only potting mix available to grow stuff in. Not a skerrick of soil, other than a strip where we planted feijoas. We've found the same, with various brands of potting mix, We now add half a teaspoon of root boost (or is it root blast) to each seedling as we plant, and they are making good roots which is a blessing when they have to fight for decent soil. Our raised beds, (on concrete) are now full of worms, so THEY must like what we're doing.
wasgonna,
Mar 22, 8:52pm
It should be a good thing but I suspect they are refugees.
wendalls,
Mar 23, 5:49pm
Buy a compost bin or two?
paora-tm,
Mar 25, 6:39pm
Nope. I remember buying cheap compost (same woodchip problem as potting mix now) which smelt bloody awful but at least it looked closer to being compost than the new stuff - it just hadn't finished composting properly or needed aeration. The only thing which would finish the 'new' cheap compost is the addition of more green material - it looks like firestarter material.
cantabman1,
Mar 26, 9:07am
I buy my 40 odd bags each year from Bunnings for $5.85. it is a Doulton Product and have never had a problem with it. HOW CHEAP DO YOU WANT IT?
golfdiver,
Dec 4, 6:18am
Why don't you just get a trailer load direct from Daltons?
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