organic A case against Miracle Grow (Organic Choice)

I'm sure this will come as no surprise to the veterans here, but since I had extra Miracle Grow Organic Choice potting mix lying around, and that is exclusively what I used for seed propagation last year, I decided to compare plant growth in the Organic Choice to a perlite, coco coir, and compost based mix I threw together and fertilized manually using Botanicare products (mostly; I won't pretend this was very controlled experiment). I even tried to help the Miracle Grow seedlings along by mixing in some perlite, citing problems with compaction in the previous year. I figured that since the Organic Choice was advertised as containing ferts, I wouldn't give these seedlings anything other than the occasional dose of Cal-Mag Plus to help them along. Miracle Grow couldn't be that bad, could it? Oh boy was I wrong.

Plants in the back are my mix with controlled ferts, plants in the front are in Organic Choice, all about 8-10 weeks old. The ones on the left are all Aji Amarillos and the two on the right are 7Pods.





I love the fact that there are giant wood chips and rocks mixed in with the Organic Choice. What a piece of crap.

Oh well, I've had my fun.

How have you been watering? If you are bottom-watering, then this is a pretty damning experiment for MG. If you are top-watering, then you are likely rinsing most of the nutrients out of the soil, so ferts would be necessary to a greater extent with both mixes, not just the perlite/compost/coco mix. Interesting experiment!

I'll admit I top watered them initially- my experience with the Organic Choice is that it has a really nasty fresh manure smell when you first open it, so if anything it has an excess of nutes, but after a couple weeks they were all bottom-watered. It certainly looks like the Organic Choice is depleted in nutrients now, judging by the leaf color...

Nice comparison. I tried the MG organic choice seed starter mix just for poops and chuckles and was less than impressed. Large sticks, clumps and even seeds.

RedtailForester said:

Nice comparison. I tried the MG organic choice seed starter mix just for poops and chuckles and was less than impressed. Large sticks, clumps and even seeds.

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The worst part is there is a distinct lack of consistency. I bought two bags last year, one was full of wood chips, the second was mostly fine-texture material that had condensed into a giant hardened lump.

[sub]Great obsevation Synclinorium! I used a "Scott's garden soil" product when I first started. I found a mangled chunk of aluminum in one bag and a broken piece of plastic in another. I hope no one got hurt! This stuff also produced alot of skinny mushrooms around my plants.[/sub]

[sub]Mike[/sub]

I agree I'm never using MG soil again. Have my supers in it right now and they're just crawling along...

The problem is the other half of my plants are in pure Ocean Forest and I think some of them are getting burned a bit...

Ha, I do remember having some mushrooms pop up early in the season... though I can't say for certain if the mix was to blame.

To be fair, I think the Miracle Grow is only advertised to last 6 weeks on the ferts, so they probably do need to be hit with something by now...

Hmm-interesting-mine has no wood chips, and if f it got wet(thats the clumping) by the way(not uncommon if stored out side at store) I'd return it.Gonna keep an eye on it though!I use it just to form 1 part in a 7 part mix :2 parts Sta Green moisture control, 1 part MG Organic Mix, 2 parts 2 year old sugar cane "bagasse", 2 parts perlite. The consistancy issue is no suprise, and I think the Organic mix and Organic potting soil MAY be 2 different products-
which would explain the chips....not sure on that though.

Okay both bags say organic mix, 1-1.5 cu ft is "garden mix", smaller 16 quart bag is "potting soil". The consistancy is different as far as ingredients-
but the consistancy of product issue remains. If I could find Happy Frog I'd try that instead, but didn't find any locally.

I've mostly been using Sunshine gro mix and Fertilome for potting up and or mixing my own using either of these as base material. I have finally found Pro mix in Austin which I might get a couple bales. Cory_Huck suggested to me the Ocean Forest which is at the same place as the Pro mix.

Mike

+ 1 for Promix.

Mike, you can get ProMix BX over at Third Coast Horticulture... Along with all types of ocean forest, and all that good stuff. Just talk to Sean, he KNOWS soil biology!

Scotts/MG are all subsidiaries of Monsanto... Not surprised they are consistently bad...

Yes thanks Cory that is what I was referring to!. I saw it yesterday and bookmarked his site. I've been looking at local small town co-ops for awhile trying to find the promix closer than Ft. Worth.

Very cool

gnslngr said:

Hmm-interesting-mine has no wood chips, and if f it got wet(thats the clumping) by the way(not uncommon if stored out side at store) I'd return it.Gonna keep an eye on it though!I use it just to form 1 part in a 7 part mix :2 parts Sta Green moisture control, 1 part MG Organic Mix, 2 parts 2 year old sugar cane "bagasse", 2 parts perlite. The consistancy issue is no suprise, and I think the Organic mix and Organic potting soil MAY be 2 different products-
which would explain the chips....not sure on that though.

Okay both bags say organic mix, 1-1.5 cu ft is "garden mix", smaller 16 quart bag is "potting soil". The consistancy is different as far as ingredients-
but the consistancy of product issue remains. If I could find Happy Frog I'd try that instead, but didn't find any locally.

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the MG "garden mix" is not suppose to be used as a potting soil, I was reading the bag the other day because I had finally found a cheaper bag of soil around and it says it is suppose to be just mixed in the garden since it is really only made up of compost and manure and a few other small things I guess.. but mainly just that.. which also gives it the different consistency.. it would be OK if you were mixing your own soil and just to add some compost I guess if you didn't have any other stuff around, but using it solely as a potting soil is gonna suck for your plants..but even the MG potting soil ran out of N really fast, and I had added a little bit of my own, but for a base ingredient for potting soil, at least at smaller scales and starting out, I liked it, but like I said, I added my own stuff to it, especially a lot of perlite, and it needs ferts after a couple weeks (like 3 or so) even though it says about 6 months on the bag, but whatever, it was overall very clean, but before I had transplanted them into bigger pots some of the faster growing plants were turning yellow, but they are correcting themselves now with the mix of soil I made myself

but anyways MG is what there was around this year in the winter, so I used some of the potting mix to mix my own soil, but next year I am going to get a big bag of Promix BX with the mycorhize, I'll just buy it at the end of the summer before they stop stocking it around here and just use that as a soil mix, but I will still mix some other things in there to make my own soil.. just use this as a base for it instead of the MG,

Just wanted a clarification because I use it as part of a mix. Its the only m-gro product I use-they provided me with instant fungus gnats last year so I'm leary , and check to make sure the bag hasn't been wet before I buy it(yeah I'm one of those culprits behind small sample holes in those bags-haha).I can't always get 2 year old bagasse-so I will make up the balance with the Omix potting soil 16 qt-and thats because that was all that was avail.For a really good soil commentary-check out the soil threads and stc3248's GLOG and MGold86's(sorry if those aren't exactly their screen names-pretty sure they are though!).Keep the info flowing ,it helps EVERYONE here.

Please do not let any growers that do not know how to water right tell you Miracle gro potting mix is bad. I stand by Miracle gro 100%.

SORRY I MISSED IT WAS ORGANIC MIX, I HATE THAT TOO.

I want to show you a mix I grow in as a hydroponic grow medium to show everyone.

Capsicum said:

Please do not let any inexperienced growers that do not know how to water right tell you Miracle gro potting mix is bad. I am a pro grower and I stand by Miracle gro 100%.

I can see the plants in the Miracle gro were over watered, it is plain as day.

I want to show you a mix I grow in as a hydroponic grow medium to show everyone.

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I personally don't think the MG potting mix is that bad, just runs out of nuts which is fine, but the MG "garden soil" is not suppose to be used a potting mix (which is says on the bag) I just wanted to point that out, and if it is used as a potting mix, it should be obvious that there might be some problems, but the MG potting mix I used this year wasn't too bad, I just think there is better stuff out there.. I also mixed in a lot of Perlite in there since the mix that I had was really fine and almost no perlite in there at all... most things will work, it's just that some things might not be as user friendly as some other ones

I'm not saying that all Miracle Grow products are terrible- some of the ferts work just fine, and even a few of their other potting mixes are okay (though by extension, supporting Monsanto is pretty awful), but the Miracle Grow Organic Choice Potting Mix is less than desirable. There's a reason that I added perlite to it this year. Sure, I probably overwatered all of my seedlings at times, though the Organic Choice seedlings were watered considerably less to avoid drowning them. The mix retains hella moisture. For plants that like that, sure, great.

However, the fact of the matter is the mix is almost entirely organic matter (ignoring the random rocks and plastic, or the spark plug I found in one last year) thus the mix will compact over time and inhibit drainage. For peppers, this mix is not suitable for container growing without being further amended.

synclinorium said:

I'm not saying that all Miracle Grow products are terrible- some of the ferts work just fine, and even a few of their other potting mixes are okay (though by extension, supporting Monsanto is pretty awful), but the Miracle Grow Organic Choice Potting Mix is less than desirable. There's a reason that I added perlite to it this year. Sure, I probably overwatered all of my seedlings at times, though the Organic Choice seedlings were watered considerably less to avoid drowning them. The mix retains hella moisture. For plants that like that, sure, great.

However, the fact of the matter is the mix is almost entirely organic matter (ignoring the random rocks and plastic, or the spark plug I found in one last year) thus the mix will compact over time and inhibit drainage. For peppers, this mix is not suitable for container growing without being further amended.

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Hey I am sorry I did not see it was Organic, I am an idiot!!!!!

I hate the organic, the reg potting mix is ok. I add a little perlite.

Sorry bout that happy growing.