I know MiracleGro is not top tier, but I purchased bags of local compost from our community garden center over the weekend and needed to cut it 1:1 for my kids planter (he wants to grow micro things) and this was 50% off at Lowe’s.
Planning to mix the 2 in a wheelbarrow, I dumped the MiracleGro first (thankfully!).
When I found a few bits at first, I thought, hey, it happens and we get plastic blown in or rained in to the yard too… but they kept appearing and appearing and here ya have it.
.75 cubic feet of “Garden Soil” literally soiled by trash. 99% plastic. But glass and metal shards found too.
This was going to go into my kids cedar planter I made him and honestly, hard plastic fragments cut just like metal and glass.
I’m a bit shocked.
(The 2 other bags of the same I bought look just as bad as this one.)
Be careful out there with big box bags.
by no-palabras
29 Comments
That’s the down side of upcycled yard waste.
Holy crap that’s a lot of junk. I use that soil pretty often and never found anything like that. If you saved the packaging it’s likely the company/production plant would want to know, chances are that a lot more got sent out like this that day. I’d expect a refund from the merchant too.
It’s what plants crave
I found a AA battery in mine last year.
So that’s why it was 50% off…
Return and buy something organic like Foxfarms
Glass yikes…I frequently reach into the bags and grab soil
Shhhh…. Those are the ✨Miracles ✨
in all seriousness I’ve gotta start looking deeper into my potting soil before planting 😭
Yeah… I stopped buying miracle grow and just buy black cow. I get no left overs and the worms love it.
We got both the potted soil mix and the raised bed compost, out of 2 bags of each there was maybe a dozen pieces of apparent plastic bag shreds, a few pieces of that fucking plastic netting they use for turf, and like one or two hard plastic pieces. In each bag.
We were pissed but holy shit it looks like we got lucky compared to your picture… and the bags were hot to the touch, very active for the organic matter that was actually there.
But forreal fuck miraclegro, we only turned to them when a rain storm washed away our poorly assembled compost pile
It is a miracle anything can grow on that stuff.
My local area must be cleaner compost.
What bags are y’all getting? I’ve never found anything like this in a bag of MiracleGro. I’m not advocating for people to buy it but I’m always blown away by these posts.
That’s crazy. I always use MiracleGro and have never found anything in it other than a few hitchhikers.
thank you for this post. I absolutely know better but man if those giant bags at costco for $10 weren’t temping me.
Yeah, this has happened to me with the one bag I’ve gotten this year. I always see comments about getting new bags from customer service or the retailer. If it works, I think I’ll start documenting each bag, sending the evidence or whatever to a random (but relevant) government contact, and getting a new bag, rinse and repeat until someone tells me to buzz off. Absolutely ridiculous shell game to offload garbage for profit
Never ever buy anything ‘miracle grow’ again. It’s pure trash and filled with heavy metals. Opt for trusted worm castings, plant matter (leaves, trusted coco coir), sheep manure and original soil if at all possible.
I will never buy Miracle-Gro anything again. The last bag of organic garden soil i bought had a one pound rock in it, along with the expected smaller stones. That, and I had to sift it with a quarter-inch sieve to be able to use it in my raised bed (however the resulting soil is beautiful!).
For the $$ Happy Frog is AWESOME (made by Fox Farms) it’s similar cost and smells great with no plastics, has microbes and a generous amount of pearlite. A great base for any blend and not bad on its own.
How did you go about removing the garbage from the soil? Did you seive it or have to pick through it by hand? I can forsee this skill being useful in my future – I’ve only done very small amounts in the past.
Use Happy Frog, Fox Farm, or Bumper Crop if you can afford it. Never had an issue with any of them. Have grown many delicious veggies/plants with them. Have reused the soil over and over with minimum fertilizing too. I usually just top it up with fresh potting soil the following season and a little sprinkle of fertilizer.
I stopped buying miraclegro 2 years ago, every bag I bought I got fungus gnat infestations, I stopped and I hardly ever have fungus gnats anymore, and are easy to get rid of by letting soil dry up now. I actually had to completely get rid of all my container soil and start from scratch again and I have not bought 1 single product from them since.
I’m not joking this is making me sick to my stomach to look at. They clearly don’t give a fuck. People grow food in this. God damn man.
I stopped getting miracle gro years ago. I constantly had gnat infestations and the soil had the worst drainage.
I get a cubic yard of soil from lakeside sod company (big yellow bag). Looks like it also goes by super sod. Cheaper than box store bagged stuff. Higher quality. You get to keep the bag which you can recycle for leaf pickup and hauling around the yard. I think I found a single piece of plastic is all that I’ve purchased.
Try your local landscape/rock place. I get the most beautiful, organic, premium, compost for super cheap.. even cheaper than MG at a big box…
Lol, the easy out is stop sourcing crap soil.
Where yall getting this shitty miracle gro? Granted I dont buy it very often but I dont think ive ever seen any plastics or other contaminants in mine
Interesting. I’ve bought MiracleGro in large quantities for my garden the last 6 years or so with no evidence for plastic or weird stuff.
All bagged soil is basically the same thing
As I learned in water technology class. They material that runs down the drain, or enters the sewage treatment plant is sifted and large materials are removed, the material is then filtered down to the desired size, rinsed, settled, and baked at a high temp to neutralize any and all bacteria.
It is then sold to companies as fill, these companies basically just add fertilizer either cow manure or just sprayed with miracle grow and then bagged and sold.
If you want really good soil, you have to look for local companies that make their own mixtures from food waste or plant waste that has naturally broken down and mixed.
Usually you can find these places because they smell like rotten fish.