It has to do with the quality of the soil I get. When I analysed the last yard I got it was very loamy to begin with, adding 50% organic material made it great. Other soils I have worked with have required more amendments.
Heck the place I got it from had $20 a yard dirt, that’s probably the starting dirt quality you are thinking about.
The fake composted yard waste mixed with sand sold in mason yards is not normal soil and in nature the only way to sustain more than about 5% organic matter without constantly amending with it is to keep it saturated with water- but even the organic soil, around here known as black dirt and farmed for mostly onions and lettuce, after carving out deep drainage ditches, only contains about 30% OM when first drained. Peat bogs don’t even allow full decomposition due to the combination of being a bog and being extremely acid.
After unloading my yard of dirt he first thing I did was to load some in a 32oz Mason jar, water, shake it, and let it rest for a day so I could see what it was made of. I was pleasantly surprised about how loamy it was; very little organic visible, a bit on the heavy side, but 50/50 with well cured compost hit the spot.
If you are into watering potted plants on a regular basis you are better off with a slighty heavier soil with better nutrient retention.
Home Depot is having a ‘Spring Black Friday’ whatever that means…saw some posts on FB and folks are goin crazy over it.
$2 a bag for ‘Garden Soil’ or 5 for $10 if your math works that way.
I think however this is a better deal at Lowes.
“Dirt” cheap price for (probably) pine bark. 
Good prices. Interesting that the Garden Soil lists what might be in it. Guessinig mostly compost with a small amount of fertilizer.
They’re all “regionally formuated”
For me, they’re mostly pine bark and some sand and some perlite. YMMV
Meijers grocery chain has the best real dirt and also priced at $2.09 … no sale necessary.
The real dirt is a peaty/sandy soil from Illinois or someplace…black dirt, no bark and no fillers. Markman is the company bagging it.
(might ‘improve’ it by adding a shovel full of the ‘mulchy’ stuff to fluff it a little)
Miracle grow here is peat moss and pine bark. It is a really bad soil for the price where I am from
I went shopping the other day for some cheap potting mix for my annuals and my half barrels that im going to grow some takane buckwheat in… one of the bags from lowes of miracle grow in a black bag…dont remember the name of it was busted open so i took a peek and smelled it…smelled just like Skoal snuff and looked full of very fine wood. I sampled a few other bags of what they had and all looked full of the same wood… likely ground stumps or cypress or something. So i went to walmart and saw this… and took a gamble. $13 for 2 cu foot is fair.
I normally use ProMix HP and this stuff is different…its loaded with coir…different color and lighter…looks like the color of a coconut. No idea if it will be better or worse than the ground up wood potting mixes… but it was very easy to use and compact to put in the trunk of the car.
Im switching brands for awhile. I usually favor ProMix for all of my plantings to get them a good start especially on rare things that i dont want to take any chances.
My local nursery uses this to start all of their seeds and up pot everything to sell… i am always amazed at how well their things do compared to mine.
I used ProMix for some of my strawberry starts and used this stuff for the others… not scientific but the ones that i used this stuff on seem to be doing much better and growing faster.
That ball mix, per their site, seems to be similar start list as promix. The soil images look similar too. I bet it’s good stuff. It’s not a coincidence that every 
hydro/grow shop has pallets of promix stacked to the ceiling; and 2 more pallets in the parking lot. Ha
Not that the cannabis growers set the trend, but the trend in canna growing has gone to replacing peat with coco coir. Or doing a 50/50 blend of the peat and coco replacement. Most grow 3-4 crops a year and quickly reuse the soil. The coco doesn’t break down and compact in the mix as fast as peat and lessens the need for buffers. But mainly, the cannabis growers are pushing on all sides to eliminate peat bog destruction, and my understanding that many are pleasantly surprised using coco. That is in a soilless mix, not just coco. Soil mixes too.
As pointed out, pure coco is almost void of nutrients. More like rock wool. You’re essentially doing hydro then, as nutrient solutions.
Thanks for the quote.
It’s the same with the commercial cannabis growers. They often give blank checks and buy all the lab gear a soil scientist could dream of. Loaded with cash. Anyway, my takeaway listening and reading many reports are that coco love Mg+. It will strip it till it’s loaded. Commercial facilities now soak the coco in epsoms salts (MgSO4) a few days to pre load it. It prevents Mg+ deficiency right out of the gates; and the inverse Ca+ excess that happens at the same time. Having all the Mg+ stripped away in an instant. Similar to raw char and N.
Also, coco wicks a lot. Much more than peat. So hydrophobia at drying is virtually eliminated. This is especially useful in growbags and assorted airpots. Many that water to run off find it causes wet roots after, by wicking back into the substrate column. So watering to run off is not recommended unless it can drain away. Basically, it’s just chipped instead of shredded till it mimics the size of peat. This is what I have read and listened. One of my favorite pleasures while working is listening to podcast results from some of my favorite soil scientists. I would be glad to link some, but since most here blow off cannabis growers as dumb I won’t bother. Or pm me.
Many of the next generation of soil scientist are going into it for a career now that it’s not black market. They have multiple degrees and the cash that most state funded ag universities would dream of. I suspect moving forward that the cannabis will set the trend.
I myself have been stubborn about this and admit I have a hard time not ignoring the logic “if it’s not broken don’t fix it.” But I also cannot ignore science. If the giant indoor facilities are putting their millions on it, after spending millions dropping science, I should at least give it a try. I added chopped coco to my old soil for seed starting this year. So far so good.
Happy growing all. I really enjoy this site.
Peanut hulls ground, chocolate bean husks–there are a lot of things one can add to a potting mix. Hardly ever have I planted anything in a bag of ready-to-use “potting mix”.
I typically re-use the soil from old pots, mix in some real soil, and adjust for drainage if
I think necessary. I have a wheelbarrow of dirt from multiple sources I may use to divide and re-pot some perennials this afternoon…since the precipitation seems to have gone bye-bye already.
