FoxFarmOcean Forest Potting Soil, 12qt (Pack of 2) - Light, Aerated Texture, Designed for All Container Plants - pH Adjusted for Optimal Nutrient Uptake, Effectively Retains Moisture

This is my first year to use this product. It seems like a good soil, light but with reasonable substance, no noticable strong or nasty odor, even when wet. Black, with white chips of oyster shells. Holds a reasonable level of moisture but drains and does not turn into mud. Not everything grows better in all the chemical additives. This was strongly recommended by a professional grower as an organic, for indoor or outdoor containers and good for starting plants, seeds, or cuttings, without all the usual chemical additives found in other garden center soils. 0.30 - 0.45 - 0.05. Reasonably priced and arrived promptly from Amazon. I'm happy to be giving this a try with my starters this year.

Plants love it. Germination -through- flowers.

This soil mix is ready to go right out of the bag! I did end up adding some extra perlite and sphagnum moss, but only to fill the 5 gallon grow bag a bit more. When it came time to plant seeds, I first soaked the seeds for about 6-10 hours (until they sank). Then I prepped a "Peet pod" for each seed by wetting it until it was fully expanded. From that point, I just placed 1 fully expanded Peet pod into the center of a 5gal grow bag (full of the soil mix) until the top of the pod was about 1/4" below the soil surface, placed 1 seed into 1 pod, lightly/gently covered the pod and seed, and then misted that area adequately. Within a day, the seeds had germinated and were standing at least. After 4 weeks, plants are doing 100% better, in every way (even further along) than my previous grows without fox farm ocean forest, and I haven't even needed to use any of the fox farm nutrients (like grow big, big bloom, etc) yet! Like I already would have had to set up a feeding/watering system and schedule

Excellent product with good expiration date,

Over the past 5 years I’ve progressed from novice to intermediate level plant owner. I started with 1 and now have 40. But I’ve probably killed just as many before I figured out the basics. Besides the plant, your most important purchase is pot/planter (right size, drainage, no terracotta) and SOIL. BUY THIS SOIL.DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON CHEAP SOIL. The price of this is reasonable and remember the old adage “you get what you pay for.” Cheap soil doesn’t drain properly and you end up with water logged dead plants. Cheap soil doesn’t have the composition and nutrients your plant needs to grow. Cheap soil costs you MORE in the long run because you keep killing and buying more plants.

My plants love it even more than me!!

Bought other soil for repotting they all wreaked of mold and mildew. This soil still has an odor but not moldy. Plants seem to be doing well. Been about a month now.

I baked it before using out of habit if I use a mix of anything beyond straight coir but having the open bag in my apartment I now have tons of gnats and house flys and it has a strong odor of decaying matter happy that I baked what I used but now I have the biggest fly battle ever. 😑