Espoma Organic Seed Starter Premium Potting Soil Mix - All Natural & Organic Seed Starting Mix with Mycorrhizae. For Organic Gardening, 16 qt, bag - Pack of One

This is the product I have used for years for seeds and propagation of African Violets. Always satisfied. Good drainage . Perfect function for root development. I experienced occasional development of moss, which means I overwatered. I scrape it off the moss and allow some drying with resolution. Rich brown color.

Any chance I get to buy Espoma products, I will! It's great quality and and a great value.

This seed starting mix was light and airy. It allowed the seeds I planted to germinate well. It also held water well without being soggy. This soil mix is of high quality and appears to look really good. Some other mixes I’ve purchased tended to have pieces of mulch wood in them. This mix doesn’t have that filler and is top notch!

After removing the many sticks and clumps of something brown this worked great for seed starting. I think of seed starter as being very fine so the tiny seeds don't have to fight with large pieces. In that regard it was more like potting soil. It's a real plus that it is organic.

As an avid gardener I have learned that the most ideal and possibly the best garden soil has to have the right mixture of chemical components, physical components and biological matter to achieve optimum results. 1. Chemically soil must contain adequate amounts of essential nutrient contents, (such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium), be of suitable acid-alkaline reaction (pH levels), and free of substances toxic to plant growth, (such as herbicides). 2. Physically soil should allow water to drain through and air to gain ready admittance, but not so loose that it does not retain enough moisture and nutrients for the plants’ needs, (in other words moist well drained soil). 3. Biologically soil should contain an abundance of favorable organic matter (humus, which is what remains after extensive decomposition of organic matter), and other helpful soil organisms (such as earthworms) and a minimum of harmful ones, (such as nematodes). When the above three conditions are met, the gardener now has rich organic soil to successfully grow and harvest a variety of crops. Espoma Organic Seed Starter Premium Potting Mix has all the above components; it is dark, rich with organic matter, moist, soft and light. I was able to successfully grow and reap a bountiful harvest of tomatoes, hot peppers (serrano and habanero), lettuce, broccoli, cucumbers, carrots and a wide variety of herbs and flowering plants, using this seed starter mix and followed up with Espoma Organic Potting Mix. This is the best organic potting mix I've used and it gave optimum results. A+

I am an avid vegetable gardener with many years of seed starting experience. Over the years I have literally started many thousands of vegetable plants and flowers from seed. I use this mix just as it is. I do not add anything to it. The mix is very fine and suitable for starting small seeds like tomatoes and tomatillos. I started some Sweet Million seeds in this mix which are very small and as best I could tell every seed germinated. This is an ideal mix for bottom watering. I use 1020 trays and 32 cell flats. I fill the cells to the level the seeds are to be planted at and tamp the soil down. I use an extra cell for this that I cut out of an old tray. After that I add the seeds and then fill the cells to the top with seed starting mix. Then tamp down the mix again. At this point I bottom water. The soil mix absorbs the water all the way to the top of the cells within an hour. If it takes longer than that its only because I did not add enough water to begin with. I use bottom heat and a humidity dome and in a few short days things are sprouting. A litte seed starting advice. Use new cells and trays or wash the ones you have with water and bleach. One Tablespoon of bleach per gallon of water. Once cleaned be sure to rinse them with clean water. This is to lower the risk of molds and fungus's growing in your trays. Use bottom heat and a humidity dome. The bottom heat will greatly increase your germination rates and the speed at which your seeds germinate. Use a spray bottle to keep your humidity dome damp. Remove the humidity dome after your seeds have successfully sprouted. If you don't you will increase your odds of having a problem with molds and fungus's. Once the seeds are up and the shell of the seed is separated from the seedling the dome has done its job anyway. The tender seedlings may be somewhat dependent on the higher rate of humidity though so remember to remove the humidity dome gradually. Turn it a little so air can flow under it or cock it on one end. Then remove it entirely for half an hour to an hour at a time. In less than a day most seedlings will adjust and you can leave the dome off thereafter.

I just opened the bag of "seed starter" made by Epsoma. I am very mad and disappointed because this expensive bag of dirt was presented to be seed starter. The purpose of seed starter, for those of you who are new to starting seeds, is to provide a very fine and clean medium in which tiny seeds can cling to and germinate. It is much finer than potting soil, which is for growing already existing plants and is much courser and can run from medium course to very course, depending on what you like to use and whatyou are planting. Here is where the problem is with this stuff. It is NOT seed starter. It is quite course with some chunks an inch in size of old peat pots, twigs, and long slivers of bark, along with vermiculite. The vermiculite is suppose to be in there, along with peat but it isn't suppose to be a course mix like potting soil. I am starting seeds today, and this is all I have and I spent $14 and some change plus shipping, a big price to pay for regular potting soil which I could have gotten for $8 for 2cubic feet locally, if that was what I needed. So now I will have to forgo starting the finest of the seeds for another day, after I can find some decent seed starter. As for the rest such as tomatoes, I will need to pluck out the chunks of bark and twigs first at the top of the soil. If this had been labeled simply potting soil and organic, that would have been fine, but this is a rip off. Of course, if you are not starting fine seed you could use this and it would be ok, such as squash or morning glories or any seed that isn't very small. But why would you want to buy this when you can go to any nursery or hardware store that carries regular potting soil in 2 cubic foot bags for $8-9. This is very irritating. And I did buy this from Amazon

Good quality seed starting mixing, nice and light mix. My seedlings grew quickly and so far the plants are looking sturdy. My tomatoes took a little longer to grow but my lettuce seeds just took a few days.