Garden soil???

i have an 10ft x 2 ft square container i built on my balcony. the guy at lowes recommended Miracle Grow Garden Soil for Flowers & Vegetables. After pouring it all in i examined the bag to see the fertilizer ratio i see it says for IN GROUND USE ONLY. Am i in trouble here?? i just poured 28 cu ft of it so i hope its not critical. what exactly makes it in ground only? also the ratio is 0.15 - 0.05 - 0.10 should i add anyting to grow tomatoes properly? http://www.scotts.com/smg/catalog/productTemplate.jsp?tabs=usage&proId=prod70232&itemId=cat50152&id=cat50006

That stuff is no good in a container garden. I made this mistake too. What I did was scoop about half of it out and then mix good old potting soil in there. Seems to be working alright in my garden. Keep the rest of it in a bag and mix with more potting soil. Use it up in your potted plants. That way you don't lose all of the money you put into it.

I didn't realize the mistake before I planted, so my plants were stunted for a while and apparently I got lucky that I didn't burn their roots off. Like I said, they're doing okay now after amending the soil with plain potting soil.

Made that mistake too this year and had to lug 10 2-cu. ft. bags
back to Lowe's. Don't know why they put that in teeny teeny print
at the bottom of the bag instead of on the front in big letters!

"Potting Mix" is for containers; "Planting Mix" is for in-ground.
I put a note in my garden file folder so I don't make that mistake
next year. I'm curious too as to what the difference is between
the two kinds.

i hear ya but mine is already in the container and the container is almost filled to the top so im wondering how critical this is. i dont see a way out of this without wasting some of the planting mix

by the way i live on a second floor walk up in brooklyn ny i am not looking forward to carrying more 2cuft bags up the stairs while my girlfriend mocks me

OK so i just got off the fone with scotts. They said the reason its not good for containers is that it is too dense and will not drain well. it seems loose and nice in the container so i dont know. They recommended mixing in some peat to loosen it up. They also said that u can plant as is but it may retard the plants growth to some degree. what do you guys think?

Crud, no wonder my containers of Tomatos squash are not draining... Now that my plants have established themselfs in it, should I change them or just take my chances??

well as it was told to me by the scotts rep, they said it will grow the plant but it might be stunted to some degree. i havent planted yet so i guess my fix is easier than urs. if i was in your situation i would research earthworms b4 possible digging up.

missJ i spoke to a friend that said worms probably wouldnt live in that soil. sorry!

I'd consider emptying half the container into small bags
and each day "donate" one to a neighborhood tree.
Then you can add half ordinary soil and have a good
chance of success with your plantings.

Ah, Brooklyn. I grew up in Manhattan and am very familiar
with the walk ups. ;-)

I got some old horse manure that has been sitting, could I mix in with it?

june, basiclly what i did. i removed some, then added pearlite and peat. mixed it all togther and put my tomatoes in w some myco.

missJ im not super experienced but id say no that might solve the lacking in some nutrients dept but not compactness of the soil. no shortcuts here i guess.

I would hate to uproot them plants right now, they are just now starting to get new growth

if i was u id let it go this year and then next year do it right and tell us the difference. like the rep said its will support some growth.

Well I am just going to leave them and see what happens...

I used Garden Soil last year for my potted tomato plants BUT I added perlite to lighten the mix. I also added bone meal to some pots and bone meal and mycorrhizae to other pots. The pots with mycorrhizae produced many, many more tomatoes than the pots without .

This year, my whole garden has received mycorrhizae!

Hi, I'm new and this may be a dumb question. Where do you buy mycorrhizae and how do you know if your gardens need it applied? I've read some info on the net and I'm pretty impressed. Thank you.

Even with the plants already growing - I would mix in some peat as best as possible.

honeybee, exactly what i did, plus i put some water crystals.

dddal, i found it at lowes mixed into a product called bio-tone starter plus

cinski, i added a boat load of peat and perlite

whats done is done we will see how things grow

I also made this mistake. I put all of the soil back in the bag (64 qt) and got the Potting Mix.

Lesson learned. lol

I think it would be ok to do as you did and add half soil and half peat/perlite.

I'm about to build several raised beds. Should I fill them with 'garden soil' or potting mix? In my in-ground beds I've been using a soil conditioner that is a mix of pine fines and composted manure. Would a mix of this plus garden soil work well to keep it from getting too compacted? We've had a ton of rain, and in all my pots the perlite has just floated to the top, and it is also too pricey for me to consider for that much volume.

I purchase mycorrhizae from here:

http://www.territorialseed.com/product/126/s

monk, my GUESS is that you would need a mix of some sort. the garden soil needs to be cut with something else to function properly.