I’ve recently set up a few Earthboxes with Kellogg mix purchased from Home Depot, but I am beginning to question its suitability for EBs. First off, the actual product listed as approved—“Kellogg Premium Potting Soil”—does NOT appear to be available anymore. What I purchased, and what appears to be most widely available, is “Kellogg Garden Organics All Natural Potting Mix”. I did find a picture of the approved product on Pinterest (if curious, it’s here:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4e/f2/38/4ef238610b0e84986d09f8f3483d0e2b.jpg ), but nothing on their own website bears that name or graphic style, so it is possibly an older, discontinued product.
Then, when you look at the available mix's Safety Data Sheet (
https://www.kellogggarden.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/SDS_KGO_Potting-Mix_New_2020_05_06.pdf), it lists multiple ingredients BEFORE listing sphagnum peat moss, which suggests—and I could be wrong about this—that it contains these forest products in greater quantities (actual percentages are not given, as they are “trade secrets”). I can confirm that it contains quite a lot of what appears to be small pieces of wood, i.e., NOT peat moss. In addition, it contains multiple additives like feather meal, poultry manure, and bat guano, all of which explain the incredibly stinky smell emanating from the water that comes out the overflow hole.
The things I have planted in it ARE growing; however, I possibly over-wetted the mix when I set up the boxes, and I doubt there is much wicking going on, as EVERY SINGLE TIME I have attempted to fill the reservoir via the watering tube, water gushes out immediately, brown and stinking to high heaven. Our weather has been fairly hot and mostly sunny (except for this past week). One box I set up June 9 has NEVER absorbed any water from the reservoir, but the tomato is growing.
I am somewhat torn as to whether I should trash all the work and time I’ve already done and start over again with a different mix (losing about a month of work), or instead wait to see how well this stuff might end up performing and possibly have a completely lost growing season. Has anyone else used this specific Kellogg product?
