Hey
I don't really care what soil I use for my garden. I mostly just buy bulk garden mix soil, but sometimes I'm all out, and I just use what is on hand- and most of the time it is TopSoil.
My sister in law thinks it is wrong to plant in topsoil. But for me, it works just as well as any other type
Depends. You put this in the Container Gardening Forum. If you are talking about containers, I do NOT think topsoil works well at all in containers. Too heavy/dense, holds too much moisture and too little air, tends to compact. If you really just meant for planting in the ground, good topsoil with enrichments added is fine. But topsoil sold in bags can be almost anything, including fill dirt dug out from construction sites and may be worthless.
The only problem I personally have with Topsoil used instead of regular soil is that it is fluffy at first, but when you water it, it compacts. And when the soil dries it uncompacts.
Is your "TopSoil" with those caps some kind of a brand? " top soil " is a generic term for presumably better quality ground soil from top few inches -- maybe 4 inches -- that are typically scraped up, (sometimes treated to kill bugs and weeds), sifted, and bagged to be sold. They generally do this before building/developing on a farmland or wooded or open land. But actual content can vary greatly depending on the land's previous use and geographic location.
The problem with bagged topsoil is that it is mostly dirt or sub soil. Good topsoil has a lot of critters in it and has some organic matter. Most of the topsoil that is sold here is just screened soil but it is not really top soil and it is usually sold by quarries and construction companies that truck it off the construction sites. It is mostly subsoil. You also never know what was put on that soil before.
Some gardeners I know like to put dirt in their potting mix. It makes the pots heavier and they retain water longer and the theory is that adding a shovel full of soil to a wheel barrow of peat moss and perlite adds microorganisms to what would otherwise be a sterile mix.
Some people plant in dirt, my dad does that, he really does not use potting mix. Dirt is heavy and red dirt packs down. When it dries it contracts and pulls away from the sides of the container. If the rootball is very compacted, water runs around the rootball and out the drainhole, leaving the rootball dry. The only way to fix that is to submerge the container in water until the air bubbles stop to rehydrate and evenly moisten the soil again. Dirt is usually low in organic matter unless you add it. Plants do grow in it, it just has very different characteristics from potting soil.
There are many variations of 'topsoil'. It is a bit overwhelming to check the bagged stuff area of a garden center or box store. I use lots of bagged top soil, the cheap one (about $1.50/bag). I mix with other things, no measuring, mix different every time, and somewhat by what's on hand.
The top soil I get is pine and hardwood fines, sand and other stuff. The cheap stuff is usually regional, and what I have is out of Muscle Shoals AL, a pulp wood center. I am sure the bagged top is a by-product of the pulp wood industry. Sometimes the pine is a bit fresh, and a handful smells like a pine tree. I just mix it in with more aged stuff. Easy peasy! Some of the cheap stuff is heavy with clay, and you could make a coffee mug from it. I have ended up with some, and just break it up, mix in with everything else.
Back to the mix, about 1/2 top, 1/4 black kow/1/4 bagged compost -organic matter. Then some sifted real compost that is the enriched dirt pile. It is loaded with worms now, some as big as snakes!
This is for herbs and general use. Sometimes I remember to add some Epsoma plant-tone. If flowers try to remember to mix in some osmacote.
Back to original question, planting in just topsoil may be weak on nutrients. Can you work in some richer stuff around the top few inches along with some osmacote or other time release fertilizer? Just some thoughts.
Yep. Basically same thoughts. I never use topsoil all by itself, and even for my raised bed, bought different brands to blend and mix them up and some had other stuff in there, too. In the raised beds, I layered additional ingredients so again, not used by itself.
I bought different ones to compare, but some badly stored ones had weeds/grass growing INSIDE the bag. That may not be fault of the brand. In some sense, I preferred to see some life in the bag like that rather than dead bag of dirt. So jury is still out, as they say, as to my "Favorite". In any case, it won't matter because I'm a firm believer in trying to buy from sources close to geographical region whenever possible.
Thank you both! I just mixed half compost half top soil for my cucumber and tomato plants.
And, Susan W, just like you said, my top soil is mainly pine and hardwood fines and some sand.
We'll see how well the new compost top soil mix works for my cukes and tomatoes...
