garden centre "top soil"

[mark smyth]

I needed to buy some top soil to pot on my recently acquired snowdrops and other plants.

I bought Westland Top Soil after years of not using it because I believe it isnt soil. The shop owner assured me it had changed. No it hasnt. It's heavy when wet but light in the hand. It looks like a mix a fine peat, sand and grit.

I then went to another garden centre and bought Evergreen Top Soil. It looks excatly the same. I added some to a plastic cup and added water. Very quickly grit and sand fell to the bottom. There is is small ?humous layer on top of the sand. There is a layer floating on the surface. 9 hours later it is still settling. In the morning I'll take a photo of the layers.

Today I bought soil from a builders yard. It looks like soil but the grit doesnt match. I'll take a photo tomorrow.

What are your experiences with bagged garden centre soil?

[Martinr]

Can't see the point in small quantities. I'd have got JI3 and added some grit.

[ChrisB]

Westland so called JI is awful, sludgy stuff.  I've just bought a dumpy bag of locally sourced compost from our Northumberland waste collection and its just super, and it is probably stuff I put in my wheelie bin two years ago lol.

[ronm]

Comparing to what Mark? We need a benchmark "perfect topsoil" in order to evaluate. How should a perfect topsoli perform in the 'plastic cup and water test' please? I'll compare some of mine if you show me yours.

[mark smyth]

Like Chris says Westland JI is cr@p. To my eyes and hands it's just peat, sand and grit

[mark smyth]

Ron when I buy soil I expect it to look like soil and not fine sieved peat. Tomorrow I'll take photos of Westland and Evergreen top soil.

[ronm]

OK Mark. 
Then we can see where we are. Thanks.

[Anthony Darby]

Can't buy JI here in New Zealand, and the bagged compost dries out instantly, so I buy bagged top soil and mix it with fine pumice and the organic compost in equal measures. Need to find a source of small rounded gravel as the equivalent in pumice just goes green.

[mark smyth]

Evergreen

24 hours on and the layers have settled but the water is stained brown. I stirred it again and can tell you that the bottom layers feel like pure sand. The fork had trouble mixing the layers

[bulborum]

What is the difference between
TOP SOIL and POTTING SOIL

I thought it was the same

Roland

[mark smyth]

Roland in the UK and Ireland potting soil would be called compost - seed compost, Ericaceous compost, multipurpose ..

[bulborum]

So what is TOP SOIL

[mark smyth]

Top soil is supposed to be the layer of soil that is below grass roots in a field
http://www.blogdivvy.com/growing-vegetables/images/soil-layers.jpg

[Darren]

Roland in the UK and Ireland potting soil would be called compost - seed compost, Ericaceous compost, multipurpose ..

Unless you are a horticulture student or lecturer apparently - Susan would tell you that these are referred to as 'substrates' and woe betide any student who calls them 'compost' even if that is what it says on the bag!

If you can get it - Keith Singleton in Cumbria makes the best JI I've seen and many of us in Cumbria and Lancashire buy it by the pallet load. Their grit is perfect too and far better than the garden centre stuff which is often too coarse for use in pots.

[ChrisB]

I'd love to get some of that Keith Singleton stuff.  Ron McB used it when we had our fish box sink day with the Bainbridges, its amazing stuff.  Still pop up to Ron's to get the bags of grit they sell him.  But not sure how much longer that will continue now his nursery is closed and he's becoming a hobby gardener like the rest of us.  Sure will miss my trips up to his nursery.  Untold treasures there when you look around.....