Nature's Care 1.5 cu. ft. Raised Bed Soil

WHY didn’t we read the (mostly awful) reviews before buying this foul stuff? We only opened a few bags: they smelled awful & were littered with—well, garbage. We wasted $25 of seeds that died when transplanted as healthy seedlings—shriveling in a site that has always been very productive.) We always start our own seeds & transplant them when they’re about 2” tall. Prepared large planters & transplanted them all. Most either died or failed to thrive. That was 2 months ago. So 2022 is a bust. 8^{

The people at Home Depot were top notch regarding this issue. This is not their problem but their suppliers problem. We bought multiple bags of this supposed 'organic' raised bed soil and practically every bag had various pieces of garbage such as plastic, metal and even glass. We usually garden without gloves so we consider ourselves lucky not to have sliced up a finger or hand. Looking at the reviews, about 15% gave this product 1 star over the last few years for the same issue.

Have bought this soil this year and last year... and each time, I'm picking out plastic waste. Even more so when it rains and bits of misc plastic become visible. How exactly is this organic, where are they getting it from? Both the organic garden soils have the same issue. Proof that people really need to avoid producing plastic waste... everywhere I look, bits of plastic on the ground, in streams, even in a [supposedly] controlled compost waste environment for a company that sells soil.

Just did my raised garden planters with this soil & my plants (tomatoes & peppers, herbs) have really grown! They look so healthy & green.

This meets expectations. Easy to assemble in very little time and I'm overall happy with my purchase. It was supposed to come with a cover/topper for each post which adjoins each side but there was one missing. I only received 3/4 in the box. It doesnt prevent me from using the product so I just left them all off.

This is full of literal garbage. I bought 40 bags of this and filled my new raised beds with it and now see it is absolutely chock full of trash. I have only been sifting for 20 min and have found all kinds of plastic (including a jolly rancher wrapper) a pen top, all different colors of broken glass, strands of plastic from what appear to be animal feed bags… etc. I have bought other brands of raised bed soil and have always found very little foreign matter. This is shockingly bad quality.

Bought a few bags of this and i first noticed some glass while sifting through clumps then after some rain fall bits of plastic started becoming visible

I used a 50/50 mix of Nature's Care Raised Bed and ProMix Premium Organic in bins for strawberries. This is dark, heavy, well decomposed. However, there were a few small pieces of mystery foreign material. I like that it has a bit of starter fertilizer and its at my local HD. However, I prefer a mix that's lighter and has zero foreign bits, so I also used ProMix Premium Organic - available at the big HD - Aspen Hill.

This is quality dirt. For everyone mad about some plastic or debris, it's normal to find things like that. I've been landscaping for 20+ years, and no matter what, there will always be pieces of something in a bag. It's mostly plastic and slips through processing. As for weeds, where there is dirt, there will be weeds. I use it indoors and don't have any issues.

I purchased multiple bags of this soil for a new raised garden bed on my back patio. Upon bringing it home and opening it, I began to notice that there were PICEES OF PLASTIC BAGS, HARD PLASTIC, PIECES OF METAL AND GLASS, AS WELL AS PAINTED FIBERBOARD / WOOD. While this initially set off alarms, as a first time gardener, I was excited to set up the garden and didn't listen to my intuition. Several weeks later my plants have not grown past seedling stage despite around half of them being planted as seedlings (versus directly sown seeds), and all have yellowing etc. While this is frustrating, I was still nervous about the garbage I had initially found in a PRODUCT LABELLED AND SOLD AS ORGANIC. After having done extensive research to determine if I can continue to try and grow these plants I have decided that my pride in trying to continue to nurture these plants is not worth the health risk associated with possible CHEMICALS LEACHING into the soil that is growing my food. I have since called the Miracle Grow customer service number which is listed below in response to several other complaints and was met with indifference. KEEP YOUR ITEMIZED RECEIPT if you want any possibility of getting reimbursed for the soil, and know that they will refuse to reimburse for the plants that must be thrown out. The woman I spoke with (after being escalated from the first line of defense customer service rep) KNEW EXACTLY of the issue, noting that what had happened was that there was a hole in the screen of the compost component that is mixed in with the rest of the matter. This just raises even more questions in my mind of the ethics of Scotts Miracle Grow and their practices for labelling and marketing. THIS PRODUCT IS LABELLED AND SOLD AS ORGANIC. So knowingly they are composting matter with garbage in it, which they then filter out before selling the final mixture. THIS SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED ORGANIC. Think about that for a moment. Looking back over this thread, there are reviews from the summer of 2020 noting this issue and recognition by the company that this issue exists. It blows my mind that they HAVE NOT RECALLED THIS PRODUCT due to potential health concerns. This literally BLOWS MY MIND. After more than an hour on the phone of STRONG URGING, the best they would do without itemized receipts was $120 check. I suppose it beats a stick in the eye, but doesn't cover the investment I had made this spring on the soil and the seeds and seedlings I had planted within. While not a terrible outcome given the situation, I have scrapped everything I was growing in this soil. Further, I no longer trust the products coming from this company as they clearly do not use organic practices with their soils being labelled as such, and have had opportunities to recall / correct the issue but continue, more than a year later, to do so. THIS IS HIGHLY UNETHICAL. The debris in this photo are just from digging around in a small corner for a few minutes and represents only a small fraction of what I've found so far. Just extremely frustrating.