I bought 2 bags of the Hyponex cause that was all I could find last weekend. 1.00 a bag at that.
Yes, it is pretty fine and I am sure compacting might be an issue.
For any potting soil I add a healthy amount of perlite to lighten up the soil, it's a go by feel process so I can't say how much. I haven't met a retail potting soil that didn't need aeration.
I don't care for Miracle Grow at all, burned some seeedlings and I got weed seeds in one bag, sent em back to Miracle grow

Hi Tim,
I don't know anything about Hyponex, but maybe you could scrape the top layer of soil, where the seeds are and mix with some sand and/or perlite. Mix some stuff in to lighten the Hyponex up in the container,and then sprinkle seed mixture again. Just a thought. Doesn't look like you sowed too many containers yet.

Theresa

I bought and used it four years ago before I knew any better.
Solid bricks. It was so hard it pulled away from the edges of the jugs, wouldn't let rain/water penetrate - it just rolled off the top and down the sides, and I had to stab it repeatedly with a BBQ fork to get it to break apart.
Needless to say, I had very few or no seedlings survive in those jugs.
:(
I don't know if ammendments would help as I never bought it again!
Good luck with it - some people do seem to have it work ok for them.

Solid as bricks, yeiks!
I may add some Gypsum to it as well.

It has cement-like qualities. Save it tossing under a bush or something similar, but don't use it for sesd sowing. Instead of buying amendments to correct it use that money instead to buy some better soil.

I used some my first winter. I know I tried adding perlite at one point, but I may have used some straight from the bag.

I tried adding perlite until it was looser or drained better, and that just never happened. Mixing both perlite and peat in with it would work better, but at that point you almost don't need the hyponex. You could add a little hyponex to basically hold onto the moisture better. You'd have to use a drop of dish detergent in the water to moisten the peat

The hyponex does turn into a brick, but I still got seedlings. I grew several types of monarda that year, and some went into soil that was my homemade somewhat fluffy mix, and some went into the hyponex. I didn't plant out right away, and the seedlings in the Hyponex stayed really small compared to monarda seedlings in the other soil, but they did survive until mid-summer when I planted them out.

I don't think you're doomed, but if it makes you feel better, resow some into fluffier soil. I wouldn't mess with the already-sown containers, unless they're irreplaceable seeds. If they are, I'd scrape off the top inch of soil and spread that onto a container of fluffy mix.

Once you have sprouts, make sure the container soil is really moist when you transplant, so it will let you separate seedlings without tearing the roots. Hold seedlings by a leaf, not the stem, so if something tears, it's just a leaf and not the growing tip.

Nurseries that start their own plants often sell perlite in huge bags, that's where I get mine. They may sell the peat, too. (I get mine at a home center). You'd have to store the excess for awhile: that big bag of perlite is about $20 and will make up maybe 20 5-gallon buckets of mix. A bale of peat (about $12, some bales sizes differ) would make up maybe 5 5-gallon buckets? Possibly more. I think I use about 70 or 80% peat, 20% perlite. (I also add in some soil and manure, but you won't be able to do that at this time)

Good luck!

I echo the "cement-like" comments. I used it in large pots to plant Patio Tomatoes. The tomatoes looked so bad I ended up dumping the pots by late July (2 years ago). Had to use an ice chipper to break that stuff up.

No more cheap potting mix/soil for me.

Thank you all for the comments and suggestions.

Judging from the past experiences related above I've decided to lift the seedlings as quickly as possible when (if?) they appear and then replant them in better soil.

Scraping the topmost soil seems to be a good suggestion but the Gentiana makinoi and Turtle head seeds are so small that I think that they would be smothered.
The Turtlehead is supposed to grow in wet locations so I might keep them in the "bad" soil longer while keeping it very moist.

An aside note...The soil that I put on our stove became so solid that I think that it could be used to model or sculpt with.

Would anyone have any suggestions of other soils to stay away from? I had a huge bag of seed starter that I've used for several seasons (and really liked) but the bag was thrown away and I have no idea (now) what it was.

Thank you all again!
Tim

Well if there is that much trouble I may have to go out and see what is out there this weekend.
For decades I made my own potting soil, peat in large bales I can't find anywhere now. 3cu ft isn't nearly enough for one season of seed starting and container plantings.
I only needed for the Ws'd jugs cause for the inside sowing I make a soiless mix.
I just figured to throwing all my leftover 50lb bags of stuff together, need to use it up.

I'll say it again, I didn't like Miracle Grow at all, at least when I sent them back their weeds they gave me a coupon for any MG product, so bought some blue stuff.

That is the only MG product I buy as well, their "feed".

You know, after reading all these posts about what happens to the Hyponex when it gets wet got me thinking.

Isn't Hyponex the scientific term for dehydrated clay?

Sure seems like it!

I had the same experience with bags of H. It would make good bricks if you need to edge a bed:)I happen to like M.Grow but make sure to wet it in a bucket before putting it in a container and planting the seeds. I save all the tough plastic bags from my M.Grow and use them to go around the yard and pick up sticks. They are thicker bags than trash bags so the twigs/sticks aren't likely to poke holes in the bag. Happy gardening!
trowelgal

Supersoil used to be good, but it isn't now, as it's very chunky and coarse. CHEAP is the word to describe it.

Sue

My "Hyponex Experiment" originally posted on my blog.

Recently, on a GardenWeb forum, there was a discussion regarding Hyponex Potting Soil. I think it's crap mainly because it has sand in it & clumps together too much, not allowing drainage. Well, I bought one of the $1 bags of it at a local grocery store. It's about 2/3 of a cubic foot. Anyways, I have a few pepper plants that need to be potted up. I decided, since I have some spares of them, to use one for an experiment with the Hyponex. It's a Jalapeno Early Organic plant. I filled the bucket with 100% Hyponex (no other additives, soil mixes, compost, peat, etc.). I figure also, if anything can survive being in just this soil, a pepper plant would be one of those. I did give it a shot of water-based MG fertilizer to help things a bit. I would normally do this right after transplant into what I consider a known good soil though. So, the MG doesn't affect this experiment any. The main goal is to see if the plant even survives. If it does, i'll compare it to one of my other Jalapeno Early plants to see how different fruit production, growth, etc. is from this one. Wish me luck! I'll update this experiment weekly, or sooner if anything changes (plant dies, etc.). Below are two pictures I took of the plant right after transplanting into the bucket.

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Peace - Steve

Thanks for the experiment Steve and Good Luck!

I "disposed" of the rest of my hyponex by mixing it with my own peat/perlite/lime mix. I think that this is working out fairly well. It seems that I added just enough soil in the mix to make the water absorb freely (just by luck.) Germination in this mix seems to be successful.

It does seem that the containers which are pure hyponex are showing little/no germination. This could be a result of slow germinating seeds or possibly other factors. I'm not giving up on them yet.

Thanks for doing the experiment. It will be interesting to see what happens. Please keep us posted!

Regards,
Tim

Hi Steve,

Welcome to the Winter Sowing Forum! (Steve is a frequent poster over on Tomatoes).

Thank you for sharing your hyponex experiment--your results are going to be a valuable reference to everyone.

I hope you'll stick around and join us in garden convo--we're a mostly casual bunch here. Maybe we can evey convince you to WS some tomatoes!

Trudi

One week update...

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Still Green! :)

ok I have a question. I'm trying some upside down containers and I used the hyponex soil to fill them. Surprisingly the stuff I bought wasn't at all like a brick. I'm now concerned that my plants are going to fail. I just planted them thursday. Will I harm them too much if I remove the hyponex and try a better soil.

Well after a couple of weeks my pepper plants are doing good. I lost a cucumber plant that i've since replaced with better soil and have a zuchini plant that's not doing good. I'm going to try and nurse it back any ideas?