Thanks both of you, I think I will venture to the 5-1-1 mix, I need to save some money now since I bought 20 Gal Hydrofarm Dirt bags. I was gona go with cheaper bags but figured what the heck. They were about $10 a piece w free shipping. I ordered 9 of them and giving 5 to my brother because he can only plant containers in his community and for me, I am having a Pine Tree problem (to bad I can't chop it up and use it as pine fines now) The tree is blocking half my garden from light half the day, But it should be fine once the sun moves more overtop in the summer. I figure I can move the bags around for best light until then. Thanks again for the advice, Now I just got to find the right Pine Bark Fines. Does anyone know if one of the large garden stores carry them? I am just afraid I will get the wrong kind - Mr Beno

Thanks to all for the advice thus far. However, it seems that in the process of gathering intel for a good growing medium, as a newbie I significantly misunderstood what was suggested to me in the weeks leading up to now. My goal was to keep things simple. I have very little time to do gardening work and I take advantage of every spare minute I have to that end. When I was asking around for a growing medium a couple of weeks ago, I was hoping I could find one that I wouldn't have to mix in ratios and one that was already rich in nutrients so all I would have to do is worry about watering. That was when I learned about Pro Mix BX. I even went the extra mile to find a local retailer of Pro Mix BX and fortunately within a few days I found one within 10 min of my house and bought 4 compressed bales at $28 a pop. After subsequently receiving my GeoPots in the mail, I thought I had everything I needed to start my containers. However, it seems that all I really had (based on the above responses) was two pieces of the puzzle. What it boils down to is that basically I have one growing mix ingredient and even that ingredient requires something to be added to it if it is to be used alone. Lets just say for argument's sake that I have no time to go back and re-fill those containers (which is actually a true statement) with a 5-1-1 mix or something like it. Am I destined to have a disappointing crop this year? I thought my biggest problem was going to be keeping the Pro Mix in the GeoPots moist considering they are fabric pots. Based on the responses above, it seems like I am going to have the opposite problem. I am not in a happy place right now. Could this end up being my biggest gardening mistake ever?

Bryan, I don't know about Dallas, but the Home Depot in Oklahoma City sells Pro-Mix. Have you used it? I didn't like it. Nothing but peat and I had the darndest time getting it wet. I finally used it to mix with potting soil, perlite, and chicken manure for my mix. Susan

Minnamouse - I posted this at the end of a different thread you posted but perhaps you didn't see it. Here's a cut & paste section, followed by a few new thoughts: "Minnamouse, if you had all that trouble with damping off you might really want to consider a good commercial blend. The reason I say that is because they are mixed to provide an appropriate level of moisture retention and trying to get that with your own mix could be a real challenge. I like Promix and Sunshine mix best and personally dislike Miracle Gro. Part of that is probably due to regional growing condition bias. Miracle Gro dries out way too fast for me here while the other two stay at just the most perfect moisture level for much longer times. I do think that Miracle Gro may have an advantage for people growing in wetter conditions. The same features that hurt germination rates for me and made planting out challenging would probably have been advantages in growing regions that got a lot of rain this year. If you are still working at getting good results with WSing, I'd make ProMix a first choice in areas where you usually don't have muddy gardens and Miracle Gro potting mix a first choice in areas where mud in the garden is common. (Sunshine mix is less readily available and more pricey.) I'd hold off on using home mixed mixes for anything but seeds you have in huge abundance where won't be upset if they don't grow. That's actually what we do - I use our home grown container mix for things like zinnias where I have many giant bags of seed available. When you have a load of surplus seed you can live with a potting mix that wicks water in a less than perfect way or that might crumble or break apart when you try to transplant hunks of seedlings." To specifically address your question today, in my opinion the biggest deal about using a purchased mix is that the moisture wicking and retention balance is better than anything you can put together on your own - and that can be VERY important in seed starting. My family likes to be very cost conscious. We grow most of our own food. We have to container grow our veg in five gallon buckets here because the local soil is pretty much just rocks, coal and a bit of clay. (Nice if you want to run a quarry, lousy for gardening!) Our growing & food producing containers are all filled with a home blend of compost with a little perlite. That's great for mature plants and not having picture perfect wetting and moisture retention is not a problem at that stage. Good enough is perfectly fine. But for seed starting and seedlings we only use Sunshine mix or Promix. Yes, it's more costly - especially when I WSed over 3600 containers of flowers and hubby indoor sowed over 200 tomatoes plants and about 50 each of peppers, eggplants, gourds, melons, beans and the rest of the stuff. Maybe I should also mention that hubby Pat's family has been commercial growers in England for at least 6 generations. They made all of their container mix (like you describe above) but bought in their seed sowing mix by the pallet load. In his professional growing experience, and our personal home growing experience it is worth the cost to buy a good seed starting mix - and save home mixes for once the plants are past the seedling stage. That's how we do it because we consider the cost of seed and we want strong seedlings and high germination rates. That's also why I won't use miracle gro here - although if I was in waterlogged Pennsylvania this year I'd probably appreciate it's moisture wicking profile better. I hope this helps. I don't know if you've seen any of my other posts but if you have you probably know that I've got very similar views to you about getting really good value for your money when you are gardening. To me there is such incredible value in planting a seed and getting a healthy strong seedling - ready to grow big and strong, provide flower or food, and then provide seed for future years. I just can't afford the cost of seed, time lost, and food lost by seed starting in a homemade mix - and that's even with having my own English gardener (with decades of growing experience) right here and his elderly mother(with even more experience) just a phone call away. I hope I don't sound like I'm just a member of some kind of Pro Mix fan club. I'm not. I like anything that gets me top notch results. That just happens to be that pricey Pro Mix and Sunshine mix. Lynda Here is a link that might be useful: This is why I seed start in Promix or Sunshine mix