The great MG soil debate.

Alright, after reading for weeks I see so many mixed opinions.
So why not start another MG thread where it can be debated to it's death.

Is it good to use and why.
Is it bad to use and why.

Have you used it, what were your results?

If you use it do you also use additional nutes?


So tell us all the good the bad and the ugly of using Miracle Grow soils.

If it's what you can afford, it's good. If you've developed a technique for growing in it, it's good. If you are afraid to delve into mixing nute compounds, it's good. If you like bugs in your soil, it's good.

If you grow large quantities, automate watering, or want to tweak your nutes to your strains, it's garbage.

There's no real debate. It's got a solid place in our little community. Not in any of my potters, but, in some people's.

I used it my first 2 years, by the time I finally dialed-in on the shit I realized it was great for tomatoes...not so great for cannabis.

Try Promix and any organic nutes, cheaper than MG, better results, and much easier for new growers.

I find coco or coco mix, with GH nutes are really simple to set up and dial in. I mean REALLY easy. And, at 60 for nutes+bud booster, test kit and calmag, and 10 bucks a brick for coco, it's pretty cost effective.

can't really judge, i never grew MG myself, i stick to fox farms ocean forest and fox farms Happy frog never had issues with bugs, although i found skeletons of shrews and mice or what i presumed to be vermin skulls in the soil, still damn good soil. also had a few harvests with roots organic but i prefer the 50/50 ocean forest/happy frog combo.

There are an ass load of MG threads out there.
The long and short of it has already been stated. If you're not into playing with nutes & you might or might not water today then MG might be for you. I've seen several threads over the years that prove that you can grow killer weed with it - just don't try & micro-manage.
Drop it into the search engine & you'll see what I mean.

my 4-5 first harvests were from fox farms, about 2 from when i was growing with my brother, i chose to grow the same soil he used and so i used fox farms, it was also fox farms. not a bad company, they seem to have their shit ready for cannabis production, either veg(happy frog) or flower(ocean forest).

dont know why people even use soil anymore , coco is sooo much easier and the results are absolutely staggering compared to soil , and if you have ever tasted bud grown in coco you allready know what im talking about .

Use it. Like it? Cool.

You'll never know until you try lady.

you dont want ot use MG because the stuff sucks!!!! it kills plants and any time you go for a drain it boosts N and causes burn. so while you have flower your dousing it with nitro and adding salts to your plants and it becomes a mess if your not extremely careful not to mention it be itself becomes one giant clump of root. no space, aeration, drainage.

Thats just it, I have been researching it from many different sources and they all have so much conflicting info.
Here at RIU even talking about using it is kind of a taboo subject lol. So I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask and maybe
get some more opinions.

GreatwhiteNorth said:

There are an ass load of MG threads out there.
The long and short of it has already been stated. If you're not into playing with nutes & you might or might not water today then MG might be for you. I've seen several threads over the years that prove that you can grow killer weed with it - just don't try & micro-manage.
Drop it into the search engine & you'll see what I mean.

Click to expand...

Thank you this makes sense, it has the time release ferts in it, so Im scared to even
feed. I just dont know what they need, and what will harm them.

silasraven said:

you dont want ot use MG because the stuff sucks!!!! it kills plants and any time you go for a drain it boosts N and causes burn. so while you have flower your dousing it with nitro and adding salts to your plants and it becomes a mess if your not extremely careful not to mention it be itself becomes one giant clump of root. no space, aeration, drainage.

Click to expand...

Due to my geographical location, the specialty mediums are next to impossible to get, Thanks Sunbiz1 for the suggestion. I can get pro-mix here
so Im gonna grab a bag and get them in it later today.

If i use mg its the organic one and i mix it. I will never plant with straight mg

For years I would use what ever I could get my hands on no matter how cheap. I usually grew in 5 gal buckets never had any problems that I would consider a problem( if that makes sense) never used ferts either and I never had any complaints from people who I let try my product. Then I found MG products and started using them and againI never had any problems with any of my plants. After using MG for several years I started noticing large clumps or pieces of bark and other debris in the bags of soil it was so bad I started screening it to remove all of the unwanted material it was at that time I started incorperating the bought soil with the native soil plus perlite,vermiculite but still no ferts and started planting directly into the ground and again never had any problems and was always satisfied with my results. Then I started researching what other folks were doing and thats when I started hearing about this foxfarm and promix products but still it didnt deter me at all I kept on using what had been working for me all of the prior years it wasnt untill this past month that I purchased my first bags of foxfarm products to be used in my FIRST indoor grow under 270 watts of LED's.......so I will be reporting back to you guys at some point to let you know if all the hype is true I am sure of one thing already....this foxfarm shit aint cheap thats for damn sure...!

I would say don't use it. There are many "water only" soil options that are fairly easy to construct. 1 bag light warrior, 1 bag ocean forest, 1/2 bag 5-5-5 happy frog, 1/2 bag worm castings, 1/4 bag perlite. done. and you can usually find that in the same location. now if the problem is your local store doesn't carry things like this, then look at the ingredient list of ocean forest and find yourself something similar..

i notice you mention pro-mix -- that is the best choice for neutral soil.. get the stuff with myco.

then build from there. should be pretty straight forward.

check out amazon for product line called.. Down to Earth. fish bone meal, blood mean, azomite, all that stuff..

soil mixing is fun!!!

i use peatmoss pearlight mix with great results , started to use a wilma system and went back to soil after two grows

you got to use what workes best for yourself. but mg used first grow with bad results

Yeah I grabbed some straight promix last night and transplanted.

I have the GH trio, so I wanted to go with the straight mix so I know exactly what is going in
until I learn more about mediums and mixing.

After this run I will do a test with a couple different amendments so I can see what works
through my own trial and error (what better way to learn, right...lol) Im gonna try and get away
from the chem ferts and start going true organic. I have a large amount of grass and leave clippings
I can use for a compost pile so there is at least a start.

I found the MG I was using was holding water for way too long, lots of bark and when I transplanted
there were some unknown seedlings growing under the surface. Not really clean enough to be a medium
of my choice.

There is a lot of misinformation out there.. I've been using mg for about 10years,for some reason people have issues with it,I don't but I can't seem to keep my fish alive so... Anyway the organic mg doesn't have timerelease nutes you can water all you want..of coire flushing your weed is idiotic in the first place. Also I use the av mg its ph is more stable, also go half and half with perlite and its perfect.. I water once a day no nute burn no issues... If you can't manage a good grow in mg you shouldn't be growing. Fox farms nutes are no different than mg,lots of chelated goodness...add some damn airation via perlite and keep on growing!....but apparently im one of few that doesn't understand why mg is bad. There are many threads and I've come ro the conclusion mg is fine. If your a newb and don't know how to add anything to your soil go ff, I've used lots of different soils..

Bottom line is, its just another brand

I think the biggest problem is people don't know what there doing, they buy the stuff with time released nutes, then try and add nutes and end up burning the shit out of there plants. then blame it on the soil.

I've used mg soil potting mix and moisture control both can grow a plant from start to finish. But using coco and promix I've seen better growth and faster growth. I've noticed with the mg soils when I used them the soil would get muddy so adding extra perlite for bettr airation was your best bet.