MsCowpea wrote: ↑Sun Jan 19, 2020 5:51 pm Oh, I would definitely give it shot but what does the package say it is composed of. It is not super heavy , is it? It is funny they say herbs and not for vegetables - herbs don’t need a lot of water either. In any case you can control watering in a container or barrel. It would be great if it was a good product. Can’t stand when your only choice is Miracle Gro potting mix.

Maybe they're saying it's alright for herbs because people only eat small amounts at a time, hence those moisture gel granules won't harm you. I won't ever use moisture control mixes anymore as it was not a good sight to see when they were visible on the surface. Not organic for sure & I wouldn't want to eat anything grown in it.

peebee wrote: ↑Sun Jan 19, 2020 10:53 pm

MsCowpea wrote: ↑Sun Jan 19, 2020 5:51 pm Oh, I would definitely give it shot but what does the package say it is composed of. It is not super heavy , is it? It is funny they say herbs and not for vegetables - herbs don’t need a lot of water either. In any case you can control watering in a container or barrel. It would be great if it was a good product. Can’t stand when your only choice is Miracle Gro potting mix.

Maybe they're saying it's alright for herbs because people only eat small amounts at a time, hence those moisture gel granules won't harm you. I won't ever use moisture control mixes anymore as it was not a good sight to see when they were visible on the surface. Not organic for sure & I wouldn't want to eat anything grown in it.

For general info there are also organic moisture control mixes, they use yucca, or coir.

I tried to find info on that product last night. As I didn’t know anything about the moisture additives.
Unfortunately there was nothing on the promix site that discussed this particular bag. They had an organic moisture mix
that was only sold in Canada so obviously that would not contain a synthetic polymer. As Marsha says some additives are
benign. One site says they can be made out of starch. One research article on the polymer type said they don’t work well anyway particularly when using synthetic fertilizers. The bag must say what the ingredients are by law. What does the bag say, just curious?

I'll get the ingredients list and post it here. I live in an arid climate so the moisture control won't cause an issue as far as over watering. I bought one bale because I'd not seen it before and thought I'd give it a try.
I couldn't find any information about it on-line either.

Ok, took a quick pic of the ingredients: If you need any other information on the bale bag LMK.

MsCowpea wrote: ↑Sun Jan 19, 2020 5:51 pm Oh, I would definitely give it shot but what does the package say it is composed of. It is not super heavy , is it? It is funny they say herbs and not for vegetables - herbs don’t need a lot of water either. In any case you can control watering in a container or barrel. It would be great if it was a good product. Can’t stand when your only choice is Miracle Gro potting mix.

I would say it's heavy for the size of the bale. It feels compressed but not quite as firm as coconut coir.
My containers are on drip and in the summer during the hottest 115-120 degree days it will run once a day.
I posted a pic of the ingredients below.
I've never seen any formula of pro-mix here so when I saw that I grabbed one to try. Thanks for your input, it's most helpful.

I wondered too, about the wetting agent(s).
A start.

Thanks to all for the helpful info. I have never seen Promix that was labeled organic here, we only get 1 type & now it's gone. At least from Lowe's. I'll have to check HD but I won't need any for a few years as they are in EBs.

Ginger2778 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 19, 2020 9:25 pm I've never had fungus gnats in closed fresh bales of compressed PromixBX. But you can combat them with Gnatrol. It kills their larvae.

For indoor plants (or seed starting), you can sprinkle some ground cinnamon on top of the soil. I can't remember where I read that (years ago), but it seems to work. I don't think it "kills" any gnats, but definitely deters them. I usually do it to my 72 cell seed starting trays, and always do it with my overwintered pepper plants

Growing Coastal, that was short but still very helpful. Thanks for finding that info.
And AZ that was just what I wanted to see. Thanks.