I always use MG Moisture Control potting soil for my seedlings and love it, but I'm not so happy with their marketing tactics.

I checked out the MG prices at Home Depot yesterday and the large bag of potting soil was $12.99 for 64 quarts. Next I went to BJs warehouse figuring it would be cheaper, and sure enough it was, but noticed that the large bag was now only 55 quarts. Finally I had to go to Wal Mart (groan) and checked it out there as well. The large bag at Wal Mart was marked "2 cubic feet" and didn't mention quarts at all! All of the bags appeared to be the same size and had identical markings, except for the quantity. Clearly MG is offering variable package sizes to their larger customers to foil comparative price shopping by us consumers. Thanks Miracle Grow! From now on I bring a calculator when buying their products.

Don't you love marketers!

TomNJ

I know EXACTLY what you went through!! Today I went to Lowes to buy large bags of Sta-Green Potting Mix, as I am planting in DIY Earthboxes this year, and want to do an "A /B" comparison with Miracle Grow with Moisture Control. The Sta-Grow Potting Mix is in 3 cubic ft. bags!! I don't recall the formula on how to convert dry quarts into cubic ft. but it sure is confusing when trying to compare these products.

I was at Walmart yesterday picking up 30 tomato cages, and saw their sign for the Miracle Grow at $11.32 and thinking I just paid $12.99 at Home Depot for 25 bags last week - - glad to learn they were smaller 2 cubic ft. size. It "feels" to me by weight, that the 64 quart package contains about 2.2 cubic ft. so that would equal out the pricing between Walmart and Home Depot.

Raybo

Let's see, there are 7.5 gallons in a CF.

So "2 cubic feet" would be 15 gallons.

4 Quarts to a gallon or 15x4= 60 Quarts in that "2 Cu. foot" bag.

Expect to pay more for mix this year as the prices have gone up %15 over last year.

Tim

????????
1 cubic foot = 6.4 gallons dry
2 cubic feet = 12.8 x 4 = 51.2 qts.

Patrick - Shreveport, La.

I rounded off to 7.5 gallons

Maybe down in LA. it's 6.5 but here in RI it's been 7.5 for the past 40 years.

Tim

I have to agree with Patrick. There are 6.5 (dry) gallons per 1 cubic foot. Maybe you are thinking of liquid conversion. To answer the original question, the 64 quart Miracle Grow bag at Home Depot contains 2.488 cubic feet of material, so compared with the Walmart 2.0 cubic foot bag, the Home Depot package is actually cheaper, on a cost per unit volume metric.

See this conversion link (which should work in R.I.) (smile)

http://www.metric-conversions.org/cgi-bin/util/convert.cgi

Raybo

Now you have to assume originally that the bag had 64 quarts. How do you convert a liquid quart to a "dry" gallon? I thought that "dry quart" measure in Pint and Quarts was intended measure for fruit (berries etc.)

The packaging on the Miracle Grow bag states "64 dry quarts". Again, as TomNJ expressed in his lead post, we all need a decoder ring to compare bags in Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes - - all too confusing.

Raybo

I just checked the bag I purchased and it says 55 "dry" quarts and 60.5 liters, which is a correct conversion (1 dry quart = 1.1012 liters). The 2 cu ft bag at Wal-Mart also said 60.5 liters, so this is actually equal to 2.14 cubic feet. Their conversions are correct, it's their switching of headline units and bag fill that's deceptive.

TomNJ

How do you convert a liquid quart to a "dry" gallon?...

(dry gallon) = [ (liquid qts) ] * [ (1 gallon)/(4 qts) ] * [ (268 in³ per dry gallon)/(231 in³ per liquid gallon) ].

Reg

In the same vein, unit pricing on laundry detergent is a joke. First of all, try to compare liquids and powders! But even among the powders, there is variance among brands as to how much product is recommended per load, and how much a given amount weighs (some are heavier than others).

Pretty frustrating, I know, but I doubt we'll see any change.

For what it's worth, I find the Moisture Control to be hugely beneficial. This soil wets so quickly when preparing for seed planting, and stays moist much longer than regular potting soils. It's the best I have found yet in my 30+ years of seed starting. Since it is not a "seed starting" formula it does have some larger pieces of debris, but I screen the top layer when planting to give a nice fine texture.

Gardenstateof mind - I agree fully that this is a common marketing practice, for exactly the reasons you state. I have seen it many times in mattresses, microwaves, and many other products. It makes a farce of unit pricing and other efforts to help consumers compare value, but it is legal and profitable for the manufacturers and retail outlets so it will continue. The old saying "buyer beware" still applies, and calculators help!

TomNJ

My MG says it will fill 20 4in pots. My pots are 5 oz.
I guess ya have to be smarter than a fifth grader.

Very entertainging guys. That and the sunshine finally, may get me to start my seeds this week.

I have also been known to use my cell phone to browse the web WHILE in a store to check eBay and other sites on the price of a particular product to get a feel for the "going rate". Then I decide in the store if I should buy said item online or right there. I hit gardenweb.com several weeks ago from my phone while deciding on which fluorescent tubes to buy for my growing setup. Browsing is slow, and I got asked about 3 times from different Home Depot employees if I needed help, but this site helped me decide, so I made my purchase and have not returned since.

My strategy can be done for anyone that owns a cell phone that you can take notes on. I'm fairly certain I have annoyed several retailers when making these comparisons and then walking right out of the store without any purchase. I call this 'window shopping with technology'. :)

http://www.lowesmoving.com/

They send you one coupon via mail and another via email which you can print out. Home Depot takes competitors coupons so I use them there.

I like the Miracle Grow potting soil as an intermediate soil to use between the seedling stage and the ground planting stage. I use the soil in small planting containers to get the seedlings up to a 4 inch level.

Raybo