Greetings all!

I have had a heck of a time this year with Sunshine's Sungro Organic potting mix . Some bags I had leftover from last year were fine, but all the new bags we ordered this year (about 100) basically killed my plants. The damage was most obvious with tomatoes, when I started seeds. Seeds planted in "old" soil germinated and grew fine, while seeds planted in new soil germinated, wilted, and just sat and sat and then died. I had 2 flats side by side of Aunt Ruby's German Green Tomato - 1 that grew fine, and another that never had a chance.

When we contacted the company, they were friendly, and told us that the batch of soil we just picked up would be fine. Note - the bags of soil have no lot numbers or anything like that, and we go thru so many, there was really no way of knowing which bags were old, and which were new. So - we potted up our few remaining healthy plants that were started in the old soil. DUH! While the damage was not evident right away, 2-4 weeks later, the plants were trashed. Yellow, "burnt" looking, and just plain unhappy. (pictures in the below link) We also noticed other plants were exhibiting the same symptoms. And - the symptoms were not spreading to other flats - as diseases would.

Many other plants were affected -parsley, cilantro, peppers, cucumbers, squash, petunias, tomatillos, ground cherries, zinnias, statice, etc, etc. When you pull these plants out of their pots, you can see that the poor little roots just don't want to grow into the new soil!

I have posted a link to our blog, and the top 2 posts have pictures of the plant damage. We picked up all of our mix at a wholesaler in Milwaukee, and they said that while we are by far their biggest customer with this particular soil, they did hear from a tomato grower that lost his whole crop this year. I guess I am trying to find out just how many organic growers this affected, how widespread the problem is, and / or find someone that had the same problems we did. We have used this sol for 3 years, with no problems until now. If anyone had a similar problem, I would love to hear from you.

I am going to post this under a few different topics - so those of you that view a lot of forums, you will see repeats!

Thanks a lot - It is just SO heartbreaking to watch all your babies die!

Here is a link that might be useful: Damaged plant pictures