I used the Timberline topsoil from Lowe's last year and was disappointed with how it compacted down over the winter. I've also found that about 1/4 of the "soil" is made of wood chips. After a couple rains, the wood chips were laying on top. The sand and hummus traveled to the bottom of the containers leaving my seeds buried under what essentially became mulch.

So this year, I experimented a bit with this stuff and found that if I use a 1/4" hardware screen to sift out the large chunks, add a few cups of perlite, I can sow seeds and get good germination. I used it most recently with pineapple sage seeds and the plants are doing great.

It's cheaper than Miracle Grow and has hardly any nutrients at all. But, you have to add perlite to keep it from compacting. At least that's my experience. You can see from the pictures that there's a lot of trash in this stuff. I assume HD's topsoil is similar to Lowe's. Click to embiggen.

Right out of the bag.

{{gwi:456170}}

After sifting.

{{gwi:456171}}

I have a 5 gallon bucket of "mulch" from 3 bags of this stuff.

{{gwi:456172}}

{{gwi:456173}}

Nice fluffy soil with perlite. Ready to use.

{{gwi:456174}}

About a third of a 1/2 cubic foot bag of perlite was added to 3 1 cubic foot bags of topsoil after sifting. Broken bags at our Lowe's are half price - or 65 cents/bag. The perlite was $3.97. That's a little over $3 for about 2.5 cubic feet of soil. The largest Miracle Grow bag is 64 quarts, or roughly 2.5 cubic feet. The price is about $12 plus tax. You can decide if it's worth it. It really depends on how much sand is in the topsoil. You might have to add peat moss to keep it fluffy. I haven't. It does vary from bag to bag though so I mix mine in a 39 gallon trash can.

It's still not as good as Pro-Mix. Not even close.

Here's another no. Topsoil isn't suitable for containers, doesn't provide the right aeration or drainage for good root development and will compact inside the confines of a container. Save it for the garden.

I recommend soil less potting mix.

When you buy a commercial bag of "topsoil" there's no telling what kind of crap you might get. It could be clay, or it could be sand. That's not to say that you can't make it work, but why set yourself up for failure? Use a tried and true soilless potting mix, made for growing in a container.

Karen

Thank you so much for the advice. I think I'll just use the store bought potting mix this year for starters and maybe mix my own when I get a little more experience. thanks again! The people in gardenweb rock!