Buying Soil in February

February 5, 2023 filed in Gardening

It's futile to start gardening in February in zone 4, but I thought I could at least get some soil (because I'm so excited to get things started!). I'd seen a short video by Joe Gardener and he'd mentioned Pro-mix BX, so I searched around and found that our local Rona had 52 bags of Pro-mix BX available. I thought I could at least get my growing medium ready to go. The last couple of years I haven't been super diligent about what growing medium I'm using for my seedlings, and I definitely noticed that some thrived while others didn't. I suspect it's because I was using different soil, but because I hadn't recorded what soil I used there was no way to tell. This year I want to be more scientific.

The lady behind the till at Rona looked at me like I was crazy when I asked if they had their soil somewhere (I'd looked around a bit, but of course the gardening section was closed). It was minus 18 degrees Celsius (-0.4f) with a brutal wind and no ground in site under the dirty layers of snow. But the lady searched for Pro-mix on her computer and agreed that they did have 52 large bags. She rang through my order and sent me to the yard for pick-up.

The yard guy told me to drive to the far back corner, where a stack of Pro-mix bags beckoned like a beacon of my healthy seedlings to come. I waited as he picked his way towards the tower and then started pulling and heaving on the corner bag. It didn't budge. I got out of the car to help, but there was no moving that bag. The stack was frozen together like a giant block. You could see the lines of ice in the cracks between the plastic.

I got a refund and took this as yet another reminder that northern Alberta doesn't want you to plant anything in February. Get back to writing instead!

I do wonder how long it will take for those solid cubes of soil to melt - they probably won't be thawed before I start my first seedlings in March. I'll have to find another growing medium or another store that sells Pro-mix BX.