We paid $450.46 on March 6, 2023 for their Special Garden Mix. We went ahead and spread this 'special garden soil' over the area where we are creating a cottage garden and we put some of it into containers. To our great dismay, none of the plants we transplanted into this soil grew. It is heavy, water runs through it and when dry it becomes like cement.
We took a sample and sent it to A & L Western Laboratories, Inc. for a Graphical Soil Analysis Report. For reference, nitrogen level in the soil goes from 10 to 40 ppm, with 10 being very low and 40 being very high. Our soil testing report indicated the Special Garden Mix had a nitrogen level of 2 ppm. We had a conversation with Jay Mirro, the Senior Resource Planner at King County's Conversation District Soil Testing Program, regarding our soil testing results. He pretty much said Pacific Topsoils sold us worthless dirt. Without enough nitrogen (and the lack of organic matter in this "special garden mix"), nothing will grow.
We contacted Pacific Topsoils and they were unwilling to issue a refund. John at Pacific Toipsoils was argumentative and doubting that the soil sample we sent in for testing came from them. For your information, there is still a pile of soil in our front yard that was delivered to us from Pacific Topsoil. We took the soil sample directly from the pile. We actually took two trips to get our soil tested -- the first time bringing 2 pounds of soil sample and the second time bringing 3 pounds of soil sample to get this "special garden mix" tested.
At this point, we are out $450.46 for the soil. We also spent $103.76 for perlite , 49.99 for lime, $280.21 for promix, $30.76 for Osmocote, $10.98 for blood meal, and $10.47 for bonemeal trying to amend this worthless soil.
We are very disappointed by the treatment we have received from Pacific Topsoil. They have multiple locations throughout the Puget Sound. While the Issaquah location may have better reviews, a lot of their other Puget Sound locations have poor Yelp reviews. Please be sure to check out their Yelp reviews on their other locations before considering buying soil from them. read more