If anyone has ever talked to me at the garden centre about soil, mulch or what to use when planting trees and shrubs then they know about my love affair with Sea Soil.  I am a HUGE fan of Sea Soil, I use it in my garden, I recommend it for just about all plantings, and I’d eat it for breakfast if it tasted better.

Made from forest fines and fish fines, Sea Soil is packed full of delicious nutrients that your plants will love.  What the heck are fines, you ask?  Forest fines are the waste product from the logging industry.  They contain mostly dirt from the forest floor, bark and needles.  Fish fines, another recycled waste product, are a great source of nitrogen and other nutrients.  The two year composting process eliminates any odour and what you’re left with is rich, rich goodness.

When bark mulch breaks down it robs the soil of valuable nutrients and therefore robs your plants but with Sea Soil all the decomposing is done before it gets to your yard.  Sea Soil is also weed free since it had gone through such a long composting process.

Another plus in the go green world is that Sea Soil Original and the Sea Soil mixes are completely organic.  They are listed with the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI), which is the watchdog for the organic products industry.  So if you don’t like to use fertilizer then Sea Soil is a great way to bump up the nutrients in your soil.  It looks good, too, all dark and rich.

Mulching in general is very good for your garden.  It suppresses weeds, adds humus and helps keep in the moisture.  I use a good couple of inches of Sea Soil on my garden as mulch in spring and again in fall. I mix it in my vegetable beds and use the lighter Sea Soil Potting with Coconut in my annual containers.

As with any mulch don’t hill it up around the trunks of shrubs and trees because that can cause the plant to die.  When material is resting up against the part of the trunk that would normally be exposed it causes the trunk to rot which basically cuts off the tree’s lifeline as the trunk’s bark is the way nutrients and moisture travel up to feed the plant.

There are a few different mixes to choose from.  I use the Original in the garden as it is a bit chunkier and the Potting Mix with Coconut for containers because it has been ground up finer.   There’s a potting mix with peat moss which is great for acid loving plants like rhododendrons.  There is a Container mix which is the same as the potting mixes except it has perlite in it.

If you usually amend your soil with peat moss then consider using the straight coconut coir.  Coir is super for loosening up heavier soil, helps to hold moisture and has a neutral quality so won’t change the pH of your soil.  It’s an environmentally sustainable alternative to peat moss.  Coconut coir is also great for seed starting.

Really, I can’t say enough about this stuff.  If you haven’t discovered Sea Soil yet then I encourage you to try some in your garden.  Sea Soil is a trademarked name so make sure you’re getting the real deal as it’s a different kettle of fish from fish compost.    Want more information?  Check out the Sea Soil web page at http://www.seasoil.com/ .  In my opinion it’s the ultimate soil.  Now if it only tasted better…

Shirley Eppler

October 2011