MagJo Naturals 100% Pure Coco Coir (Coco Peat) 11 Pound Block (5kg, OMRI Listed for Organic Gardening, Coconut Coir - Low EC and pH Balance - High Expansion Coco Fiber for Herbs, Flowers, Planting

I grow almost all of our veggies and herbs indoors year around in my basement garden. I use a high quality potting soil (FoxFarm Ocean Forest), and use coco coir to lighten the soil and help with water retention. I have bought a couple of different brands of coco coir in the 10 lb. blocks which is the most economical way to buy it if you use a lot. This one is an 11 lb. block, so provides a bit more. My husband cuts the block into 4 pieces so I can hydrate one at a time in a 5 gallon container. I put this block in the container and add water to cover a little more than 1/2 of the block. Once spread out, this fills the 5 gallon container. I mix this into my 20 lb. bags of potting soil as needed. In the different brands I have tried, I have found them all to be similar except that this one is 11 pounds rather than 10 lbs. for the others.Coco coir is a great replacement for peat moss as an additive to soil. It lightens the soil and helps to retain moisture in the soil so it doesn't completely dry out so easily. This is especially helpful for plants in larger pots. When large pots of soil dry and you water, the water often drains through the soil without actually moisten it. You may think you sufficiently watered the plant, but the soil is actually still dry. Adding coco coir to the soil helps to catch the water so it can be absorbed by the soil.Coco coir can be used as a seed starter or for cloning plants, but it must be kept in mind that it has no nutrients for plant growth. New plants or clones should be transplanted into soil as they grow, and nutrients should be added.One of the pictures is my 5 gallon bin with 1/4 of this block hydrated. The block next to it is 1/4th of this 11 lb. block. Hopefully, this gives you an idea of how much this coco coir expands when hydrated. The other picture show how fluffy this coco coir is when hydrated.I hope this review was helpful for you.

My favorite water-hold potting soil was discontinued so I bought this to add to regular potting soil to help with water retention and it's perfect for that. I also used it as the base for soil blocking and it worked great. Once fully rehydrated it was about 20 gallons worth. I've bought it twice now. If you have a kid available they love hydrating this stuff. My 6 year old niece has texture issues but she spent a full hour pouring water from a watering can on this block and watching it swell up then scraping off the wet part until she could see dry areas and pouring more water on. She was fascinated with the feel of it even though she doesn't like getting dirt or mud on her, she played with her hands in it even after it was fully hydrated for a long time. It's one of those strange wet-but-dry feelings. The next one I ordered I waited for her to hydrate it for me again and she was so excited. Great for me to be able to work on other things while she had a great time with the coconut coir. Had a faint herbal minty scent that was pleasant. Will continue buying.

I ordered 4 of these 11-lb. bricks and got a partial shipment of 2 today. I see there have been complaints about some of these being short on weight, so I weighed them and they were both over 11 lbs (one was almost 12 lbs.) To me, some of these complaints have been a little silly, with shortages of only a few ounces, and seem to reflect a lack of understand of the product. Final weight can be greatly affected by drying time (5-15% moisture content), so unless there is a gross underweight, I would not complain.I have not used this brand before, so will see if there are any issues. If there are, I will update my review.Update: Today, I received the second half of the order and weighed both packages, both of which were more than 11 lbs (one was about 12 lbs). So no issue on the weight.I also hydrated one of the 11 lb. bricks today. I used a rock hammer to break it into smaller pieces (easy to day). It readily hydrated in a 20 gallon plastic garbage can up to about the 17 gallon mark. Using my TDS meter, there was only a very small increase in the mineral/salt content, going from our water source of 40 ppm (which is very low) to 200 ppm (which is also very low), so I do not have concerns there is a high level of salts in the coir. Ph went down a bit to slightly acidic, which is not an issue.So, overall, I would say this looks like it will be a good product at a good price.

I am not complaining about how much water it takes to get it to turn to useable soil, but it takes a lot! I bought a huge tub at the Hardware store and put these in it and keep adding gallons of water until it all loosens up. I tried to break off parts and do some at a time, but it was very hard to do that and not the safest using a knife to try and break it up. It is much better to buy a huge tub, put this in it, and add a few gallons of water and let it unravel over 10 or 15 minutes. Get a lid for the tub too. Doing this procedure I have found a few things that started to grow, sprout, over time in the tub, but there was nothing but this in there with water. No seeds ever. So there was one or two seeds that were in it that must have survived the process they do to make these, but I just pulled them out and tossed them. No big deal for me.

Wonderful seed starter & in potting soil mixes. Just add some water and let it do its thing!

I bought this to add with garden soil so I can do veggies in containers. Works great. Holds the moisture and keeps the dirt from getting too hard .