Frequently Asked Questions - Soils

Some differences between certified organic standards and nutrient dense standards are as follows. Certified organic standards are a list of practices that a grower must NOT perform. Example, no herbicides, no pesticides, no fungicides, no chemicals, etc. With this standard it is possible, even probable, for a pink tomato to be presented at market with a respectable label. Nutrient dense standards are an outcome based standard. A grower's product must meet a threshhold standard for mineral content (nutritional value) in order to carry this label. If the food was grown with natural or organic rules and yet has little nutritional value, it is considered poor quality. Nutrient dense standards are often based on food nutritional values from the 1940's, before our nation's soils began depleting. For more on this subject see our article "Organic vs Nutrient dense, Both And."

The term "Nutrient Dense" was introduced by Ardin Anderson, author of Real Food, Real Medicine, a doctor who resides in the midwest. Nutrient Dense refers to the nutritional quality of a particular food. For example if results of laboratory testing show that the mineral content (along with other key items) reaches levels that are determined and fixed standards, then the food is said to be a nutrient dense food.

We make our best effort to provide you, our customer, with a garden soil that will make your project successful. Each soil blend is intended to be used in a general area of gardening for best results. That said, many gardeners have trade secrets that they love to employ with great tact and care. We encourage you to take the good soils that we provide and build upon them if you so wish. Be careful and have fun.

No, soil mixes are not recommended for filling small to medium pots. We recommend that in the case of filling any kind of container intended for potted plants that you use a container mix, ours or a garden center's. Our container mix, our square foot gardening mix, or our garden soil recipe #5 work very well for container gardening. When a topsoil, amended topsoil, or commercial planting mix is used in a small container the plant suffers from a lack of oxygen and water due to the heavy nature of an actual soil. Because of the density and weight of a topsoil, it is far superior to use a potting media, which is significantly lighter, providing a great deal more porosity for channeling water and oxygen to the roots of the potted plant. Soil mixes (containing topsoil) are intended for filling raised beds, flower beds, gardens, and any other large bed for the growing of outdoor plants (vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs, annuals and perennials alike).

We encourage you to utilize the material calculator below for fast and easy answers to this question. The material calculator will ask you for the basic dimensions of your project and is able to provide you with reliable answers. Keep in mind that soil will settle a small amount over time, because of this it is wise to over fill at roughly 10%. We would also be glad to work through your project with you as well. Feel free to phone us.

We have a 70,000 yard stockpile that is a deposit from wind erosion on a farm that has grown wheat for the past several decades. We do not use any synthetic herbicides, pesticides, or fungicides on or near our stockpile of topsoil. The farm that the topsoil deposit was removed from is currently still one of the highest producing wheat farms in the Mead Colorado area. We do not accept dirt at random from contractors or construction sites as is the practice of many other topsoil suppliers. Our topsoil is not registered as an organic topsoil with any regulatory agency, although we do practice the standards set forth by several of them. We value and are proud of the topsoil that we utilize in our soil blends.