SO EXCITED FOUND MY VERMICULITE!!!!!! SPOKANE WA

WHOOOHOOOOOO!!!!! 5 bags of 4cu ft of vermiculite! Found at BIG R on Trent in Spokane Washington!

Here is how addicted I am already and I haven't even GROWN anything yet!!!! I only need 3....eh hem....I bought 5! AHHHHH!!!!

SO EXCITED I CAN BARELY SIT STILL......

I had no idea this stuff was light....I read in Mel's book how it is from exploding rock..lol so I thought I needed a truck. LOL How excited I was when I could lift it into my little car! Hehehe...this is better than Christmas.....

How much did it cost, Middlemama?

Last year I paid 29.99 per 4 cu ft bag. This year it was 39.99.

Hey m², I was looking at the date of this thread. How did that old commercial go? Something like: "You've come a long way, Baaaaaabeeeeee!"

I know! Hard to believe I have only been at this a little over 1 year...don't even have 2 seasons under me belt!

I look out my back door and just beam!

Thats an outrageous price. I was upset when mine went from $18 to $20 for a 4cf bag this season. Now that Boffer has arrived at the scene did you mention that you have bought the 60cft bag size. If so what were the dimensions, bagging material and shipping platform like. Can the average pickup haul one ok. Ya, I guess the price has come a long way baby.

I guess it is the law of supply and demand jumping on the bandwagon, or market forces. Take your pick.

The more that people find out about Mel's Mix, the price will rise.

You folks are hysterical!

PVPind that well could be but you need to realize there has not been a social security increase in 3 years and rumor has it to get used to the idea. Our lucky to have pension checks keep going down as more contributions are required from us to keep the fat cat ceo’s comfortable. So it is only logical we will fight to get around the 33% inflation on much of our gardening supplies. One option could be just give it up. Never. Besides they say we are just old retired folks with too much time on our hands. That too could be well true but we do try to encourage things that will benefit all people. I did not take your comment personal it was just an opportunity.

westie42 wrote:Thats an outrageous price. I was upset when mine went from $18 to $20 for a 4cf bag this season. Now that Boffer has arrived at the scene did you mention that you have bought the 60cft bag size. If so what were the dimensions, bagging material and shipping platform like. Can the average pickup haul one ok. Ya, I guess the price has come a long way baby.

From what I have learned, here in the Northwest US where I live, for some reason the vermiculite is more expensive than anywhere else in the nation.

Boffer has gotton it as low as $7 a square foot from my understanding, and at $30 a cu ft I was close to that, but at $40 I am around $10/cu ft.

Ok but I am still confused as to how deep was his $7 square foot. Really odd and painful that you are so high priced there on it, isn’t vermiculite largely a resource that is still mined and manufactured heavily in the Northwest. Guess some of us flat landers need to start a vermiculite bootlegging business.

What I noticed the last time I went to buy it at Menard's, they changed the type from a coarse to a fine. They don't state that on the bag, so you don't know till it's opened. I wondered when I saw that, if the company was shifting the coarse into a "garden" or "food" grade product to sell to garden centers. It is still $12.99 for 3 cu ft at Menard's though. I decided to use the fine the next time I do a box. The vermiculite might not have as many places to hold water, but it would still keep the MM loose. The peat moss does a good job of holding water.

westie42 wrote:Ok but I am still confused as to how deep was his $7 square foot. Really odd and painful that you are so high priced there on it, isn’t vermiculite largely a resource that is still mined and manufactured heavily in the Northwest. Guess some of us flat landers need to start a vermiculite bootlegging business.

No, not a NW good. According to http://www.vermiculite.net/ in the US it is mined in the Appalachia Mountains.

Mine was around $40 for the cheapest bag I found, I paid more the first time. :o(

westie42 wrote:Ok but I am still confused as to how deep was his $7 square foot.

I pay $7 a cubic foot. I'm pretty sure M² meant to say cubic feet.

westie42 wrote:...isn’t vermiculite largely a resource that is still mined and manufactured heavily in the Northwest....

According to PVPind in previous posts, most of his vermiculite comes from China, and the Chinese play games with grades and availabilities, to suit their best interests.

I've only seen Therm-O-Rock brand vermiculite in my area, and it is distributed from Arizona. I have no idea what their source is.

M2 means square meter, it almost 3 times bigger than a sft. vermiculite comes in 4 cubic feet bags, not in squire feet measurement. Probably M2 meant something else for that particular bag, not the measurement of the content. Vermiculite comes in 3 different grades, Coarse, Medium and Fine. 4cft bag of coarse cost here about $28, Medium $16, don't know about fine grade. All the grades of vermiculites are USA/Canada origin, never heard of China origin. We live in a small city in Florida and vermiculite is available in 4-5 sources, mostly nurseries and landscaping supply stores. Check with your local nursary/landscaping supply stores, probably they carry it. Origin does not matter, you need course or medium grade for SFG. Good luck!

Tonmoy02 wrote:M2 means square meter

I goofed; it should have been m² which on this forum means middlemamma, our administrator.

Tonmoy02 wrote: ...vermiculite comes in 4 cubic feet bags...

I buy my vermiculite locally in 6 cubic foot bags.

Tonmoy02 wrote:...Vermiculite comes in 3 different grades, Coarse, Medium and Fine....

Vermiculite also comes in extra coarse, see pictures here.

YES! I am so sorry everyone for the confusion. I meant cubic foot as boffer stated. So my statement should have read:

westie42 wrote:Thats an outrageous price. I was upset when mine went from $18 to $20 for a 4cf bag this season. Now that Boffer has arrived at the scene did you mention that you have bought the 60cft bag size. If so what were the dimensions, bagging material and shipping platform like. Can the average pickup haul one ok. Ya, I guess the price has come a long way baby.

From what I have learned, here in the Northwest US where I live, for some reason the vermiculite is more expensive than anywhere else in the nation.

Boffer has gotten it as low as $7 a cubic foot from my understanding, and at $30 for 4cu ft I was close to that $7 per figure, but at $40 for 4 cu ft I am around $10 per cu ft.

GEESH!! I AM SO SORRY!!!

Thanks for being so specific on vermiculite packaging and grades. I've forgotten to mention that the information I provided earlier was specific to availability at locally where I live. Sorry for the inconvenience.
However I like to share the core excitement that every SFG beginner experience. Vermiculite is the component that is very hard to find and you feel like discovered the treasure when you first locate it. It is imparative what is the price, packaging or grade. I believe you'll be agree with me!

westie42 wrote:PVPind that well could be but you need to realize there has not been a social security increase in 3 years and rumor has it to get used to the idea. Our lucky to have pension checks keep going down as more contributions are required from us to keep the fat cat ceo’s comfortable. So it is only logical we will fight to get around the 33% inflation on much of our gardening supplies. One option could be just give it up. Never. Besides they say we are just old retired folks with too much time on our hands. That too could be well true but we do try to encourage things that will benefit all people. I did not take your comment personal it was just an opportunity.

I was just commenting on how excited you all get when you find vermiculite. That's all.

On the economics of it- I would do and do do (hehe do do) save every penny possible. It's only responsible. SFG is not raising the price of Verm though. Freight is the largest factor in the cost. This would explain the NW USA's higher cost for the product. If someone wanted to take a risk, start a exfoliation facility up that way. I can't think of any other than in CA. Besides Sungro. The NW is not in our market so I really don't know much about it.

I know the white of perlite is unsightly to some but it would cut costs considerable and is easily obtainable. But I've touch on this before and it's a touchy subject to some here. So I'll leave it alone.

Yes the majority of our verm comes from VA and NC. It is the finer grade though. There are NO coarse verm mines in the USA or Canada. Perlite, Yes, Coarse Vermiculite, Nope, notta one. China, Africa, Turkey and a couple other places. Yes they do play games. We have taken Coarse verm off our price list because of the issues in acquiring the raw goods and receiving quality ore that expands properly. SunGro more than likely changed over to the finer product because of the same issues. We all talk about it and there are no secrets between us manufacturers. It's a very small world and we'll all find out what one another are doing rather quickly. In fact many of us are in each others contacts list. We are a very friendly group of folks and enjoy talking with each other.

With the finer product you will have more absorption and less porosity over coarse verm. It's just a fact. Many large growers have had to change there mixes because of this verm issue. Trust me everyone loves coarse verm but it's just not available. If we could acquire the raw goods our business would double revenue, easily. Everyday there are truck load orders coming in. They can't be filled and we don't know when they will be able to be filled. Some of us do loose sleep over this.


Sorry I'm so long winded.

Thanks, PVPind for putting us in the picture with regard to the problems of obtaining vermiculite.

I did know that the coarse comes from Africa and other far-away-places and it seems that we will just have to adjust to the the realities of that.

With regard to the difference between coarse verm and the finer grades, is it due to the ore that can be obtained?

Yes, exactly. The only mine that ever provided a coarse grade ore was Libby. But the mine was contaminated with Tremolite and shut down. Every since then, for good reason, we have been forced to acquire ore from overseas. The overseas mines/brokers and governments that operate the mines are well aware of this and have been raising requirements for orders and decreasing quality for quite sometime. So many of us are done with the game. When they can be reasonable and provide us with a quality product with consistency we'll consider a purchase of the raw goods. Until then it's more waiting.

PVPind wrote:I was just commenting on how excited you all get when you find vermiculite. That's all.

We knew what you meant. It's the excitement of the first time for anything, that we tend to get enthusiastic about around here!

I appreciate you dropping in now and then to share your expertise about vermiculite. It's great to get the straight scoop from a knowledgeable source. We do repeat ourselves over and over on some topics, but that's just life on a forum; it's all new to someone who joined last week.

PVPind wrote:With the finer product you will have more absorption and less porosity over coarse verm.

Amen to that. I have two boxes with medium in them that I just hate because the MM holds too much water. As in, pick up a handful and squeeze the water out. Coarse doesn't do that. I'll be replacing it this fall.

Thanks for your quick reply, PVPind.

I guess the next thing we should do here on the SFG Forum is to work out how much of the finer Verm we will need to replace the coarse.

Anyone wishing to experiment? e.g. take one cf of coarse #4 and one cf of medium #3 and see how much water it absorbs? Any other suggestions?