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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] dirt isn't dirt-cheap anymore.
  • Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2008 11:30:28 -0600


Inflation Gets Right Down to the Real Nitty-Gritty
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/16/AR2008081601966.html?hpid=topnews

By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 17, 2008; Page A01

Even dirt isn't dirt-cheap anymore.

At your local garden center, the cheapest dirt, which often goes by the name
of "premium topsoil," may cost $4.99 for a 40-pound bag, about a buck more
than a year or two ago.

Then there's the gourmet dirt -- the scientifically exquisite potting
mixtures, soil enhancers and soil amendments, crafted from special
ingredients such as peat moss, bark fines (partially composted pine bark),
perlite, coconut husks, and/or "spent mushroom substrate." You can buy a bag
of "Bumper Crop," for example, for $14.99 at Johnson's Florist and Garden
Center in the District, up two bucks from 18 months ago.

Dirt and its upmarket cousins offer a glimpse of how rising energy prices
have caused inflation in the grittier corners of the consumer culture.
Products that are cheap, heavy and bulky, such as bags of soil, are
particularly vulnerable to rising freight costs.

Moreover, thanks to technology, globalization and changes in consumer
preference, a bag of potting mix is now a highly manufactured, meticulously
designed product, often containing ingredients from all over the continent
and from across the planet.

Pricier dirt is what consumers want, says Bob LaGasse, executive director of
the Manassas-based Mulch and Soil Council, which represents soil and mulch
producers nationwide. "People have less time. So their garden projects have
changed over time. Convenience, time-saving factors, less mess," he said.
They want high-performance dirt, so charged with organic nutrients you could
serve it as an appetizer.

"It's potting soil on steroids," said Chris Sexton, marketing manager for
Fafard Inc., a major soil manufacturer in Anderson, S.C.

He said that an eight-quart bag of Fafard's premium potting mix would have
retailed for less than three dollars a couple of years ago, but now is likely
to cost four dollars.

"Our input costs are just going up so much," Sexton said. "The peat moss
comes from Canada. It doesn't come here magically. It has to come by truck or
on the train."

Baron Faust, general manager of Johnson's, said he may pay a fuel surcharge
of $100 or $150 for a truckload of bagged soil delivered from a distant
supplier. "You eat that as long as you can," he said. Inevitably, the extra
cost will get passed to the consumer, he said.
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The purveyors of the more elaborate "growing media," it should be noted,
never call it dirt or soil or anything so crass.

"We usually call it artificial growth substrate. It doesn't contain any
mineral soil in general now," said Kathryn Louis, a technical specialist with
Sun Gro Horticulture in Bellevue, Wash.





  • [Livingontheland] dirt isn't dirt-cheap anymore., Tradingpost, 08/17/2008

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