InstaSoil™ Nutrient-Rich Potting Soil for Indoor/Outdoor Plants – Compressed Coco Coir– Just Add Water - Expands to 15 Gallons in 5 Minutes - Perfect for Herbs, Vegetables & Microgreens (10lb Block)

Love how it expands!

I am a huge fan of using coco coir as a base for potting mixes. It is very similar to peat moss, but coco coir is sustainable, and I like doing everything that I can to be environmentally conscious. This compressed brick rehydrates and makes 2 gallons of potting soil. I add perlite and some coco husk as well and the Insta-Soil really makes for a light, airy potting mix. I have repotted some of my Hoyas in this mix and they all seem pretty happy with it.

I put this brick in a wide plastic basin and added a gallon of room temperature water. In less than 20 minutes, I was easily able to crumble it by hand, and it had the perfect texture and degree of moisture for planting. If you are going to mix it with other ingredients, you may wish to rehydrate it with more water.FYI this does not expand to 2 cubic feet, which is about 15 gallons! I haven't measured it, but it's a couple of gallons at most. Seems to be of good quality. The only qualm I have is using it to start seeds. This has added nutrients, which may be great for plants once they are already growing strongly, but seedlings can easily have their roots burned by nutrients. That's actually one of the reasons people have traditionally used peat and now coco coir to start seeds--they are sterile and with no nutrients. The package insert for this lists it as containing 98.8% coco coir pith, .7% nitrogen, .3% potassium, and .2% phosphorous. I'd advise using this to repot plants, but maybe not for starting seeds.

Following the instructions this brick quickly expanded to fill several pots. All of the plants transplanted into these pots are thriving, so the soil must be working!This brick is easy to store until needed, and the plants love it. Would recommend!

I have several houseplants that always seem to be growing and/or having babies, do lots of repotting. I got this to add into the general houseplant dirt I already had on hand, am liking the blend of the two a lot, plants seem to, too! It seems to help hold water well which is great because I don't' always remember to water. ;)

This was an interesting product to try. I live in an apartment and have been trying to keep my plant hobby as mess free as possible. Bags of dirt just attract bugs and make a mess in my apartment. This is a compact brick of dirt, and it just stayed on my plant shelf until I was ready to use it. Directions are easy to follow. I did this in my sink, I just filled it with the right amount of water and added the brick. I broke it up and mixed it with my hands until it was all rehydrated. My plants seem to like it so far and Im glad its organic. I would use this again, great for those who don't want a big bag of dirt laying around.

This will be great to add to my tower garden's soil for drainage! I love coco coir for its water-retention and the ability to store it until it's used in a small brick, and then have it expand to twice the volume or more when it comes time to use it. This size is perfect if you're looking to add some soilless medium to a big pot, without adding significant amounts of potting soil. The fact that this brick is enriched with NPK is an awesome bonus.

This is a block of coco coir that has some added nutrients mixed in. I've used them quite often in hydroponics and they're quite useful since it fluffs up and has just the right pH and holds moisture well for plants.Unfortunately, there's no NPK so there's no way of knowing how much or what amount of nutrients (or any) are actually in there. It may still make sense to add some slow release fertilizer in there.I mixed some perlite into this and have been using it as a seed starter mix with my seed sprouting setup. It does pretty well and functions as I expect from coco coir.