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 absolutely LOVE this stuff!! I will never use soil ever again after using Coco Coir products. It never compacts like soil, offers excellent drainage and is perfect for both outdoor gardening and indoor hydroponics. I used a large 35 gallon tub to mix it up in. Add about 4 gallons of water on top of this big dry brick and it expands a lot! It almost fills up the entire tub. This fiber is very soft and you don't really need perlite to amend into it, but I use it anyways, along with coffee grounds, a little bit of peat (just to make it more acidic as the PH in this Coco fiber is neutral), compost, bone meal, azomite and then stir well. I always have a giant tub of soilless "soil" whenever I need it. This year, I'm using this Coco Fiber to grow potatoes in. I took a large plastic laundry tub, drilled holes in the bottom, then poured a very small layer of gravel on the bottom. I added about 6 inches worth of Coco peat, planted potatoes, then added about 5 inches of dried grass clipping on the top. It has been a week and there are now sprouts coming from my potato seed eyes (I dug one up just to see). This stuff is also great for hydroponics as well. Using 1 gallon grow bags with holes on the bottom, you can fill the grow bags up with Coco peat, plant bare root strawberries, then set the bags in a small kiddy pool filled with a few inches of water. This serves as a self-watering solution if you decide to grow either indoors with hydroponic solution or outdoors with rain/tap water. This stuff is really not that pricey considering the amount that is produced after expanding. I will never use potting soil ever again -- this stuff is environmentally safe, green and universal.

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 have only put a little bit of this particular brand of coconut coir into my one worm bin, so I really cannot comment on that aspect of things too thoroughly. But I will say that my cats have transitioned marvelously from their clumping, wheat-based cat litter to this coconut coir. I use very little of it in each pan and change out the entire thing (no scooping) almost every day. It takes just a few moments to dump the pan over onto newsprint--or a paper bag cut appropriately along the creases--and then fold it up into a little 'package' for disposal. The coconut coir really does not track unless it is super wet (ew!), there is no dust, and with this MagJo Naturals brick it is extremely cost-effective! Regarding hydrating the large brick: I just put it into a Rubbermaid tote and add rainwater until things start feeling a little bit soggy. Then the brick breaks up easily as it absorbs more of the water. The following day it is just the right consistency.

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.

Great big condensed brick for the price. Worked great for my animals. Don't even try to break this stuff into pieces. Just soak the whole thing. I spend so much energy trying to break this apart and it is not worth it. For some reason it smells like tea tree oil????

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 use this for my campervan "composting" (dissicating) toilet. Works great. I usually buy coir in smaller blocks, so it was a bit of a hassle to cut off enough for one trip. It rehydrated, fluffed and dried out well for storage and use on the road. Quality product. Might pay a bit more for smaller blocks in the future, though that won't be for a while - this block is massive for my use! Otherwise, happy :-)

You need a very big container to soak this in as the size doesn't fit into a normal bucket while it is still in a square shape. I didn't have a container large enough and it was very annoying to have to keep sawing off bits of it until it all fit into the container I had. That being said, once you get it into the container it is a beautiful product. It absorbs water perfectly and has lasted for months as mulch in my organic vegetable raised beds. It seems to be a very clean product. I didn't notice any weeds springing up from it and it definitely helped keep weeds to a minimum. It's a great product.