I admit I never even considered buying a big bag of anything online, because of shipping costs.
>> $6 for 8 quarts.
So $6 for 2 gallons, (0.27 cubic feet) is $22/cubic foot. The bark I buy runs around $3 - $3.50 for two cubic feet, say $1.75 per cubic foot.
So I must be 12.6 times cheaper than a reasonable person, even before shipping and handling.
This is approximately what I would want from Amazon, except this is Medium instead of Coarse, and around 8 times what I wish it cost (2 cubic feet for $44):
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01C3B7XJ4/
But the cool thing is that they seem to say "free shipping"! Admittedly it doesn't weigh much, but the volume would be huge.
I guess I don't HAVE TO be
as cheap about seed-starting mix as I am about raised bed soil amendments and bulk potting soil. I don't need many cubic feet of mix to START seeds.
But I like to be as "frugal" as possible, and I know that home insulating companies sell a VERY coarse vermiculite cheaply enough to insulate walls with it. But no vermiculite is mined near me, and so far any 2 or 4 cubic foot bags of vermiculite I've seen in stores were fine or medium, and I want coarse.
Hydroponics stores might have it, but I haven't even priced it there, assuming it would be so expensive that things grown in it would cost $300 per ounce. I
should check, because it COULD be pretty cheap.
I should buy some to experiment with, decide that I "need" it, and then look for rationalizations. Like "It's only twice as expensive per cubic foot as a compressed bale of Pro-Mix, and I accept that I need some of THAT, even at that price". (Of course, after the bale of Pro-Mix-like stuff is fluffed up, it becomes 3-4 times cheaper than vermiculite.)
It also bothers me that vermiculite is so fragile. When I dump pots or seed trays out into a raised be, I wish it would amend the soil for a few years, instead of crumbling to dust very quickly.
I should tell myself that I CAN buy expensive stuff if I'm only buying a gallon or two (instead of trying to budget for a cubic yard). But I wouldn't listen. Too cheap.
