The shop, explained
Coco Soil
70% coco coir · 30% perlite
Coco Soil is a peat-free growing medium: 70% coco coir and 30% perlite, pre-buffered with calcium and magnesium, with Ecothrive Charge. One five-litre bag fills one Homestead Hub planter tier to its lip. £6.99 a bag; four bags £19.99 on the same page — a price rule, not a second product.
The bag
Live on the shop as Coco Soil. Packed by The Homestead Hub. The copy on the bag is the blend, the fill, and the name. One bag, one tier. The four-bag price is a page rule on that URL, not a second SKU.
Copy may say growing medium. Do not read “soil” here as peat-based garden soil or as a mineral topsoil. It is coco and perlite.
Why coco
Coco coir is the dust and short fibre of the coconut husk. It is a by-product of the coconut industry, not a crop grown for compost. It holds water, re-wets after drying, and keeps a more stable structure than a peat that collapses as it decomposes. Perlite is the aeration: 30% of this bag, so the 70% coir does not sit waterlogged in a 5L planter.
The Homestead Hub did not invent coco. It chose a peat-free 70:30 and a named charge (Ecothrive) so a kit planter can be filled from one bag without a second trip into a peat bog.
Versus peat
Peatlands store carbon. Draining them for extraction releases it. The Royal Horticultural Society's peat-free advice is the ordinary UK horticultural position: peat-free compost is widely available and more sustainable than peat-based compost; going peat-free conserves bog habitat and cuts that carbon release. Coir is one of the common peat-free ingredients, with wood fibre and others. Coir does not hold nutrients as well as some mixes; that is why this bag is pre-buffered and charged, and why a separate Growth Formula exists on the shop.
THH has not published a house laboratory comparison of this bag against a named peat compost. The claim on this page is the blend, the fill, the peat-free fact, and the public horticultural case against peat extraction — not a THH yield trial.
Versus other media
Rockwool is inert, high porosity, and not a soil story. Peat–vermiculite mixes were the old greenhouse default. Garden soil in a 5L planter slumps and muddies. A 2017 tomato-substrate paper in Frontiers in Plant Science found coconut coir increased fruit yield against rockwool and against peat–vermiculite in that trial; it is one paper, on tomato, not a certificate for basil on a sill. It is here so a reader who wants a study has one, not so the shop can pretend the paper was ours.
How to fill a planter
- Open one 5L bag per Homestead Hub planter tier.
- Fill to the lip. Do not pack it like earth.
- Water until it runs. Coco re-wets; do not be frightened by the first dry litre.
- Sow per the crop treatise. Micros on the surface. Herbs about 1 cm. Roots about 2 cm.
Films and papers
There is no THH laboratory film of coco versus peat on this URL. Point to the public record instead:
- RHS, peat-free compost choices — the UK conservation and practice page.
- Xiong et al., 2017, coconut coir versus rockwool and peat–vermiculite in tomato — one peer-reviewed comparison.
- The live product page, for the bag as sold.
When THH publishes its own stills or motion of a fill, they belong here. Until then this section is a source list, not a fake video shelf.
Questions
Is Coco Soil peat-free?
Yes. 70% coco coir and 30% perlite. No peat in the blend.
How many bags for a Three by Four?
One bag fills one planter tier to the lip. A four-tier stack is four bags. Four bags are £19.99 on the Coco Soil page.
Is this the same as garden soil?
No. It is a peat-free coco–perlite medium sized for a Homestead Hub planter.