We're sorry to read about your disappointment with Miracle-Gro Garden Soil All-Purpose and appreciate your feedback. Our Research Scientists have investigated numerous concerns of this nature. The smell is from an overgrowth naturally occurring harmless bacteria that occur when the soil stays too wet in the bag. Using the soil as directed will result in the odor dissipating. We want you to be confident in our products. For this reason, we offer a product guarantee to our consumers. At your earliest convenience, please reach out to us at 888-295-6902 if we can further assist.

We're sorry to read about your disappointment with Miracle-Gro Garden Soil and appreciate your feedback. While small pieces of bark and twigs are intentional components of our growing media including potting soil, garden soil, lawn soil, and topsoil, you should not find large pieces of wood or bark. Most of our soils especially potting mixes and garden soils are made of composted forest products and contain very little if any actual soil. Odor is caused by decomposing natural material and is non-toxic. Once material is opened and spread, odor will dissipate on its own in 24 - 28 hours. We want you to be confident in our products. For this reason, we offer a product guarantee to our consumers. At your earliest convenience, please reach out to us at 877-220-3089 if we can further assist.

We are very sorry for the issues you encountered with Miracle-Gro All Purpose Garden Soil. The product must be mixed in with native soil. We do not recommend using it straight out of the bag. This is not what we expect from this product, and we would be interested in discussing this further so that we can learn more about this issue and extend our product guarantee. At your earliest convenience, please contact us to see what can be done. You may visit our contact page by clicking on the following link: http://tinyurl.com/noc5mcg