Inflation gets right down to the real nitty-gritty — soil prices:
Dirt and its upmarket cousins offer a glimpse of how rising energy prices have caused inflation in the grittier corners of the consumer culture. Products that are cheap, heavy and bulky, such as bags of soil, are particularly vulnerable to rising freight costs.Moreover, thanks to technology, globalization and changes in consumer preference, a bag of potting mix is now a highly manufactured, meticulously designed product, often containing ingredients from all over the continent and from across the planet.
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What does it have? Depends on the recipe, but any kind of topsoil or potting mix is likely to be crammed with composted organic material. Topsoils can be made from composted shellfish shells, for example. Potting mixes often contain sphagnum peat moss from bogs in Canada or Ireland. Bark fines might come from a sawmill in the Deep South. Coconut “coir,” a peat moss substitute, gets shipped all the way from Asia.A common ingredient in potting mixes is perlite, which makes the soils airier while also retaining moisture. In its final form, small white pellets, it appears to be something synthesized in a factory. In fact, it comes from a volcanic sand mined on the Greek island of Milos. Shipped to the United States, the ore is heated to 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point it pops into kernels.