Is Aldi Gardenline Garden Soil Any Good?

I’ve been shopping at Aldi for most of my adult life, and it’s been a favorite store of mine long before I began writing about it. The majority of products Aldi stocks are good to excellent, although I won’t hesitate to admit when I don’t like an Aldi product. Some Aldi products are duds from the moment they first hit store shelves, while others undergo tweaks or reformulations for the worse over time.

Today, I want to talk about an Aldi product that no longer seems to be as good as I remember it being. That’s the Gardenline Garden Soil.

The outdoor growing season is long over where I live in the Midwest, and I’ve had some time to reflect on how well my garden did — or did not — grow this past summer. As any committed gardener will tell you, I’m also already thinking about plans for next year’s gardening season.

I’ve gardened in some form or another for much of my life, and for years I’ve used various Aldi gardening products. For years I’ve been a proponent of using Aldi garden soil. It’s cheaper than anything I’ve found at garden centers in my area and it seemed to work as well.

Not everyone likes Aldi garden soil. I’ve seen plenty of complaints about it being full of wood chips and much. I still thought it worked okay for me, though.

Then, this past summer, I finally had to admit that maybe I need to spring exclusively for Miracle-Gro or another name brand after all. It’s my second summer growing veggies and flowers in a new large raised bed that I filled primarily with Aldi gardening soil, along with some homemade compost. The problem is that my raised bed has not thrived like I hoped or expected it to.

Tiny anemic plants — rose moss and vinca — in my raised garden bed with Gardenline Garden Soil.

The same types of plants in a container filled with potting mix.

It was telling when I planted seedlings this spring from the same nursery packs in multiple locations. I planted some in containers filled with potting mix (which is different from garden soil) that is a couple of years old, and I don’t remember if the potting mix came from Aldi or another retailer, but it’s possible some of the potting mix is from Aldi. I also planted some of the same seedlings in my large raised bed with Aldi garden soil purchased in 2022 and 2023.

One large, healthy plant in a container without Gardenline Garden Soil.

Hands down, the seedlings planted in the containers grew many times larger than the seedlings I planted in my large raised bed. I watered everything the same, and the only factor that’s different is that I used bags of Gardenline Garden Soil in my raised bed.

Tomatoes, rose moss, and vinca all thriving mid-summer in containers without Aldi garden soil.

The differences were pronounced whether it was rose moss and vinca flowers or cherry tomato plants. I had three tomato plants that grew large and produced lots of fruit in containers, but a fourth identical tomato plant in the raised bed with Aldi garden soil languished until I moved it to a container.

A tomato plant that didn’t grow well in Gardenline Garden Soil in my raised bed. I eventually moved it mid-summer to this container with potting mix where it immediately took off.

So it looks like I’ll be amending the soil in my raised garden bed before next year’s growing season. I’ll add plenty of new homemade compost along with some garden soil from a local hardware store, and I’ll probably add some bagged compost from the hardware store as well. Hopefully with enough amendments I can have a better gardening season next year.

I’ll probably still continue to buy Aldi potting mix because I haven’t seen my plants fail to thrive with that mixture. However, I’m not sure I’ll buy Aldi garden soil in the near future.