27/10/2026
🌱 Which bag do you actually need? Your spring potting mix & compost guide 🌱
Standing in the garden area wondering why there are 15 different bags of dirt? Fair enough. Here's the quick version from the team at Mitre 10 Pahiatua 👇
1️⃣ Tui All Purpose Potting Mix – The safe bet. Pots, containers, hanging baskets, indoor or out. 6-month slow release fertiliser and SaturAid built in. If you only buy one bag, it's this one.
2️⃣ Tui Pot Power – All Purpose's big brother. Richer mix, longer-lasting feed, better moisture holding. For the pots you really don't want to stuff up.
3️⃣ Yates Thrive Premium Potting Mix – The other premium option. Big 50L bag, 6 months of feed, wetting agent, and a lighter texture some gardeners prefer for seedlings and hanging baskets. Worth comparing side by side with Pot Power.
4️⃣ Tui Vegetable Mix – Made for raised beds and vege gardens. Lighter, free-draining, with a fertiliser blend geared to leafy greens and root crops.
5️⃣ Tui Tomato Mix – Higher potassium for heavy fruiting. Great for toms, capsicums, chillies and cucumbers in pots or planter bags.
6️⃣ Tui Citrus & Fruit Mix – Free-draining with the slow-release food citrus is hungry for. Lemons, limes, feijoas, berries in tubs.
7️⃣ Tui Strawberry Mix – Slightly acidic, fertiliser tuned for fruit. Perfect for strawberry pots and troughs.
8️⃣ Indoor mixes – Tui Indoor Plant Mix / Yates Thrive Indoor – Fine, well-draining, no nasty smells inside. Starter fert to avoid transplant shock. Got cacti or succulents? Grab the Yates Thrive Cacti & Succulent Mix – gritty and fast-draining so they don't rot.
9️⃣ Tui Compost – Not a potting mix! This is a soil conditioner. Dig it into your beds to add organic matter and bring tired ground back to life.
🔟 Tui Garden Mix – Compost plus added fertiliser and bark fines. Use it to top up or fill new raised beds before planting. Cheaper per litre than potting mix for big volumes.
1️⃣1️⃣ Tui Mulch & Feed – Goes on top, not in. Bark mulch with blood & bone and sheep pellets mixed through. Holds moisture, keeps weeds down, feeds slowly. Lay it 5cm deep and keep it off the stems.
The golden rules:
✔️ Pots & containers → potting mix
✔️ Garden beds → compost or garden mix dug in
✔️ Finishing touch → mulch on top
✔️ Fruiting plants → grab the specialist mix, they really do perform better
