@RonBWL
:O
@Mojo
i can tell you have never had a planted fishtank before.
In soil, there needs to be nitrifying bacteria.
In scientific / farming terms, its called the nitrogen cycle.
Its not just any bacteria, its a specific type of bacteria used to convert NO2->NO3
The Gnome obviously meant this, the author probably didnt want to go into a large science debate about it, but without these bacteria, the soil is basically useless.
Here is how complicated and important these bacteria are...
This is also why they needed a pre existing soil with bacteria.
But how he put the soil with bacteria in a bag which should of filtered out the living bacteria is a x-files loop hole.