What is the best compost to buy for 2012?

[grundig]

Hi first post, so apologies if it's too long.....

Anyway I've just bought a 120ltr bag of Verve Multi Purpose Compost and was unaware, until I'd got it home and opened it, that it only contains 58% peat

Anyway as the new bag smells and feels really good, plus the fact that it feels ethically correct to use less peat, I've decided to use it to prick out all my Tomatoes and Chilli Peppers ; I'll let you know how I get on.

I still have more seeds to sow indoors, so am looking to get a small bag of compost with a higher peat content and run some form of comparison test between it and the Verve I have left; again I'll let you know how I get on.

Interestingly last month I bought a bag of B&Q's Verve Peat Free Compost, and trialled it against last year's B&Q Peat compost by sowing this year's tomatoes in a heated propagator. Both sets of tomatoes germinated, slightly more in the peat based compost, but the peat free plants grew quicker!

I also sowed some cress seeds and the results, after two weeks, can be seen below; peat free on the right. For me the peat free dries out too quickly on the surface (which may account for the slow growth of the cress) and also makes it difficult to judge when to water new seedlings.

In a nutshell, I have 110ltrs of the Verve 58% Peat Multi Purpose compost left, plus about 35ltrs of Peat Free, so I'm committed to a reduction in peat one way or another ; fingers crossed it works.......

[oldherbaceous]

Afternoon Grundig, and a very warm welcome to the forum.

Good luck with the trials, and will be looking forward to the results.

[Westi]

Totally agree about the peat free drying out quickly. I topped up my herb pots with some peat free this year and everytime I go out on the patio they appear dry. My conscience makes me water them even though they don't actually need it as the old compost underneath is fine.

Can't wait until the foliage grows a bit so I can't see it.

Westi

[Chris]

Hi Grundig

What an excellent first post! Informative, thoughtful and - most importantly - with evidence. That's what we need.

Chris

[alan refail]

Hi Grundig

A warm welcome to the forum. After my peat/peat-free trials last year* I am pleased to see someone else sharing their experiences. Do keep posting your comments and pictures.

Alan

* My first My second My third Colin's trial

[grundig]

Hi all,

Many thanks for the warm welcome.

In the end, like Chris, I purchased a bag of Jack's Magic (90% Peat) on Saturday for seed sowing and have used it to sow Peppers, Aubergines and Half Hardy Annuals over the weekend; all now sat in a heated propagator.

I've also set up a windowsill trial between Jack's Magic and the B&Q Multi Purpose (58% peat) and Peat Free Composts, sowing cress seed on the surface of each pot and watering from the base. It's a good job the family like egg and cress sandwiches

In the meantime the Tomatoes and Chilli Peppers I pricked out into the 58% B&Q compost all appear to be doing really well; at this stage I decided not to risk any in the Peat Free as it appears too heavy and cold for such little seedlings.

[Tony Hague]

I used some New Horizons yesterday. I've been using it for years, and when it first came out it was a great improvement on the competition. The NH had a more leafmold like texture, rather than being full of wood chip.

Things seem to have changed; it is now as poor as the rest. It appears to be made with a high proportion of shredded kitchen furniture - including melamine finished chipboard, occasional bits of plastic and - in the case of the bag I used yesterday - the odd shard of mirror glass. There is so much poorly composted wood in there that it is surely going to deplete the nitrogen as it finishes decomposing.

Don't get me wrong, I am not championing peat based products, I don't use any and don't want to go back there. I have some homemade compost, and I think I will have to find a way to increase production for future years. I already make my own seed compost (from steam sterilised leafmold, grit sand, pearlite & vermiculite), which has served rather well so far.

[alan refail]

Hi Tony

From the days of the Which? tests up to the latest issue of Kitchen Garden New Horizon seems to attract praise. With this in mind I decided to test it against my usual peat compost last summer. My first experience of New Horizon was almost the same as your disappointment with your latest purchase - a claggy consistency, a sickly smell, lots of uncomposted wood and various colored bits of plastic, but, mercifully, not the glass shard. After that experience I am not going to use it again. Vital Earth I found far superior, though still rather woody.

[Johnboy]

It was reported on the Farming Today programme (BBC Radio 4) yesterday morning 12.4.12 that Plant Raisers, the largest commercial propagating company in the UK, is to take an unnamed company who produced and supplied them with a peat-free growing medium to court over the loss of 300,000 plants due to contaminated compost. The compost is said to have contained municipal compost contaminated with lawn weed killer. Plant Raisers have reverted to using Peat to raise their plant for the foreseeable future. The amount of plants they raise each year runs into the hundreds of millions including many vegetable plants and bedding plants.
What emerged was that it only takes 1 part per billion of lawn weed killer to cause absolute havoc with the raising of seedlings!
For some time now I have been saying that there is something occurring at the second stage of growth when using peat free products.
Seeds, given the right moist conditions, are inwardly programmed to germinate but with the many reports we have had on this forum it is at the second stage when they send out the primary root that they seem to be having great difficulties. Could it be that many of the peat-free composts are being contaminated by the use of municipal composts.
It will be very interesting to read/hear what actually comes out in court when it all kicks off.
I am not really satisfied with the progress of the task force for peat free and think that in an endeavour to appear "green" the government is going to waste an awful lot of money that the country can ill afford.
Dr Knight, head of the task force, maintains that the growers and compost producers must work together but I wonder how many court cases will follow the one mentioned. The whole peat ban is a total farce at present and I have very severe doubts that Dr Knight is the right person to head up the task force.
JB.

[Colin Miles]

Hi Johnboy. Very interesting. Just thinking about all the 'stuff' that goes into municipal compost makes me instinctively shun it. Admirable though the intentions may be, without proper controls you are never going to be sure of what it contains. If the non-peat producers are to retain any sort of credibility then they need to control their sources and properly label their products so we know what they contain and where it all came from.

After my experiments last year I have, like Plant Raisers, reverted to peat for the foreseeable future.

[Johnboy]

Hi Colin,
I first tried Municipal Compost around 20 years ago and for my deliberations in trying to use Peat-free compost on the first day of using it I managed to get a shard of glass that entered between my finger and nail and lodged in the first finger join below. Two operations and and twelve weeks off work (self employed) and on the first day back at work I slung the B----dy stuff out and will not have anything to do with it.
The task force do not seem to grasp what gardeners and the trade want above all things is reliability and dependency on a regular supply of the same compost and every bag the same because at present even bags from the same pallet vary widely and this means a Kite Mark and a British Standard and without this I cannot see the ban proceeding.
Pandering to people who have got as far as this by presenting what amounts to a pack of lies. These people are even naive enough to think that the rest of the world will follow England's example.
And Colin remember you now live in Wales and all this hullabaloo only affects England.
JB.

[grundig]

Thought I'd report back on my cress seed trial with Jack's Magic, B&Q 'Verve' Multi-Purpose (58% Peat) and B&Q Peat Free composts.

DSC_0017.JPG (54.63 KiB) Viewed 6605 times

As you can see the B&Q 58% Multi Purpose (on the left) has so far out performed the other two; Jack's in the middle and B&Q Peat Free on the right.

What is also interesting is that in the Jack's magic pot there is evidence of Damping Off where as in the others there is no sign The Peat free just doesn't stay moist enough on the surface to germinate the cress seed.

There is also evidence of damping off in the Peppers, Aubergines and Half Hardy Annuals I'd sown a couple of weeks using Jack's Magic, which is really disappointing. I didn't use the other two composts for this, so I'm preparing to resow these in the B&Q Verve 58% Multi Purpose and will report back soon.

Has anybody else experienced Damping Off with some composts while others remain free of this or is it just me?

PS Here's a picture of a Gardeners Delight seedling pricked out into B&Q 58% Compost 3 weeks ago, which along with my other Toms and Chillis appear to be doing really well.

DSC_0025.JPG (44.95 KiB) Viewed 6605 times

[grundig]

Hi

Progress so far is that B&Q's Verve 58% Multi-purpose Compost is performing extremely well with all seedlings looking very healthy.

In my opinion the Verve Peat Free has to be mixed with a Peat based compost to open it up, at which point it begins to perform well. I had some geraniums from Jersey Plants that are currently looking very good in this mix.

The jury's out on Jacks Magic for seedlings as I think the addition of loam in the mix means that it isn't open enough for the seedlings to put down good root growth. I'll report back on progress of some seedlings I have later.

On a slightly separate note yesterday evening I planted out my greenhouse tomatoes in Growbags from Lidl; tried them last year alongside B&Qs and was very surprised at how well they cropped so decided to take the plunge and use them for this years crop; they are reasonably priced too at £1.29 each. Here's a couple of pictures, one of a very full greenhouse (ran out of time last night to put the tomatoes in their final place), the other of the growbag in question.

[farmer jon]

the problem with peat-free composts is that the government has panicked . instead of finding a suitable alternative to peat that is equally as good in all forms i.e. germination,growth & water retention by trialing over a number of years to iron out any faults or problems. they have hit the panic button by agreeing to reduce the quotas of peat without having a viable alternative immediately to hand as a ready made replacement. having tried many of the peat free composts I can honestly say that none are a worthy replacement. as for reduced peat then they are filled out with chip bark etc & this causes problems with watering. the best compost i have encountered is that sold by wickes which still has a high peat content. as a grower I am deeply worried as to what the future holds & hope the professional growers can lobby the government to delay the phase-out of peat until a more reliable alternative can be found.

[Johnboy]

Well said Farmer Jon!
JB,