A good moan about multi-purpose compost.

[George Gray]

Yes I have felt the multipurpose compost has deteriorated a lot over the last few years. I wonder whether it's because they are using compost from the many recycling centres some of which may not process it properly. Our allotment sells Humax Compost which to date has been excellent.

[Monika]

To me the annoying thing is that, even if one sticks to one particular brand, the quality can vary tremendously from bag to bag, presumably because the raw materials are not always of equal quality. I recently bought some (Westlands?) which seemed to contain a lot of small strawy bits, quite annoying when used with small seeds.

[donedigging]

Hi all,
I've had a real problem this year with my usual brand because the last couple of bags being sold locally, absorbing of up to 25% more water, hence seeds just rotting.
So frustrating
Now I'm really behind

[Cider Boys]

It seems to me that all gardeners are complaining that the multi-purpose compost you buy now is of an inferior quality. I have used (for many years) Michael King's compost as it is local to me, contains Sedge Peat and has proved a fair compost for the price. However the last few bags I bought a couple of years ago I needed to sieve a little but all in all were of a good quality. All compost producers need to improve their quality. I wonder if this lack of quality stems from the introduction of peat free compost when any old black stuff was shoved into the sacks and producers no longer took the trouble to grade and mix for a good general compost. This year I've used the last of my Michael King's compost and mixed my own from well rotted cow and bullock manure (containing little straw) and sedge peat from the local moors. Other than the germination of weed seeds my own mix seems to be quite effective.

[PLUMPUDDING]

Humax is my favourite but a bit expensive and not always sold locally but I have been using Durstans with John Innes this year as it has enough nutrients in it to keep things going in pots without having to keep repotting etc. while it is time to plant stuff out. It is also good in tubs and the tomato plants look happy in it.
There seemed to be a lot of plastic rubbish in the B & Q multipurpose the last time I used it.

[Ricard with an H]

To me the annoying thing is that, even if one sticks to one particular brand, the quality can vary tremendously from bag to bag.

I have stuck with the Bowers stuff because after mastering the sieving procedure I was happy with the texture and moisture balance within pots, then I got a bag with stones in. Another bag had bits of shredded knitting wool and of-course bits of biro.

This years seedling harvest has been just about 100% so I shouldn't complain. I mixed my own potting compost as a trail, just as well I sowed spring onion into it because those seedling are distinctive. The amount of seed-bank seedlings that erupted from this lovely mixture was nothing short of amazing.

I'm doing a lot of sieving at the moment, sieving soil with my new Rotasieve and sieving compost. Sieving soil seems to help the germination of wild seed/seed bank seeds. Or is that just my imagination?

[ken]

I'm very late in joining this topic, but agree with most of the postings about the poor quality of a lot of bought composts. I'd prefer to be peat-free, but I need a compost that works. For sowing seed for later transplanting I buy John Innes No. 3 (which includes some peat) and mix it 50:50 with coir. This works very well for me. But I also need composts for raised beds over a gravel base and for big pots. Last year I had a lot of trouble with bought compost - water seemed to simply run straight through. This year I've forked some coir into the top few inches that seems to be making a big difference. I know coir can dry out, but if you keep an eye on things you can see when that is happening. For the last three years I have also grown potatoes in bags. Last year the results were disappointing, partly because of the quality of the bought compost; this year I've used the compost from New Horizon growbags and the plants appear to be doing extremely well. This might be the last year I do potatoes in bags, though, because there is no way it is economic.

[George Gray]

Well as a follow up I recently bought three bags of Levingtons Multipurpose with added John Innes from a garden centre and it is full of twigs and stones of various sizes. I even found a bent nail!! They used to be the gold standard for bags of compost but I am not buying that brand again
I suspect it is poor quality control of added recycled green waste. There are guidelines from a government funded body (http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap ... Docs_8.pdf) but I suspect as with all guidelines when they are often ignored when profit rather than quality becomes paramount.
Does anyone know decent (unbiased) review of brands of potting compost anywhere?

[Ricard with an H]

I'm now on my third purchase of Bowers, that'll be nine bags. Buy two, get one free. Despite my original moan and despite having to sieve it this is the best I have used yet. Yesterday I found a chunk of glass in it and stones.

I have done a home made mix but to be perfectly honest I'm not prepared to risk my efforts being overwhelmed by seed bank seedlings.

This is partly a hobby for me, it's much more a hobby than any thoughts of sustaining myself and the £30 I spent on bagged compost is part of the cost of producing healthy plants survive their early days. Looking at the cost of plants and plugs that are increasingly being pushed to us the £30 plus a few packets of seed have now given me masses of flower planting and lots of different vegetable plants.

Sowing direct means loosing a lot of seedlings to all sorts of problems particularly if they are slow growers. Maybe after a few years some ground gets less weedy, certainly my raised beds are responding to my constant attack though half of all the spring onion I sowed has been engulfed by seed bank seedlings.

More and more this year I'm using burning as a method of controlling seed bank weeds from even starting and burning them off rather than pulling them. I use a thin piece of timber pushed up close to a row of seedlings then burn up to the timber. Other methods of burning are evolving but certainly it's the only way to deal with a mass of tiny weeds that erupt from nicely riddled soil.

[KG Steve]

I've been using B&Q's 125l bales of reduced peat multipurpose compost from their Verve range George. That has given good results and after 4 bales I can say has also been of consistantly good quality (and comparitively cheap). Before that I used New Horizon peat free and that was also good, if expensive. However I can't get that locally any more for some reason.
I know that like Alan, Joe Maiden uses Clover multi-purpose compost and that is wonderful - like Levington used to be. However as far as I know it's only available in commercial quantities - maybe if you are part of an allotment site or a member of a gardening club you could order a pellet between you at the start of the season? Is that right Alan?
In the meantime I'll look into the practicalities of a trial on composts in the magazine as we haven't done one for some time.

[Ricard with an H]

In the meantime I'll look into the practicalities of a trial on composts in the magazine as we haven't done one for some time.

That would be good, however, I often wondered if some of us don't really know how to use the product we buy.

I, for an example, didn't get on with NH peat free though in hindsight it was my over-watering that didn't help. When I used clay pots the NH peat-free was fine.

With this Bowers Multi-purpose with John Innes I bought I started off by moaning about the lumps and chunks then found by sieving I could choose where the lumps went. All the lumps went into the bottom of larger pots and so now I'm very happy with the product.

And what would life be like without a growing medium, a decent growing medium that is sensibly used saves us all a lot of time and money in the long run.

I'm learning.

[KG Steve]

Yes I do the same - sieve the compost to cover seeds etc and put the lumps in the bottom of the next tray or pot where it just acts as drainage.

I took a while to get the hang of NH too (easy to over water), but it was good after that. Just a shame having got used to it that I can't get it!

I can't find a supplier of composted green waste in reasonable bulk to improve my garden soil either. Don't need tonnes, just a couple of bulk bags-worth each year. Anyone have any ideas? I live in Lincolnshire...Could use manure I guess.

[oldherbaceous]

Afternoon Captain Carrot, Clover multi purpose is sold at a local Farm Shop near me, at 4 bags for £12. So a good compost, at a good price.
I do still mix it with John Innes of the correct number, depending on what i am potting up or sowing.

Nice to see you on the forum and hope you are keeping well.

[oldherbaceous]

I think my first port of call would be to ring the council......

[Ricard with an H]

I can't find a supplier of composted green waste in reasonable bulk to improve my garden soil either.

I bough half a pallet load last year from the builders merchant, it was NH and bagged as soil-improver/compost. I used to sort the sticky soil out in one of my large raised beds, I now wish I had done it in the others.

The same builders merchant are doing it again this year, they're a national company so you should get it. Now what the hell is their name, I hate this short term memory loss.

Here are the clues, green and yellow livery, national company, double barrelled name. It'll come to me when I'm back in the garden but I'll leave you to guess. Oh-yes, and the own Wickes. I got it, Travis Perkins.

The bizarre thing is Wickes have proper grit sand, or sharp as we used to call it in England but this bunch don't.