MP Compost Thoughts & Faults

[Pa Snip]

The volume of commercially produced composts being sold must be highly profitable at this time of year and yet few retailers make any attempt to display contents to show you what the compost inside is like.
Not only might it help newcomers it would also assist the most experienced person when thinking of trying a new or different product.


Yesterday we purchased B & Q Verve brand MP Compost. 3 x 50Lt bags £10.
Fortunately it is being used solely to top up our 2ft and 3ft high raised beds and will be well dug well in with the existing soil.
I would describe it as having a high peat content, very high
If it was being used in isolation in pots or seed trays I think it may need to be watched closely for drying out.

I used to favour Levingtons but have not tried it for a while, having found a few years back that the contents had been changed to a twiggy composition.

Mrs S currently favours Jacks Magic .

Your current compost thoughts or faults ?

[Colin2016]

I use what ever is on offer usually 5 bags for £10/£12.

[tigerburnie]

I have to say the quality of MPC has plummeted over the past couple of years, mouldy and full of bits of wood is how I would describe some of the stuff on offer these days. The free "soil improver" at our local council tip is better quality, made from the composted green waste from the bins.

[vivienz]

We use New Horizon peat free multi-purpose compost when we can get it on offer (currently a good price at Wickes). It has a lot of coir in it - you can almost smell the coconuts! It's good stuff, though, and we've used it for a number of years. This year, I also bought some of Aldi's peat free compost as it was £1.99 bag and worth a go at that price. This was a very different mix to the New Horizon, much darker, almost black, and very dense. It had a slight whiff about it when I opened the bags - very slightly sulphurous, very slightly creosote/tar. The plants seem to be doing okay in it, I used it in our window box troughs and hanging baskets.

My troughs of strawberry plants and courgettes got the compost out of the bottom of the hotbox composter and they are doing very well, indeed!

[Pa Snip]

B & Q 'Verve' MP compost used to top up raised beds,it has yet to be lightly dug in.

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As usual, as soon as any area receives a layer of any form of compost or is dug over the local foxes investigate.
It will not be long before they start leaaving their calling card.

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[Geoff]

Every couple of years I stock up on fertilisers from Grow-Well Direct and at the same time buy some potting compost. I have to build up to a large order to get free delivery of a pallet load or it is not economical. I buy two Clover products; Professional Seed & Modular and Multipurpose. Both are an excellent fine texture, are peat based and perform very well. I don't try and keep multipurpose for a second season but I am still using last year's seed compost (hence my multi-layer method of sowing that saves this precious commodity) and it is performing well. This year I have bought Erin Multipurpose from a garden centre. This is a 100% sphagnum peat based material, it has nothing like the texture or the performance of the Clover product. I have club root issues so I grow brassicas on in 3½" pots of compost without any of my soil in the mix and the first batch I potted up seemed to grow very slowly, could be the season of course. For the second batch I put the compost through my Rotosieve and removed some of the coarse fibre whilst adding some lime, FBB and sharp sand and they are growing away quickly, again could be the better weather. Most other things I pot in my home made compost of soil, leafmould, sharp sand and fertiliser and I think it out performs anything I buy.

[Colin2016]

Went on a compost workshop run by local council & will be getting a free bin soon.

Can see it will be a big challenge to make enough compost for my needs but hey I will give it my best. Already been dabbling on the plot & collecting wood ash from my neighbours plus any cardboard that is put, I always ask first. All my grass cuttings will not be going garden waste bin this year.

[Shallot Man]

I drop by a stable , they bag it up and put outside on their drive. All they ask is that you return the bags.

[jeff64]

I am no authority on compost but i have been using morrisons it,s rich and dark and hardly any twigs or lumps in it and at £9 for 3x70ltr bags it,s plenty good enough for my needs

[Monika]

My "go-to" compost has been Arthur Bowers for some time but this year's offering does not seem to be the same. I now use Levingtons Multipurpose with added John Innes which appears better. I have used Erin Multipurpose in the past and found that very good, but can longer buy it locally.
I suppose all these producers of seed/potting composts rely entirely on the quality of their source ingredients and that must vary from year to year.

[peter]

Our association does Humax peat based, now £6 and the best compost in town.

[tigerburnie]

I'm using Hortons MPC at the moment, seems very acceptable for potting on and for topping up the raised beds.

[vivienz]

Has anyone tried bulk deliveries of compost made from green waste? I'm going to be getting some no-dig beds set up in the next month or so and will need a humungous amount of compost to fill them. I've found a couple of organisations not too far away that are the recycling facilities for council green waste (one does for Bournemouth and other councils, the other does various others in the south west). I haven't had a quote from them yet, but I wondered if anyone had actually used any of this green waste compost and had any opinions on it.

[Gerry]

I'm pretty sure that I use the same as Geoff, but his Clover is called Shamrock over here. Excellent product.

[tigerburnie]

Has anyone tried bulk deliveries of compost made from green waste? I'm going to be getting some no-dig beds set up in the next month or so and will need a humungous amount of compost to fill them. I've found a couple of organisations not too far away that are the recycling facilities for council green waste (one does for Bournemouth and other councils, the other does various others in the south west). I haven't had a quote from them yet, but I wondered if anyone had actually used any of this green waste compost and had any opinions on it.

Up here you have to go and collect it, they call it soil improver and to be honest it was pretty good for putting in my raised beds, cannot be used on it's own though.