Kitchen Garden Forum

tigerburnie wrote:

vivienz wrote: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.

We had some a few years ago for our allotments. 1st load was OK. A year later the load we had was full of very small branches that hadn't been recycled properly. Never had any more.

When I went to collect my last lot, the guy was all excited, "there's some new stuff over there, why do you take the older stuff at the back?" I explained that's the whole point of composting, it was full of worms too.

tigerburnie wrote:When I went to collect my last lot, the guy was all excited, "there's some new stuff over there, why do you take the older stuff at the back?" I explained that's the whole point of composting, it was full of worms too.

And did you manage not to chuckle in front of him? I daresay he thought he was doing the right thing, but it's still quite funny.

I've not personally tried but remember reading about our local one being one of the best as the pile is so high the heat generated gets rid of the weed seed. (It may have been their web site though)! It will have some bits & bobs left in but is not for potting but for dressing or digging in & I would say it would be perfect for no dig beds. If you sow direct then you could just sift some onto the top.

I see this "with added John Innes" a lot is it important..does it mean anything or just marketing?

John Innes developed a method of creating potting composts, numbers 1, 2 and 3, with a mix of loam (soil) sand and peat. However the magic was the white powder containing a blend of specific fertilisers.
One could buy ready mixed bags of compost, or buy the John Innes mix and add your own loam, sand and peat, measured in bushels and add the ounce measured powder, sprinkling it on the pile, then turning it repeatedly with a shovel to get a homogeneous compost.

So John Innes can be the compost, or the additive.

Any peat-based composts "with added John Innes" has a little more 'body' because of the loam from the John Innes formulated addition. That's what I like about it.

It's always a bag of Clover compost, mixed with half a bag of John Innes, with what ever number, 1,2 or 3, depending what i'm using it for.

Is there nobody else thinks we should not be using peat ,the peat beds have been decimated ,we are not short of other things to use

Thanks for info on John Innes.

Regards peat beds read that it is still being used for power stations.

robo wrote:Is there nobody else thinks we should not be using peat ,the peat beds have been decimated ,we are not short of other things to use

Yes. My compromise is I only use peat containing seed compost, of which I need very little, but it is the best medium. For the rest, it is New Horizons or my own blend of garden compost, vermiculite and hoof&horn.

The New Horizons has a lot of woody not really fully composted material in it, which keeps it more open, but I suspect depletes nitrogen as it continues to compost. My homemade is quite heavy and needs the vermiculite or some sort of grit added to open it up / improve drainage, but works OK for greenhouse tomatoes etc, and is cheap.

I rang the green waste people's depot today (not sure if it's okay to mention the company itself) to get a quote on a large delivery of compost to the proposed KG and I was surprised at what good value it is. As it's a good few miles away, the delivery costs about the same as the compost, but I shall still be ordering some as soon as I have a clearer idea of when the beds will be in situ.
If anyone is interested in the figures, the compost is coming from the green waste processing place and depot in Taunton and mine will be delivered to north Dorset. Delivery will be about £55. The compost comes in at £22 + VAT per tonne and I will buy 2 tonnes, so that's just under £53. For comparison, one hippo/dumpy bag contains about 0.5 tonne, so it's equivialent to 4 of those. I think that's pretty good value for what I'm after; I shall report back on it once I've actually bought some.

Very impressed with Clover compost I got yesteday, not a lump in sight and very easy to pot up with. Let hope the plants enjoy it.

I usually use Miracle grow, but it did have some hard pieces in it. I've bought two big bales of Verve multipurpose this year and am pleased with the texture and water retention properties.

Our green waste is now being processed into a MP compost by, or on behalf of,Veolia for sale at our local waste disposal facility and at £5.99 per 50lt bag I consider it too expensive for something we have provided the constituents of.

Have already purchased three different types of MPC from garden centres. Some to top up the raised beds and some to use for seed tray sowing.
So far this year for general topping up raised beds and general ground areas we are liking Levingtons 'Essentials' 3 x 50lt bag for £10 at present locally
For seed sowing and pot planting purposes, including filing our own hanging baskets we are sticking with Jacks Magic and sometimes adding Perlite or JI No 2 subject to what we are sowing