Kitchen Garden Forum

Mushroom flies ? A common occurance, especially if the compost was made with spent mushroom compost as an ingredient.

Has anybody used Humax potting compost this year? As far as I know, "Which?" have never included it in their trials (however irrelevant they are) and I wonder whether the firm is fairly local and north of England based. Their composts (both peat-based and peat-free) have been very good in the past but I did not buy any this year. Might try them again next year.

As a post script to my previous posting, I have just found the Humax website:
www.humax.co.uk

They are based at Gretna on the Cumbrian/Scottish border.

Tony Hague wrote:Mushroom flies ? A common occurance, especially if the compost was made with spent mushroom compost as an ingredient.

I don't think it uses spent mushroom compost but the flies are a pest!

Hi Glallotments,
They are probably Sciarid Flies and I suspect that is maybe what Tony means and they are a bit of a nuisance and the maggots from eggs laid in compost can cause damage to plant roots but they are not that serious a pest.
JB.

I've been following this thread with interest, as I have too noticed the decline in quality of composts. I have tried so many now I can't remember which is the worst. I used to use J. Arthur Bower's Peat free compost with no problems for over 10 years, but the last few years, I have noticed a delcine in quality, and hence the search for something better. The only time I've used homemade (sieved) It grew so many weed seedlings it was very difficult to keep the post clean of unwated seedlings. It was a lovley texture though, and great at not drying out too fast.

ive been using the large bags of b&q multipurpose for seed raising for a number of years.. it does the job and is reasonably priced...

An up-date on the carrots sown in the Netto's trashy multi purpose compost.
They didn't amount to much at all. Those which managed to germinate and grow were very poor specimens. Some were badly forked, others didn't grow beyond the "thinnings" stage and the amount of weed seedlings which appeared was staggering.
I have never had such a poor result from carrots in buckets/tubs.
Cheers.

I have decided to revive this thread after all this time as, with hindsight, I think I might have been unfair in blaming Homebase compost for my disastrous sprouts - though I stand by what I said originally about its general quality!

It has taken me three years of problems with brussels sprout seedlings to twig that the problem started when I replaced my PVC-covered planthouse with a (small) greenhouse. I am now fairly sure that the problem is due to the heat in this greenhouse which, because it is very small, can shoot up in minutes if the sun unexpectedly comes out. This year, I have kept my sprouts outside it, and guess what - they are doing great!!!

Sorry Homebase.

honestly, the best stuff I use, is the big bin of broken bags all mixed together from the garden centre. (I don't use this for seeds, just potting on) it usually contains a good mix of fluffy stuff, top soil and whatever else passes for compost these days. You have to shovel it into bags yourself, but for 1.99 a bag and some extra core exercise from the shovelling, I shan't complain!

Try 2 garden loam, 1 sedge peat & 1 course sand.
Seemed to work for John Innes.

Barney

I doubt we'll get better standards of compost while it 's difficult to lug the heavy bags back to the stores from which they were purchased but if enough people returned and emptied their unsatisfactory compost bags on their doorsteps perhaps the buyers would take a little more notice I wouldn't,risk getting free compost from Council facilities. It probably has all kinds of green horticultural junk in it, including lawn clippings covered in weed killer and diseased plants etc. I!m not convinced that the process which it undergoes leaves it in a very sterile state despite its alleged heat treatment.

Agree Primrose!

I know what I put in my council waste & I certainly wouldn't trust the temp to be high enough to kill them & don't want them back near my land.

Westi

The Mouse. I have the same problem. Many years ago I bought a 6'x4' greenhouse. It gets too hot during the day, but does not have enough volume to retain the heat at night.

Before registering on this forum I thought I'd seen a post about compost from Keith Singleton, Cumbria, but can't seem to find it now.
However, after trying a multitude of all sorts of composts, all of which for some reason or another were quite unsuitable, I now use Keith Singleton's compost exclusively, even though I have to go half an hour by car to get it. It is the only compost to give consistent results and be truly Multipurpose.
I usually take perennial allotment weeds (couchgrass, dock, marestail) in council garden refuse sacks to the tip (aka Resource Recycling Centre) and throw them into their green waste bins. There is everything in there, from manky onions to great branches of Leylandii, and all this gets made into compost. I cannot see how compost companies who might avail themselves of this produict can hope to get any sort of consistency in their final miix, and if the compost process is inefficient, what sort of pronblems are they spreading? I am sticking with what works for me!