Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi Colin,
I really to not like the look of the John Innes Compost as Number 2 is meant for potting on and not seeding.
You should really put all seeding compost through a fine riddle and what you have there is certainly too coarse for seeding.
John Innes Composts explained - the various mixes.
http://www.gardeningdata.co.uk/soil/joh ... _innes.php
JB.

Ok JB, that's a good point. Since I always use Jiffy's for starting seedlings I probably don't have the right material for a fair comparison. Maybe this invalidates our experiment?

In the meantime, here's a tomato started in a Jiffy and moved into a pot:

Obviously from this point onwards, the rootlets are using the compost plus all the nutrients etc in it. However the Jiffy's seem a viable way of getting the seeds off to a good start. The other advantage they give me is getting several seedlings started in a small area. For example I can have 10-12 chilli seeds in Jiffy's on a plate in the airing cupboard to get them off to a warm start, without crowding out the clothes that always seem to be in there .