Kitchen Garden Forum

Welcome! Are you going to edit your profile to pin your location down within 30 minutes from Egremont?
There was this discussion viewtopic.php?f=15&t=9360&hilit=singleton but I think there has been another mention but I can't find it (some compost discussions have got a bit heated in the past so it might have been amongst one that got deleted).

There is a standard for green waste compost but i think it is mostly about temperatures achieved in the process rather than particle size etc. The poorer ones have not been screened for big woody lumps. When in Lincoln the local green waste compost was better than the big name peat frees. If you have a local producer it may be worth checking them out.

When I was growing commercially I used to use West Riding Composts - they're made with peat that is filtered from water entering reservoirs in the Pennines. As the peat isn't mined it s the only peat compost acceptable under organic rules. The compost is much better than a lot of green waste compost as the peat isnt in big lumps, and it is aimed at commercial growers so it is generally good quality. Sadly being in Dorset it's a bit hard to get hold of, but hopefully I'll sort out a buying group by next season and get a pallet load!

Sorry, I don't do profiles, but I live in North Yorkshire, and the half hour travel is not to the source of the compost, but to my favourite nurserymen, RVRogers in Pickering, who sell it. I understand that they use it themselves. I don't mind the travel because there is always a feast of plants at the other end, and there is a farm which grows asparagus on the way!

One thing which perhaps few of us have asked, and that is to ask our local nurserymen/garden centres what type of compost they use themselves for their own plant growing. Their answers might be interesting. They grow on such a scale that they can't afford to get it wrong so might give us a clue as to which variety to use.

Our local council's parks and gardens departmentl sells bags of the compost which is used in the plant nursery, at a very reasonable price too. I have never tried it, but maybe I should! Not this year though as I have bought my compost.
The council has for gthe last two years taken large containers of their 'compost' to a large car park, where people can go and have bags filled with it - free. I got some, but couldn't use it because it was really lumpy and horrid.