Kitchen Garden Forum

Interesting comment on compost below from our local family run plant nursery:

We're big believers in not skimping on compost quality as it makes all the difference to the performance and maintenance of potted plants and baskets. Compost is naturally water repellent so it is vital that the right ingredients are added to enable efficient watering and uptake of nutrients.

The true test is when the compost dries out -With so many poorer quality composts, when they are watered the water just sits on the surface and takes an age to soak in and often most of it just runs off.

The only composts we recommend for potting up your tubs and baskets are:

Foremost Professional Peat reduced 60 litre - £7.99
Humax Peat Free 50 litre - £9.99
Dalefoot Peat Free - £8.99

they ran an interesting video showing the water absorption rate of various composts but unfortunately I cant reproduce it here,

There is a lot of truth in what they are saying, Primrose…..there are other very good composts too though!

I always feel a little sad when I see newly constructed raised beds, filled to the top, with the cheapest compost they could buy….you know it going to produce very little for them….

Two girls took over an overgrown 10 rod plot on our site and with help from their friends cleared the plot last Autumn and covered it in cardboard and then black plastic.Come Spring the plastic was removed,the cardboard left down and then covered. This was covered to a depth of 1"-2" of soil conditioner(composted shredded wood).And, quite frankly, I don't get it.

snooky wrote:Two girls took over an overgrown 10 rod plot on our site and with help from their friends cleared the plot last Autumn and covered it in cardboard and then black plastic.Come Spring the plastic was removed,the cardboard left down and then covered. This was covered to a depth of 1"-2" of soil conditioner(composted shredded wood).And, quite frankly, I don't get it.

Lady doing no dig spending a fortune on soil base JI2 which she's spreading on top of cardboard, which is sat on the undug soil.
It's already dry as dust, while the soil under the cardboard is nice and moist.

As long as they are working the plot, I'm delighted. Each to their own.

Think it is better to use different types of compost, I have used home made/Horse muck/mushroom/cheap & end of season offers.

Yes compost does dry out but mainly on top.

You do have to be careful what you buy. I bought something I'd never heard of, Bathgate Horticulture Seed & Cutting Compost. Sowed three trays of twelve modules each of three brassicas and got three plants. Re-sowed from the same packets into my own mix and got thirty one out of thirty six. Can't be wasting seed like that when some were the expensive F1 Savoy Cordesa.
Most commercial composts can be sorted out with a bit of sharp sand.