BEST SUPPLIER OF COMPOST 2018

It doesn't hold the water anywhere near as well as previously.

 

I've never yet found a peat free compost that comes anywhere to being good to grow anything in. I'm using B&Q's General Purpose compost and, so far, it's been pretty good. Having said that I don't just use "straight" compost but mix it with sand and grit, which seems to work fine for me.

 

I'll treat them gently I promise!

Do you think they may like some coffee with a bit of Naga chilli in it?

 

Why don't you complain - or at least, ask for your money back. Keep last year's as a check against the current quality.

 

UPDATE:-

I had a good meeting with Antony and Mark from Westland, who make the Wickes compost. Mark flew over from N. Ireland and Antony came down from Birmingham. They examined the compost that I had bought and explained the situation with regards to the problems of trying to comply with the government's drive to move away from peat based products.

First, the technical bit:-

"The Wickes MPC formulation consists of a specialist blend of peat combined with our patented West+ wood fibre technology along with added base fertilizer and trace elements to provide balanced nutrition plus dolomitic lime which is added to optimise pH balance as well as providing a source of Calcium and Magnesium to enhance nutrient uptake. This formulation like most Multi-purpose composts on the market today is a peat reduced product as the industry moves towards achieving peat replacement targets that were established in 2011, with the incorporation of West+ wood fibre as the peat alternative component. The West+ material is produced sustainably from renewable virgin wood sources and provides a lot of beneficial characteristics to peat particularly with increased air filled porosity. The West+ technology is unique within our industry and produces a very consistent material to very tight tolerances which is in contrast to a lot of the peat alternative materials that are used today which are derived from inconsistent waste streams that pose risks of biological, physical and chemical contamination including residual herbicide content that could ultimately effect performance.

As we discussed during our visit if any members of your forum have any questions or enquiries in relation to the product we would advise them to contact us directly and we will address these queries directly on an individual basis. We would also like to keep in regular contact with you and your forum and we can offer additional advice and support as required."

Antony, their National Account Manager, can be contacted on 07919 122967 or emailed at [email protected]

Mark,
Tel: 028 87727500 Mobile: 07825550335 [email protected]

They have been reading this thread with interest.

Now for my read on the situation:-
They were very pleasant and understanding and Mark, Head of Technical Growing Media & Fertilizers, explained how the compost was made and how a lot of people (on their feedback pages) were saying they were getting good results from it.

He also agreed that the batch I had was not as it should be and appeared to have a higher fibre content than it should have and I accept that it may have been a one-off production error batch. How large a batch that may be is anyone's guess! When they were taking away all the bags that I had left they also remarked on the noticelable lack of weight of the bags which also supported their contention that there was a too high fibre content. They had brought a load of bags of to replace them - Jack's Magic, that is another of their products. These were definitely heavier than the Wickes version.

They,now, do have their own technical problem with sorting this out - apart from trying to work out how the batch was produced incorrectly. I pointed out to them that the bags didn't have a QA code on them (the box that it should have been printed in was blank). So I have no idea how they're going to trace where the batch has been distributed to or what to tell Wickes to look for. It would be easier for them if that was the only batch that was produced incorrectly and the only one without a QA code - but 'Murphy's Law' would probably mess up that easier checking method completely.

They very kindly brought a £50 National Garden gift card that we can use in the raffle at our charity Open Garden.

My simple advice for any of you that have got part of the bad batch is to phone the Wickes store you bought it from, or email their customer services department, and ask for you money back as it doesn't seem 'fit for purpose'. They are usually very good with customer complaints. I'd be inclined to point out that it's a nuisance to have to travel and take back the old batch (@silu I don't know how far you have to travel to the store but I expect it's quite some distance) and, if they want you to do so (they're entitled to ask) you should ask for some sort of compensation for the hassle.

The solution, that seems eminently acceptable to me, would be for them to say that you should keep the duff bags, cut off the same small section of each bag to show them how many you have got, explain if you have already thrown any used bags away and get your money back. You could point out that, where you have already used some for potting up, you are now having to water the pots more frequently than should be the case.

I don't think that any good store manager would quibble with that solution. Mark said that if you have any of the bad batch it should still be nutritious for the plants but as it's lacking in body it could be mixed with a higher peat content compost and should work well.

I shall be copying this to Wickes' Customer Relations so they are aware of the situation. If you need to contact them, although the local store should be able to deal with the problem, their email is [email protected]

I'm pretty sure that this was not a deliberate change to a lesser quality compost as no large company would want the hassle that this sort of thing brings.

Good luck everyone.