Best Supplier Of Compost 2021

I have used Erin Excel multi purpose this year. It is what the new nursery local to me were selling so thought I would try it. I have been really pleased with it. Good texture and not a lot of debris in when sieved.

Rusty

 

Peat free was Westland.

 

At the end of summer last year as a quick trial I put a few seeds of rocket in one pot of peat based and one of the the Westland peat free.
The pf one grew slower initially but eventually it grew bigger and greener.

 

Do you know who the manufacturer is that makes the Coolings own label? Own label was always a good sign that the compost was good, it's their preferred choice when growing.

 

I can't see anything on the bag other than the adress of the main Coolings garden centre in Sevenoaks.

 

It must be a decent size set up to have your own label. It was very popular 30 years ago for GC to have their own label, we used to do it for numerous independent GC. The packaging companies are huge now and they have a minimum order, which can be into the tens of thousands, where as in the past you could get them to run off a couple of thousand of printed bags.

Only customer who we still supply in your neck of the woods is, Roger Platts garden design, which we supply an organic soil conditioner.

 

Is the peat free testing due to the imminent demise of peat rich compost in the near future?

 

Peat based compost was to be phased out to the retail sector by the end of 2015, trials proved there was not enough quality alternatives and it was to be delayed to 2020. We are now in 2021 and the ban has not been imposed, it was all good and well when they released the white document to the manufacturers in 2011 with the time scale, what the government did not tell us was they were going to start subsidising energy companies to burn bio mass and pass legislation to burn cattle litter. Bark fines and wood chip was one alternative manufacturers had been using anyways since the early 1990's so we already had some expertise, but when you start burning bio mass in large volumes then the volumes of bark to the horticultural sector is not there anymore.

In April 2011 when the government released the time scale for phasing out peat, the environmentalists were not happy with the timescale and said more needed to be done. They actually wanted a levy of 4p per litre to be introduced. So basically a 100 litre bale of peat based compost would have went up £4.80 when you add the vat.

 

I'm not sure how many branches this particular GC has, but they took over a smallish nursery not far from me called The Potted Garden, they were always a good place for plants, even sold more unusual hardy and some borderline shrubs and trees, but not in massive quantities.

They still have carried on much the same but Coolings have made it a bit more commercial, and expensive , as they do.

 

Centres Archive - Coolings Garden Centre

I notice they state that most of the bedding plants are from local growers.
I presume that is why they have those massive double trailer artics in there from Netherlands.

 

You mean Seagull.

 

When my dad started making compost to grow plants in 1969 it was not long before someone asked him to make compost for them and that's when it all started. He purchased himself a 500 litre ribbon mixer and he still uses it to this day.