Best Supplier Of Compost 2023

From our local pet shop /
Comtains peat
£5.90 per 50l bag

 

I think that's Irish, I bought some last year.

 

Any good?

 

Please Jenny....is that the pet shop up by Jempsons?

 

To be totally honest I thought it was a bit fine and became cloggy when wet, but I usually mix in some JI anyway.

 

Yes it is

 

We planted some Aubretia plugs in both peat reduced and peat free compost in to 9cm pots last year. They have since been potted on in to 2L pots, the tray to the left are peat free, which is 50/50 coir and composted bark, with the tray to the right peat reduced, 70/30 peat and composted bark. As you will see. the aubretia in peat free are slightly smaller.



The image below is of the peat free and how they have rooted.



The peat free is not as fibrous resulting in a more dense and heavier product. I am actually in communications with my supplier of coir to see if they can pass it through a larger diameter screen, the last load looks like it probably went through a 6mm screen, which is to fine.

 

How did the root growth in peat free compare to the reduced peat please @gks? Have you tried both of these for growing from seed?

 

The root growth in the reduced peat is very similar. They were all small plug plants, when they were potted in to 9cm pots we used fertiliser based on our multi-purpose. The growth in peat free was noticeably slower, since then they have been potted in to 2L pots but with compost using osmocote, which seems to have encouraged growth in the peat free mix as they have certainly shown better growth.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

I bought some jacks magic and it appears to be nice and fine, very little in the way of twiggy bits etc.

 

It seems the government are only concerned about peat content and not at all about the carbon footprint from importing coir from India and Sri Lanka.
I don't want to buy Verve (B&Q) New Horizon or Miracle gro but there are no other GCs near me.
B&Q have stopped selling 125L bales of compost and now only sell 50L bags but at nearly the same price!!

 

The days of having 125L bales of compost will soon be a thing of the past, I would say 50L will be the maximum in the future. With peat being phased out, the alternatives are considerably more dense and heavier than peat.

An example, Pro-grow which composts green waste state on their website that a 12 ton load of soil conditioner is approximately 21 cubic metres. That means the density of the green waste when composted is 571 kg per cubic metre, that would make a 125L bale would weigh 71 kg. In contrast peat in general has a density of between 220 kg & 340 kg per cubic metre. So going peat free with composted green waste means you need more Heavy goods vehicles to move the same volume of compost, both in and out for distribution, more cost and more emissions.

In the summer months last year I was getting 110 cubic metres of peat delivered to a load, but with composted green waste I probably would get about 45 cubic metres to the load, anymore and the truck would be overloaded weight wise. In the future, my freight costs are going to double, more so as I will be using more coir, all these extra costs unfortunately have to be passed on.
So in a nut shell, going peat free is going to cost you more to purchase plus more in emissions due to the extra processing and freight,fossil fuels,that's what happens when you have idiots running the country.

 

I've never thought going peat free had anything to do with emissions or carbon or any such other nonsense, I thought it was about protecting peat bogs for nature.

OK you can argue the case that us gardeners are not a real threat to those habitats, but I think going down the usual obsession of climate change is just a non starter.

It seems everything has to revolve around carbon emissions, the world is tying its self in knots, there will always be an impact involved in whatever we do.