What Happened To Our Compost?

I've been using Asda's compost all year and its been really good (3 bags for £10), great results, can't complain at all. Its been a slightly fibrous mix but soft and with no hard pieces of wood etc. But I went in the other day and they had none left an said they won't be getting anymore until next year!!!! I must say I was a little shocked as its been flying out over the last few weeks, our store sold 4 large pallets full in just 4 days last week!!

Anyway because of this I had to go to a garden centre to get some and ended up paying the same for less , thing is they had an open bag in front of every brand of compost they had and on inspecting them they were all identical (even the more expensive brands!!), all very woody, dry and not at all attractive and in all honesty not as good as Asda's own brand. Have the days of the lovely fine, soft, compost gone forever?, the only compost that was still of that texture was the seed and cutting compost.

I'm going back to Wickes tomorrow to check theirs again, it'll be the first time for 2 years, since they changed their formula from what was arguably the best general purpose compost on the market. I'm expecting the fibrous woody bits but if its better than the stuff at the garden centre then it'll do...

 

Its not the company's fault, it was the rain last year, the peat was too waterlogged.

There was a massive short fall on what could be cut and dried, they had to import peat from Canada.

 

I would think so, the peat alternative manufacturers were rubbing their hands together.

All sorts of stuff must be going in to the peat based stuff now, they just can't meet demand.

 

This is an official response from criticism of Wickes compost on their website from earlier this year;

"Response from Wickes:By Wickes Garden Team, 24 April 2013
I would like to thank you for choosing our Wickes Multi-Purpose Compost and am sorry to hear of your concerns regarding the changes in formulation.

A government ban on peat is likely in the near future, and this affects all compost manufacturers who are moving towards sustainable peat use by reducing the amount of peat in their products.

We have proactively produced an alternative formulation and after thorough testing, we are confident in its performance. A light, fibrous formulation improves aeration, drainage and water distribution throughout the compost. This means that plants and the vast majority of seeds will grow and germinate perfectly well in this versatile compost.

Our Multi-Purpose Compost also contains 4-5 weeks feed to give plants the best start. For finer seeds, we would always recommend a specific seeding and cutting compost, which is specially formulated super fine grade compost to give closer contact with the seed.

We understand that there has been a visual change in the new formulation, but we are confident that you will also see an improvement in its performance."

 

This year i've tried lot's of different brands....all of which i wasn't thrilled with....i resorted to using the compost from grow bags not very economical i know plus i've used alot more JI than i have before...

 

Thanks John, we don't have a local B&Q unfortunately, but I have heard that its good compost

 

I used B and Q verve for most of this year , and was quite happy with it . Towards the end of planting time I needed one more bag so went to the nursery near to my work . He imports MPC direct from Eire, I'll put the name on later , and it is super stuff! Cheaper than B n Q.
The Irish MPC is called Clover , if it is yellow and sticky thats a pack of butter...go for the brown stuff

 

I think that may have been because Asda reduced the 20L bags to 30p and 70L bags to £1 last week and some stores didn't change the pricing so it wasn't obvious that it was reduced, but people in the know were getting price checks and filling their cars up. I posted about it here http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/...scounts-offers-good-old-freebies.39667/page-5 in post 98 and again after I cleared my local Asda out of their remaining stock in post #99.

I've stockpiled that Asda stuff together with B&Q Verve bought on discount weekends and still have some from Homebase bought when reduced and on multi-save, just in case it's rubbish everywhere next year. All I'll have to do is buy fresh good quality seed compost.

 

I've found B&Q's Verve compost to be great this year. No woody bits.
On a much more expensive level Miracle grows is excellent with the feed and water retaining pellets already mixed in. It really has grown plants bigger and healthier and it does retain moisture better.
Others I've tried, Homebase and Aldi's have been okay but not as good.

 

That might explain it Scrungee , although I bought 3 bags for £10 just before our store sold out, so I must have just missed it...!!

Went to Wickes this morning to buy 4 bags for £15 and although in no way is it as good as their original mix from 3 years ago its considerably better than when they first changed the mix 2 years ago, I was quite pleased to be fair. There is still woody bits in it but its not hard and not as much as there was.

It is darker than in the photo and is generally light and fluffy and when I mixed in some perlite and vermiculite it wasn't bad at all

 

We used Violet Farm and grow wise mpc at work for years and I still use them now, never had any problems, never tried Wickes as there wasn't one around.