Best Supplier Of Compost 2021

Would that be frozen or unfrozen Armandii? It took the two of us to lift them and not easy with frozen fingers too. You may ask where our gloves were.....in the car of course.

 

It did make them difficult to move as there's nothing to get hold of, unfrozen it's possible to get hold of the sealed flaps.

Six bales. There was certainly a good supply at the store here with two areas taken up by them which is unusual. So hopefully it's new stock recently in, ready for the coming seasonal onslaught.

That should make life easier. Look out plants it's coming your way!

 

I have 3 bags of Westland compost, bought last week from local garden centre. Really bad quality - lots and lots of fibres, many hard lumps. About 1/4 of it is going through a sieve. Will keep to put in bottom of large pots later on. Has anyone used Verve this year please?

 

I'm assuming that it suggests a two person lift on the bag.
I was under the impression that 25kg was the maximum one person should be expected to lift.
Even cement comes in half size bags these days.

Why do they make the bales so big.

 

It's also fairly easy with 50 or 60 litre bags to check the capacity of your car luggage area, then measure the volume of a stack of bags in the garden centre and calculate how many you can fit in your car.

But 120 litre bales don't bend and are inefficient to pack in using every single bit of space to make the most of the time and fuel used for the trip, so I always add some smaller bags as Mrs Scungee can always have one on her lap and another by her feet.

And a surprising number of people have trouble heaving them around (I couldn't get anybody to help lift our 75Kg? old washer/dryer into the back of car last year as it was too much for them, so I, a pensioner, did it by myself).

 

After years of trying various MPCs , Verve, Wickes etc etc. I have settled on Jacks Magic in 60 litre bags ( no more 125 litre bags for me!) It performs very well for my needs, a higher price than some other brands but for the quantity I use it's not a problem.
Just thinking now I have said this, it will be withdrawn and replaced with an "improved 2021" version, which will be like mattress stuffing

 

I'm still a bit confused as to what people base the idea of what is a good compost and what is a bad one.
I get the impression it's mostly based on texture.

I know most are called multi purpose and should be fine enough for seed sowing but if you are looking for fine compost why not just buy a few bags of seed compost.

When I'm potting on I think a slightly lumpy texture helps with drainage etc.

 

When I left school in 1982 and went into the family business, I don't think there was actually a multipurpose compost on the market. In fact, back in those days, it used to be baled peat, plus purchase a pack of either Chempak seed & cutting or potting fertiliser and you made your own compost.

This pandemic has created many new gardeners into their gardens for the first time, which created a phenomenal demand for compost. So instead of screening soil in the dry summer months or peat harvesting when the demand for compost has tailed off, we were all still flat out bagging to keep up with the demand.

I personally do not want to see peat being phased out, there is not enough substitutes out there, well not enough quality substitutes.

I can hear people saying there is and we should stop using plastic bags, all good and well, but how can you bag an organic product and put it into a paper bag, how long will it take before the bag starts decomposing, you do not see a builders merchant with bags of cement outside.

Do a google earth search of any of the major compost manufacturers and you will see images of acres and acres of pallets of compost ready for the season, you can't do that if they are packed in paper bags. You would need huge warehouses to store them, which then you will be rated.

And if people are really serious about protecting the peat bogs and wetlands, are you doing anything to stop this. They don't want us using peat in compost, yet they will erect industrial windfarms on the bogs.

As a manufacturer, I am not going down the green waste route, what some people put in the green bins is disgraceful and you wouldn't want to be growing edible crops in some of it.

And while you complain about quality, look at it this way. Asda is selling 3 x 50l bags of multipurpose compost for a tenner, how many pints of beer do you get in a pub for a tenner?
The large retail sector gives us peanuts to make compost, that's why the bags get down sized.

I doubt the quality of compost will improve even though the government has delayed the phasing out of peat to the retail sector, we are all scrambling to find alternatives after the largest producer pulled the plug.

Rant over.

I was not allowed to post, I had put links to a peat slide due to the constructing of a windfarm in November that ended polluting a river in Donegal. Plus links to the announcement of Bord na Mona ending all peat harvesting immediately and the amount of job loses and redundancies it will cause across the sector.

 

I've filled my raised beds with the Wicks MPC. Its not bad but again, I am not growing seeds in it. This is to bulk out my raised beds which have layers of cardboard, well rotted horse manure, MPC and topsoil.

It does have a high peat content for those of you that are peat free.

 

Just thought I'd try some of this, not cheap but time will tell if it was worth it.
3 x 60ltr for £17.

 

Just an update, a small test, not sure what it proves but I think it has come out worth doing.
First slide please.
This is tomato plants grown in peat free compost.

Next slide please.
This it tomato plants grown in Jack's Magic, but I should add, it had overwintered in a bucket in the greenhouse and was not fresh.


Last slide please.
This is tomato plants grown in Coolings compost, a local companies product sold under their name.


You can draw your own conclusions, but to me the Coolings has produced sturdier plants.
No plants were fed or hurt in the making of this production.