Best Supplier Of Compost 2023

The toadstools are good, I had a small tree in a pot for years and one year the pot was filled with toadstools, the tree grew much better that year.

I think its the same effect as when you get fairy ring in lawns, it makes the grass grow stronger as the fungus releases nutrients.

There might even be some connection with the fungal granules you can get to put around roots to give plants a better root system.

 

It is difficult to find out what's in them. I've noticed reading on the web that some of these peat free composts contain wool which I'm allergic too. For that reason all the ingredients should be on the packaging for everyone to check if in a similar situation.

Thanks for the information gks. I needn't worry about what's in the Happy compost now or the other two you mentioned.

 

Hi again

It was this one, but it's not been available at all this year as far as I know. Also I might have just got lucky with the batch I ordered as some of the reviews absolutely slate it!

Amazon.co.uk

Yeah, I thought the prices were higher during lockdown because we were stuck for getting it elsewhere, but they don't seem to have come down much since.

 

As far as I am aware, the only compost being made where they use wool is by "Dalefoot Composts"

Products | Dalefoot Composts

I was under the impression that most peat free composts stated on the packaging what materials they were using. The Miracle Gro peat free you have used states they use coir and wood fibre, however, seeing your plants in the miracle gro peat free I would say there is a high percentage of bark in the mix. Plus if it was only coir and wood fibre plus slow release fertiliser, then it would be more expensive, something does not seem right.

This is what the wood fibre looks like.




At present the wood fibre is already mixed in to peat at a ratio of 70% peat 30% wood fibre and arrives in roughly 100 cubic metre loads to me. We have been getting great results and have even added 20% composted bark, still with great results.

I wanted to use wood fibre in my peat free compost but have not been able to find a supplier who would sell me coir and wood fibre mixed or wood fibre on it's own, until last week.

I have now got a supplier for the wood fibre as the picture above is a sample of the raw product. I will add about 30% for my peat free "General Potting" compost and about 10% in my "Seed & Cutting" compost as this will have a higher percentage of coir which has been super washed and buffered to remove the salts. For one ton of this coir it costs me £620 and I have to buy a full container at the time.

I was told this weekend that apparently Tesco are doing 2 x 40L bags of peat free compost for £9 for club card members, they did not tell me what brand it was though. When you deduct the VAT, that makes it £3.75 a bag, I can not even make a good peat free compost for that price. So that suggests to me, what they say on the packaging might not exactly be what is inside the bag.

 

@gks , that wood fibre look pretty much what it is.
Is it not composted/rotted before adding to a potting mix?

 

No, that's how it comes raw and how it is blended into the peat, this is what they call Bio3.
I have plenty of commercial growers using the 70/30 ratio, that is peat based and I have been getting great feed back. Also I purchase plants from them in my compost and I am more than happy.

 

I was always told that adding uncomposted wood to the soil robs it of nitrogen, as it then starts to rot down, using nitrogen in the process.
I tried it once or twice as I was always able to get large amounts of wood shavings, but it was never a good idea.

 

That was always my understanding, but wood is rich in lignin which results in uncomposted wood and wood chips being slow in decomposing. Plus we have access to a wider range of fertilisers with different NPK rates to offset any deficiency in the compost.

 

Just makes me wonder if this is why I'm finding the compost has hardly any feed in it.
Surely once the compost is made the wood fibres start to rot down so by the time we buy it the nitrogen might have all been used up.

 

Is our consensus that it lacks nutrient or that it fails through water retention/rewetting ability. Would we have success if using it in a 'semi-hydroponic manner' ;perhaps by a partial immersion/drainage routine or drip feed of nutrient- rich* solution ? Your thoughts would be of interest.
*which may be very little for seeding

 

I just think it runs out of nutrients very quickly, I've had more yellow looking plants, this year, than I can ever remember.
They only slowly green up with liquid feeding.
Not so noticable with bigger plants because I always mix a 50 50 or so with JI, but seedlings seem to be very slow growing, I'm adding slow release fertiliser to almost everything now.

Having said that some of the peat based stuff I've bought this year is very fine and cloggy .
I think they all seem to be trying to keep the price down and in the process producing an inferior product.

 

I would of thought they would of used a fertiliser to offset this though or incorporated calcium nitrate in to the mix. I have seen some of the images on here and other sites plus seen some of the peat free composts in the retailers, i poked a hole in the bags to see a sample. My first thought, it's to coarse, resulting in leaching, even if they incorporated something to allow for the decomposing of the wood fibre, its still likely to leach if the mix is to open if they are also mixing in composted bark.

I often hear about issue with retail peat free compost and poor growth, but not as much with the peat free compost with added john Innes as the loam element gives the nutrients something to stick to so it should not tend to leach as much.

My peat free was going to be mainly 50% coir with 30% composted bark and 20% PAS100. The problem I have had is not so much with leaching, the end product is to dense causing it to compact. Now I have a source for raw wood fibre I can add a percentage to the mix to open it up. General potting will have 30% incorporated where as for seed & cuttings probably about 10/15%, I am still even contemplating on adding 5/10% sterlised loam into our mixes.

 

@gks
Are there commercial sources of leaf mould, composted leaf litter with straw or similar?