Best Supplier Of Compost 2023

Hoping to add it to a pile of saved used compost to boost it structurally. Seems to get great reviews (?).

Might go for the Kelpie instead but its a 40 mile round trip to collect it. Not much choice where i live in the backwaters

 

Do a google search of the stores in your area first, some B&M and Home Bargain stores have small Garden Centres.

This is the one B&M stores in our area that only opened 18 months ago. Go to bottom of the website and click stores, then type in your area, it will give you a list of stores that have a Garden Centre.

B&M Maryport Food, electricals, toy shop and garden centre (bmstores.co.uk)

Click some of the images and you will see they have quite a range.
Our local Home Bargains has an out door Garden Centre, compost, top soil, manure, bark and aggregates, plus a nice selection of plants.

 

But you can buy their 'split bags' @ half price . (Its not allowed to split them on purpose !!)

 

Trip to our local nursery to buy some new shrubs yesterday. Vitax Q4 compost with peat 56 litres £8.95. That seems to be the 2023 "standard" price of £9 a bag, but you do get 10% extra, and Vitax hopefully is a good name brand.

 

Nipped into Morrisons this morning. They have made a policy decision to sell peat free compost only. I'm yet to be convinced that peat free is the way to go - but in any case picked up 3 x 40l bag of this:



for £15. I read a review in 'Garden Answers' magazine - and apparently this stuff gave the best results when it comes to peat free - it was just behind the peat based compost. Won't be able to buy peat based products next year - without getting a criminal record. What is this - Russia?

 

I think you can still use peat in Russia.

 

The ban does not come into force until the end of 2024, which the bill has still not passed through parliament,yet. When it does, then the ban comes into force from the 1st Jan 2025, from then a retailer can ONLY be fined for selling peat based composts or plants grown in peat, ONLY if they are produced and grown in England. To date, England is the only home nation that has a mandate to ban peat by the end of 2024, which means manufacturers and growers based in Scotland, Ireland and Wales will still be allowed to use due to the "Internal Marketing Act"

In 2020, all four home nations signed the "Internal Marketing Act" where the "Marketing Access Principles" comes into force.

I have copied and pasted the below from the governments website which explains the "Marketing Access Principles".

One of the MAPs is the mutual recognition principle. Mutual recognition means that if goods can lawfully be sold in the UK nation in which they are produced, or first imported into from outside the UK, they can be sold in any UK nation. These goods do not have to adhere to any additional or different regulatory requirements that may be applicable in the UK nation in which they are being sold.[footnote 6] This means that goods which are lawfully produced in (or imported into) a UK nation, where it is also lawful to sell them, can be sold in another UK nation, despite any ban on the goods introduced by that other nation.

The ability of manufacturers to supply peat-containing growing media will depend on where they manufacture it – production must take place in one of Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland to be sold lawfully in England after the ban takes effect.

As I manufacture compost and am based in England, I will be banned from making compost and growing plants using peat. So in a nutshell, I would not even be allowed to manufacture a compost with 5% peat content and sell it to a retailer or the public in England. Yet as an example, I will be allowed to purchase a ready made compost from Ireland, that has 100% peat content and will be legally allowed to sell it in England, madness.

 

So, could an individual in England legally buy peat based compost manufactured in Ireland or Scotland.

 

Yes, a retailer in England will be lawfully allowed to sell to the general public peat based compost and plants grown in peat as long as they are not produced or grown in England. Its not really the retailers that are banned from selling peat based composts and plants, its the manufacturers and growers in England that are banned.

We have imported plants, mainly rhododendrons and azaleas from Belgium. From 2025 I will no longer be allowed to do this and sell them to a retailer or an individual in England. However, a grower or nurseries from Scotland,Ireland or Wales can. They then will be allowed to sell them to me which I can then sell to a retailer or individual based in England as long as the point of entry of the imported plants into the UK is in those nations.

 

So I guess the compost suppliers in all the countries other than England will just continue to sell bags of peat based compost in England?
Sounds almost like some kind of joke from "yes Minister".

 

To paraphrase my farming friends ,"But Natural England knows best"

 

Yep, until those nations have a mandate to phase out and ban peat, they can continue as normal.
My guess, the government, environmentalists and the press see by telling you peat is going to be banned, it will deter you from purchasing it in the future.
Going by this thread, its working. Most believe the ban comes into force from 2024 and you can be prosecuted. A devious way of misleading the public, businesses would be prosecuted if we were to behave in this manner.

 

I'm not sure when the ban comes in is the real problem, its the fact that most compost is already peat free, which it will be anyway in a year or two.
Unless some Irish, (example), company wants to keep selling it here.

 

Myself and others have knew about the internal marketing act but have not really been given clarification until the Office for the Internal Marketing and Competition and Markets Authority published their report late Feb 2023. In the link I posted a few weeks back they state in their report, Only one in ten consumers is "strongly motivated" to purchase a peat containing compost. What a load of bull, but statistics are manipulated to strengthen your case. My sales or other G/C's don't back that, not even close. If anything the vast majority are all for a peat reduced compost and to leave things as they are.

In the future, if a retailer see's a drop in sales of peat free, due to poor quality or to expensive, will they persevere or go back to a peat containing compost ? only time will tell.
Defra know there is not the volume of green waste etc etc due to large volumes that are being burnt to generate energy. So, you could have a retailer one month being all peat free, yet the following month they could be selling peat based, which just makes a whole mockery of the ban confusing the consumer. I would say retailers in the south are more likely to go down the peat free route than those in the north, transport costs.