Best supplier of compost 2024

Even if it is crap, it is a great sign that everyone is buying compost, Spring must be springing.

 

I think the hail,sleet, snow with gale force winds we had here earlier, might not be so springlike @Punkdoc
Suns' nice when it appears - it's just not doing it quite as often as the other stuff.

 

I've got some peat-free left from last year (cheapo supermarket brand). Texture-wise it feels better than when it was new but I'll most likely need to add some slow-release fertiliser. I'll sieve some homemade and mix it in too. I've some that's maybe 18 months in the making and it looks pretty good even before sieving (that's it in the pic). I might possibly get away with out buying any until later in the season.

 

Pleased to hear. Home Bargains had lots of it when I went. For the last two years I had been buying one of there peat free composts which seemed OK, but I always mixed it with peat compost 50:50, that way I felt I was at least reducing my peat buying.

I'm a supporter of banning peat compost, but we do need a suitable peat free replacement that I don't feel we have yet.

 

What is your reason for supporting a ban on peat compost?
You do know that peat based compost can and will be lawfully sold in England regardless if central government passes a bill to ban it.

Anything that is manufactured, produced, imported etc etc lawfully in one home nation can be sold lawfully to any home nation, regardless of any ban's.
Ireland has no intention to ban the harvesting of peat anytime soon, so they can continue to manufacture compost containing peat and sell it to any retailer in England, including Home Bargains for the foreseeable future due to the internal marketing act.

Below is a couple of paragraphs from the governments report 2023

Even if sufficient volumes of peat-free growing media are available, the increased demand for the inputs required is likely to increase their cost, also providing an incentive for retailers in England to rely on the Market Access Principles to obtain and sell peat-containing growing media. Differences in production costs between peat-containing and peat-free growing media have previously slowed the transition away from peat, as peat has historically been cheaper than the inputs required for peat-free alternatives. More recently, the price of peat has risen, narrowing this price differential. If manufacturers struggle to obtain inputs for peat-free growing media and their costs of production rise, this differential could increase again, providing incentives to return to production of peat-containing growing media where this is permitted.

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.

So, basically retailers are not and will not be banned from selling peat based compost or plants grown in peat as long as the compost or plants were not manufactured or grown in England.

 

Environmental reasons.

 

So, is shipping peat from the Baltic nations and coir from the far east better for the environment?

Myself and many other compost manufactures purchased peat from Bord Na Mona to blend with their own peat. Bord Na Mona harvested more peat than all the Irish manufacturers put together, the reason being, they were burning peat in three power stations. In the last week of December 2023 the last peat briquettes were burnt at the Edenderry power plant. In the heyday, the three power stations owned by Bord Na Mona burnt 3.2 million tons of peat a year, where as the whole horticultural sector in the UK would use roughly 800,000 tons of peat a year.

Era of peat-fired electricity ends as Edenderry power plant switches fully to burning biomass | Irish Independent

There was 9 power stations in Ireland that burnt peat to generate electricity, what they burnt in a year would of lasted the whole UK horticultural sector 10 years.

As Bord Na Mona do not harvest any peat at all now, manufacturers are importing from the Baltic nations, including myself. So instead of getting peat from Eire which was roughly 400 miles, my supply in Estonia is just over 2000 miles. Ireland is now an importer of peat, instead of being an exporter and ships with 3,500 tons of peat are regularly being shipped into Ireland.

In 2011 Defra funded a study into using coir as a peat substitute, in the report coir was red flagged in 4 areas. Poor working conditions, child labour, water consumption ( to wash the salts from 1 cubic metre of coir, 600L of water is needed) and last but not least, fossil fuels. The report recommended that coir was not a substitute for peat and manufacturers should look at alternative's. Fast forward to 2023 when I was invited to a Defra zoom meeting we were told to use coir as it is deemed as a waste product, what a u-turn.

The Royal Botanic Gardens have been buying my compost for decades, last year they told me they were going peat free but their research from Scottish scientists concluded that coir should not be used as a peat substitute if your reason for going peat free is to reduce your carbon footprint due to the processing of coir and distance it is shipped from . So, now Defra gives the green light to manufacturers in England to use coir, yet Scotland and Ireland don't support it.

 

Governments and Government departments change the rules to suit their agenda. Always have and always will. The colour of the Government, red or blue, makes no difference to that. Give it a couple of years and peat will probably be the best thing since sliced bread again!

 

Pfft! So ... having been feeling pretty pleased with myself for getting in several large bags of my favourite compost last autumn and storing them in the garage, I have just opened Bag 2 to find it teeming with fungus gnats!



Not pleased!

Any ideas for decontaminating it gratefully received. I was halfway through potting on an outdoor bamboo, so I have gone ahead with that and will have to hope for the best.

 

Fungus gnats are not usually a big problem outdoors.
I'd save that bag and get a fresh bag for anything greenhouse or house plants.
They usually like wet compost.

 

Good thinking!

The compost was not particularly wet. Just slightly damp to the touch. If we get any dry days, I might leave the bag open in the sun for a bit. I have been buying compost for 2 decades and never had this before.

 

I would certainly agree that coir is not the answer, but surely we agree that the continued use of Peat is environmentally unsound.
There are many other sources of compost we can use with far less harm to the environment.

 

I've often had this problem, so for inside stuff I put an open bag in the old shed and let it dry and they go away. Only problem I find is the compost being too dry to use, but soaking the pots sorts it.

 

I just don't believe we can destroy the environment for the sake of our hobby. Many nurseries have been peat free for several years, if they can manage it, surely we can.