Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

Must admit I've never made anything, myself, that could ever resemble potting compost.

It just gets used as a soil conditioner, and the amount of weed seeds in it would definitely not be good for potting let alone growing seedlings.

 

I use my compost for potting up plants for the charity sale and warn everybody that while there are no horrors like Couch or Ground Elder in it weeds, will be plentiful and it is certainly not suitable as seed sowing compost.
To augment bought in compost I do use manure and a lot of leaf mould but then I am fortunate to have huge trees and plenty of space to leave leaves to rot down. Not everybody has that luxury, that said I could have seen my trees far enough over the last couple of days having spent hours and hours picking up small branches.

 

I don't think the RHS has decreased its support for peat free.

 

Ah, I'm out of touch with their current thinking It doesn't seem that much progress has been made in the last 30 years in developing a really good peat substitute, though.

 

The potting compost on sale here varies from disappointing to truly disgusting and a menace to plants! Mostly chopped green waste and forestry by-products which it has to be admitted are local, but not composted any where nearly long enough or sieved enough. The more woody ones contain eggs and larvae of wood-eating beetles who aren't averse to chewing on woody plant roots and tubers as well.
Then there are the ones containing not very well rotted manure....
The only way to acquire decent stuff is to buy directly from nurseries the compost they themselves use for their plants and guess what? It's peat-based

 

Funny that!

 

I've said this before, but often if you buy Citrus plants grown mostly in Spain or the Canaries they appear to be potted in some kind of sandy clay with some kind of pumice added rather than anything peat based or even the stuff we have that is peat free.

 

Whatever the substitute is made of, it has to be consistent. You have to know when you buy bag 2, it will be the same as the stuff in bag 1 you got last time and bag 3 you’ll get next time. Then, you know how your plants get on with it, and they get the same stuff when potted on as they have been growing in, etc.

All this hit and miss, “could be anything at all in the bag” nonsense is just not good enough.

 

I posted a day or so back about the shambles of getting a prescription sorted when the branded version of a medication wasn't available.
As the shambles has, if anything become even worse, I thought I'd update. My pharmacist said that the pharmacist at the GP had told her a new request had been raised for a generic version of the medication, but nothing new was showing on my NHS app. I called the surgery today and spoke to somebody on the 'prescriptions team'. They said there was nothing on the system about any contact from my pharmacy, and they couldn't see any new request for the medication. The person said they would check and call back. They did call back about 20 minutes later and said that the specified item was available but in short supply, and there was nothing they could do to get it changed. It was up to me or my pharmacist to find another source by ringing around other pharmacies in the area to obtain it!

 

If you have ever bought JI compost you will know it can vary quite widely depending on the loam they use and presumably the source, likewise topsoil, most natural products vary.

I can even remember buying peat based composts that varied to some degree, some suppliers peat compost was considered better than others.

I must admit I think all suppliers should have an opened bag on show so you can see what you are buying, but its surprising how many people buy the cheapest they can find and then moan about the quality.

 

Lidl and Aldi spring lithely to mind Traditionally, Kettering loam was used in the JI formula. I grew up there and it's true that you could stick a corpse in my Dad's garden soil and it would come back to life.
It would be interesting to know what is used nowadays, @gks ??

 

I think Kettering has now sunk by a few feet.

 

So many lives destroyed by knife crime, so why do I keep getting Spam offers of an incredibly pointed and sharp knife?

 

As a compost manufacturer there has been some really concerning issues with peat free compost.
I posted about this on the forum, probably this time last year. All manufacturers were contacted regarding pathogens found in peat free compost. DEFRA contacted earth care and the forestry regarding this and an up surge in compost samples found to have these pathogens.

I actually spoke on the phone to a scientist who works with earth care and even though she is not fully supportive of the governments stance on banning peat, she does have a wealth of knowledge regarding pathogens and how to compost green waste correctly and if not, the consequences for a grower can be devastating.

I certainly wouldn't like to be a commercial grower forced to go down the peat free alternative only to find that your plants would have to be destroyed if you've had a bad batch of compost.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ful...rcial peat-free,previously reported in the UK.