The problem here is only one garden centre, no B&Q or similar, if it’s not in the one GC your stuck. I will look next time I’m in there but don’t recall ever seeing it. Its expensive on line, £8.00+ and I can’t get a delivery price from them, or maybe it’s free.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Can people list the best peat free compost they’ve used please? Actual specific brands and if possible, the price.
Melcourt Sylvagrow Multipurpose £7.99 (50litre bag) and same brand 'Farmyard' as a soil conditioner £6 (also 50litre) both from the local garden centre (it seems to cost a lot more online at the moment). I've bought their grow bags as well but can't remember the price.
Same here Melcourt seems to be the best and most consistent but it sells out fast round here. I have used Dalefoot, which is based on waste wool and bracken. Previously it was wonderful stuff but this year the same potting on mix ( red bag) is much coarser and more fibrous It doesn't seem to hold water as well. It's a similar price to melcourt but only comes in 30 litre bags. All others I have tried have been full of rubbish, bits of plastic, sticks etc.
I have pigeons, jays, mice etc., too @raisingirl, but protect them with fine mesh pegged down, wouldn’t that work for you? I do have two cat sentries though!
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
@Nollie, I must admit, as regards growing things in modules to start, guilty as charged. In my defence, we have white rot on our Allotments, so starting onions in modules, at least gives them a fighting chance. Mind you I draw the line at parsnips , unlike Carol Kline on a recent programme.
Parsnips are actually the one crop I can direct sow. The rodents seem to take B3's view of those. I sort of direct sew carrots - I grow them in big pots and cover them with fleece. I've not managed to work out a way to put netting around runners and french beans that keeps the mice out. I have, I think, figured out how to stop the voles severing my french bean stems after they've grown.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Without modules, I wouldn't have plants. In my bit of countryside, we have: Pigeons [ by the hundred ], voles, mice, squirrels to name but a few. Seedlings don't stand a chance.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
Same here Punkdoc, seeds sown direct, never seen again. As well as the weather, if I waited until the soil warmed up I would have been sowing now. By end of July summer’s over here.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
I don't understand about the concern peat free doesn't hold moisture and it increases water use? I'm using NH and found I've had to be careful with not overwatering seedlings in pots. The compost on top looks dry but under the surface and especially at the bottom of the pot there's plenty of moisture. My beds also have peat free (some NH and some local garden waste compost) and they're bone dry on top from last few days but still damp an inch or two down, almost like it's self-mulching
I sow in modules too - otherwise the mice destroy everything. But in the grand scheme of things it’s a minuscule amount of compost we’re talking about to start things in modules. Please don’t make me feel guilty about that 🙄
The large garden where I volunteer uses Melcourt by the sack/dumpy bag full - it’s lovely stuff. Wish I could get hold of it on a domestic scale.
Have tried Horizons peat free but this year it is rubbish (but still pricey). I had heard that Horizons have been bought out by Westlands ....so that would explain it.
I’m frantically looking for Sylvagrow (Melcourt for little peeps) .....but currently that means driving 15 miles in a direction I never normally go .....so net, net I reckon that’s not a sustainable option. 🤷🏼♀️
I’m a bit bemused by the comments that using peat free will be detrimental as it will increase the level of water usage. We only buy peat free and I’m always surprised by how much watering other posters seem to do and recommend on posts.
I grow all my seeds in peat free (in the greenhouse) and might water once or twice a week if it’s really hot. Pots out in the garden nearest the house get watered if the weather is dry using our washing up water on a rough and ready rota. We have quite a few so it’s probably once a week, we don’t bother if the weather is cool and/or wet. Those elsewhere when they look as if they need it. If they are drooping a bit in the evening, I check them in the morning to see if they have perked up. If not they get watered. Most are in full sun so maybe need watering once a week in the summer if we’re having very dry weather.
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
Posts
I will look next time I’m in there but don’t recall ever seeing it.
Its expensive on line, £8.00+ and I can’t get a delivery price from them, or maybe it’s free.
It doesn't seem to hold water as well. It's a similar price to melcourt but only comes in 30 litre bags. All others I have tried have been full of rubbish, bits of plastic, sticks etc.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
The large garden where I volunteer uses Melcourt by the sack/dumpy bag full - it’s lovely stuff. Wish I could get hold of it on a domestic scale.
Have tried Horizons peat free but this year it is rubbish (but still pricey). I had heard that Horizons have been bought out by Westlands ....so that would explain it.
I’m frantically looking for Sylvagrow (Melcourt for little peeps) .....but currently that means driving 15 miles in a direction I never normally go .....so net, net I reckon that’s not a sustainable option. 🤷🏼♀️
I grow all my seeds in peat free (in the greenhouse) and might water once or twice a week if it’s really hot. Pots out in the garden nearest the house get watered if the weather is dry using our washing up water on a rough and ready rota. We have quite a few so it’s probably once a week, we don’t bother if the weather is cool and/or wet. Those elsewhere when they look as if they need it. If they are drooping a bit in the evening, I check them in the morning to see if they have perked up. If not they get watered. Most are in full sun so maybe need watering once a week in the summer if we’re having very dry weather.
East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham