Bord na Mona/Growise compost is first class (with excellent Which? reviews) and their newly introduced peat free range maintains these high standards. There was hardly any coarse material in the mix and I felt confident using it. There’s only one problem - the product is called Happy.
So, I usual buy, for the year, 720 litres of compost = 60L x 12 bags. Usual get a deal 4 bags for £20. = £60. Peat free compost! 50L £5.99 and no deals as far as I've seen. So, going to cost me £86 to go Peat free. Also the cost of replacing rotted plants due to rainfall!!! Going to be a very experimental year next year. Don't mind paying extra for good results but not to plant up and then just watch them die off!!!! Watch this space. thanks by the way for the advice and comments everyone has provided
To be honest @punkdoc I don't think the companies have the capacity to go all peat free any time soon, so by the time they do I will be too old ( and rusty 😁) to plant things.
To be honest @punkdoc I don't think the companies have the capacity to go all peat free any time soon, so by the time they do I will be too old ( and rusty 😁) to plant things.
so, for the time being, they're just selling us overpriced crap which is often not fit for purpose
Earlier in the year was coming out of Asda when I noticed a big sign, Levingtons compost 3 for £10, as I like a bargain I had 3.
Only when I got them home did I see the small print, peat free, I don't know what the contents were, looked like wool shoddy but it was total crap, water just ran straight through, thought to myself, serves you right for not reading the contents, though peat free was in very small print, as if they were ashamed to admit it!
The trades description act wold have a field day with them.
Then a couple of Saturdays ago on the way to football with a couple of mates who called into Sainsburys to get some soft drinks, I waited in the foyer, and they had a mountain of Levingtons compost clearly marked "peat free" reduced to £2 a bag, I was not even tempted!
Just because there isn't the capacity to produce enough peat free compost, has no bearing on whether they will ban the sale of peat containing compost, we have no absolute right to be able to buy compost.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
I won't buy westland, it was like dust. B&Q's Verve became unavailable early season ( my usual type with which I have had no problems) and JA Bowers, like you @Hostafan1 , that most of my plants went into this year, was OK, but two batches were of different contents, one very pale the other dark. The light one didn't hold onto water as well, so not consistent.
As everyone is being encouraged to cut food miles @punkdoc , the powers that be cannot afford to alienate home growers by making it harder for us to grow our own. Making compost unavailable or unusable is counter productive. I have fed my elderly neighbours their toms and cucumbers this year, which they wouldn't have had as local shop kept running out, or they didn't feel safe to go out. So all of us had fresh food, surely a better thing for everyone. Plus I have read that in Europe they are growing peat specifically for the gardening market, so not all is coming from wild sites.
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Peat free compost! 50L £5.99 and no deals as far as I've seen. So, going to cost me £86 to go Peat free. Also the cost of replacing rotted plants due to rainfall!!! Going to be a very experimental year next year. Don't mind paying extra for good results but not to plant up and then just watch them die off!!!! Watch this space. thanks by the way for the advice and comments everyone has provided
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
Then a couple of Saturdays ago on the way to football with a couple of mates who called into Sainsburys to get some soft drinks, I waited in the foyer, and they had a mountain of Levingtons compost clearly marked "peat free" reduced to £2 a bag, I was not even tempted!
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
As everyone is being encouraged to cut food miles @punkdoc , the powers that be cannot afford to alienate home growers by making it harder for us to grow our own. Making compost unavailable or unusable is counter productive. I have fed my elderly neighbours their toms and cucumbers this year, which they wouldn't have had as local shop kept running out, or they didn't feel safe to go out. So all of us had fresh food, surely a better thing for everyone.
Plus I have read that in Europe they are growing peat specifically for the gardening market, so not all is coming from wild sites.