So the first bag of Verve compost has been opened and first impressions are positive. It's crumbly, no large lumps ( so far) it doesn't smell of much so all good so far. I've added perlite for potting up some tubs etc to aid drainage and added a few handfuls of chicken manure granules. Next job is to replace most of the tomato plants that have died off in the Westlands Growsure. I'll never be buying that again. Thinking I might contact them and complain.
I’ve potted on some plants and topped my fuchsia pots. The Westland is now solid, It wouldn’t water from the bottom so I watered from the top, it’s very claggy, I can’t lift the pots now, it’s so heavy. It’s a dear do if you have to add lots of stuff before you even use it.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Sylvagrow/melcourt is nice, dalefoot wool double strength is excellent for heavy feeders (I grew some mega courgettes with it), I tried the biochar seed compost this year and had good results!
I’m lucky that I can get melcourt from our local builders merchant for £5.50 for 40 litres, sylvagrow is £9.99 for 40 litres!
I bought Westland with John Innes this year and its a bit open to say the least, although potted on plants seem to be doing ok in it. Seed germination has been a bit sporadic with some and ok with others and at first I was blaming my own ineptitude and not the compost even though I wasn’t doing anything differently. As a matter of course now I’m sieving a layer of fine stuff on the top for all seeds to give them better contact and then top with vermiculite. One bag had so many seedlings of who knows what growing in it that I thought I’d accidentally spilled a packet of my own into the compost. They’re in everything.
I think the manufacturers are putting profit before quality with the peat free and really need to get their act together. They’re bagging the stuff and selling it before it’s properly rotted down making it unsuitable for use. I was in Homebase last year and there was a palletfull on display that was generating its own heat and very warm to the touch.
I was mulching part of my garden with my spent container compost in February and it was a mixture of peat free and peat and it was very difficult to tell the difference between the two having had that extra time to decompose.
We tried some but it was like shavings in part, plus hard bits and generally very dusty. Rubbish. I reckon the older we get the less seeds we will sow, thus less compost will be needed until we reach the point where we will probably just buy the plants we need from a garden centre which will go straight into the ground.
So I complained to Westlands about the poor quality of their Growsure peat free compost this week and not surprisingly got a very poor but clearly standard response. They wanted the following after informing them of poor germination and progress of seedlings as well as poor and variable quality of the 11 bags of compost purchased a few months ago .
The QA codes of all 11 bags
* The batch codes and proof of purchase for the seeds purchased
* Images of the compost and the foreign objects found in them.
* Proof of purchase of the 11 bags of compost.
Well as you can imagine I don't keep the empty bags, I didn't expect to have any issues so didn't keep any receipts. They've just lost a customer, permanently.
It's certainly a problem now @Dobbin26, with loads of types of compost. Yesterday, I watched the G'sWorld item from a few weeks ago, about peat free composts, and wasn't impressed at all with any of it. You used to be able to buy any old bag of compost, whether a named brand or an own brand, and sow seed of all types in spring, and it would work ,with the odd failure, as we'd all expect. That simply isn't the case any more, and it's a very expensive exercise if it's not up to scratch.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Asking for images at least means they might be prepared to look into the process, and asking for proof of purchase is fair enough if they were considering giving a refund or arranging replacement, otherwise anyone could complain......
Batch codes for the seeds is a bit odd, unless they want to check whether you were sowing seed from old stock but I can't really see them doing that amount of research into a different company's products.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
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Thats why I tried the Westland in Morrisons.
The Westland is now solid, It wouldn’t water from the bottom so I watered from the top, it’s very claggy, I can’t lift the pots now, it’s so heavy.
It’s a dear do if you have to add lots of stuff before you even use it.
Own garden compost + soil + favourite peat-free + vermiclite + pearlite/grit/sand + slow release fertliser + liquid fertilising regime.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I’m lucky that I can get melcourt from our local builders merchant for £5.50 for 40 litres, sylvagrow is £9.99 for 40 litres!
I think the manufacturers are putting profit before quality with the peat free and really need to get their act together. They’re bagging the stuff and selling it before it’s properly rotted down making it unsuitable for use. I was in Homebase last year and there was a palletfull on display that was generating its own heat and very warm to the touch.
You used to be able to buy any old bag of compost, whether a named brand or an own brand, and sow seed of all types in spring, and it would work ,with the odd failure, as we'd all expect. That simply isn't the case any more, and it's a very expensive exercise if it's not up to scratch.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...