Quote “Homemade or garden compost is made from rotted waste materials such as plant foliage and stems, vegetable and fruit waste, grass cuttings and cardboard and paper. It’s perfect as a soil improver.”
Surely that’s what bought composts are made from, the councils sell people’s garden waste to compost manufacturers.
I’m growing my peppers in my own compost, they’ve never been so good, likewise tomatoes in garden soil and compost. I’ve used it for seeds and potting on, just adding perlite, vermiculite or bonemeal, depending on what I use it for.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Yes @lyn, commercial potting composts contain garden waste …. but that is not all they contain … also contain other ingredients … one of them is/was peat … another is manure (hence the current concerns about contamination from herbicides) … topsoil and other ingredients are also in the mix.
@Dovefromabove. Seems that’s what a lot of us here are doing now. Just add amounts of extras to suit what your doing, This year we’re not being quite so choosy about what’s going in the bins, I will be using it next year for everything. Chipped up a lot of tree waste lately, so should have plenty extra next year.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
I have some G W free tomato seeds which germinated very well, I potted ten in peat free compost and are in the greenhouse, which I am afraid are not doing very well at all yet the ones I planted outside in the soil with no compost are doing brilliant lots of trusses of tomatoes, it does make me wounder if it is the compost that is at fault, because all they have done is grow leggy like a cordon and not has bush yet the ones outside have fruit on are the same plum shape so the seeds haven't been mixed.
I've got my free Roma tomatoes outside in the veg patch and they're doing just fine along with Crimson Crush ...
I've also got some little cherry tomatoes growing outside in peat free compost ... I'm having to water them more often than I water the cucumbers which are in an old batch of compost which does have a bit of peat in it ...
the peatfree compost tends to harden if it gets dry ... but the tomatoes are doing just fine, even in the 40+C heat we've had ... I've just had some for breakfast 😋
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
It's possible that some of the herbicide contamination could come from the green waste, eg grass clippings that have been treated with feed & weed, if it's not been composted for long enough.
Some peat-free composts are rubbish, some are good, some are OK if you amend them. My main problem is, for every bag, that I don't know which it's going to be until I've opened the bag and tried it. I do use my own compost as well but I can't make enough for everything that I want to use it for, particularly now that the grass clipping supply has dried up (literally).
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
I can never understand why some people feel they should use bought compost for everything, people sow seeds then plant them out in the ground, in soil, why not use the soil in the first place, tomatoes self seed very well in the garden if you put pips on your compost heap, something I don’t do these days for that reason. If you need to grow your veg in the GH. Some of which, I do, then what’s wrong with your soil, They’d be in that if you put them in the garden. I think with this latest scrappy compost we need to start thinking differently.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
I don't have any bare soil to dig up or to direct-sow into (and no greenhouse)! Lots of things self-sow successfully but I reckon only a tiny proportion of the seeds of things like poppies, foxgloves, forget-me-not etc make it to maturity so it would be too expensive to throw around enough bought seed to get the same results. I do buy bagged topsoil to mix into multipurpose compost and sieved homemade compost.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
I never sow flower seeds direct, (although poppies and foxgloves sow themselves), I’d never see them again for slugs.
I was talking about vegetable really, our fathers and grandfather wouldn’t have bought bags of compost.
Do you know anyone who makes compost, I always give my daughter a couple of bags in the Spring. She has a small garden and only a plastic green house, she doesn’t grow veg, no room.
@Dovefromabove. That article is the best I’ve read, “peat free compost is just garden waste vegetation that would otherwise go to the landfill”
@Pete.8? The weed killer needs the soils bacteria to break it down, the bought composts are sterilised so no bacteria.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
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It says
Quote “Homemade or garden compost is made from rotted waste materials such as plant foliage and stems, vegetable and fruit waste, grass cuttings and cardboard and paper. It’s perfect as a soil improver.”
Surely that’s what bought composts are made from, the councils sell people’s garden waste to compost manufacturers.
I’m growing my peppers in my own compost, they’ve never been so good, likewise tomatoes in garden soil and compost. I’ve used it for seeds and potting on, just adding perlite, vermiculite or bonemeal, depending on what I use it for.
https://www.realmensow.co.uk/why-multi-purpose-compost/#:~:text=Multi-purpose%20compost%20is%20traditionally%20a%20blend%20of%20peat,for%20sowing%20seeds%2C%20repotting%20plants%2C%20and%20filling%20containers.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
This year we’re not being quite so choosy about what’s going in the bins, I will be using it next year for everything.
Chipped up a lot of tree waste lately, so should have plenty extra next year.
I've also got some little cherry tomatoes growing outside in peat free compost ... I'm having to water them more often than I water the cucumbers which are in an old batch of compost which does have a bit of peat in it ...
the peatfree compost tends to harden if it gets dry ... but the tomatoes are doing just fine, even in the 40+C heat we've had ... I've just had some for breakfast 😋
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
If you need to grow your veg in the GH. Some of which, I do, then what’s wrong with your soil, They’d be in that if you put them in the garden.
I think with this latest scrappy compost we need to start thinking differently.
@Pete.8? The weed killer needs the soils bacteria to break it down, the bought composts are sterilised so no bacteria.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.