Last season I tried Westlands Jacks Magic, not the cheapest, but by far the best results, for value for money B & Q's verve in the large bale is good value and not full of rotting wood etc., Both are peat based...... "so what!!"
I bought three grow-bags last year from Wyevale, my local GC and lost all of my plants I went back to them and they weren't very helpful at all so I don't buy from them anymore - I use another GC further away and they offer a bigger range of mp compost...will stick with peat-based I think. Maybe with all the flood water/heavy rainfall last year the bags got contaminated and the stores still sold them when they shouldn't have:/ buyer beware? My local stores have them all stacked outside in their car parks which are often under a lot of water......
I have often thought that one of the problems with the Which? trials is that they are carried out the previous year. So this year they recommend composts that worked well during the last growing season. However what we buy this year may be fresh stuff with slightly different formulations, or old badly stored stuff as mentioned above. Bags of compost are often inconsistent, the QC seems to fail sometimes. It seems to me that it's a gamble on each bag I buy.
I do prefer peat-based but it gives me a guilty conscience!
I do prefer peat-based but it gives me a guilty conscience!
Not sure what's happened here but the bit above is the quote - the bit below my comment
I will use whatever gives me the best results, and there are a number of factors which come into that equation. To date I haven't found anything which matches peat based compost.
Wickes sell 70 litre bags for £3 which are 'reduced peat' and I got several bags to improve my clay soil before planting a new hedge. It had a good texture and no big bit at all. I haven't found compost cheaper anywhere else apart from council schemes. I can't say how good it is yet and I haven't used it on seeds/cuttings yet but I will be because it's so cheap. Online it gets a bad write up because people say it has lots of woody bits in but my bags were all fine. As someone else says it varies, they can't get the mix exactly the same for each batch but for me I have to find the cheapest supplier.
Depends which Verve compost you get,the sowing & cutting compost gets a good rating, so does the grow bag but the Verve John Innes no.2 mix gets the worst rating of the lot.
Have to agree with Brumbull, Verve was the worst compost I have ever bought,used it in hanging baskets last year it was the worst display I have ever had . Just full of twigs and rubbish.
Posts
Last season I tried Westlands Jacks Magic, not the cheapest, but by far the best results, for value for money B & Q's verve in the large bale is good value and not full of rotting wood etc., Both are peat based...... "so what!!"
I bought three grow-bags last year from Wyevale, my local GC and lost all of my plants
I went back to them and they weren't very helpful at all so I don't buy from them anymore - I use another GC further away and they offer a bigger range of mp compost...will stick with peat-based I think. Maybe with all the flood water/heavy rainfall last year the bags got contaminated and the stores still sold them when they shouldn't have:/ buyer beware? My local stores have them all stacked outside in their car parks which are often under a lot of water......
Dont go by Which,last year they said b&q verve was the best,the worst compost I have ever bought.
I have often thought that one of the problems with the Which? trials is that they are carried out the previous year. So this year they recommend composts that worked well during the last growing season. However what we buy this year may be fresh stuff with slightly different formulations, or old badly stored stuff as mentioned above. Bags of compost are often inconsistent, the QC seems to fail sometimes. It seems to me that it's a gamble on each bag I buy.
I do prefer peat-based but it gives me a guilty conscience!
And so it should! I have found to germinate seeds plain coir is OK but you need to prick out fairly quickly. Sometimes I mix in spent tea leaves too.
Wickes sell 70 litre bags for £3 which are 'reduced peat' and I got several bags to improve my clay soil before planting a new hedge. It had a good texture and no big bit at all. I haven't found compost cheaper anywhere else apart from council schemes. I can't say how good it is yet and I haven't used it on seeds/cuttings yet but I will be because it's so cheap. Online it gets a bad write up because people say it has lots of woody bits in but my bags were all fine. As someone else says it varies, they can't get the mix exactly the same for each batch but for me I have to find the cheapest supplier.
Have to agree with Brumbull, Verve was the worst compost I have ever bought,used it in hanging baskets last year it was the worst display I have ever had . Just full of twigs and rubbish.