[rowlandwells]

some years ago we used to mix our own compost using a bale of peat some sharp sand and a packet of mineral [commercial] mix it worked out alright but there wasn't much in the price of buying bagged compost so we went back to buying bags of compost

have also used Kettering loam that's made not to far from use in the past and  last year i bought a bale of  peat and mixed it other compost for potting on and it seemed to work Ok

[Growing Weather]

  We years ago regularly made up by hand more batches than I care to remember of a type of John Innes at the Local Parks Department Nursery.
 
 The important part of the mix was using a good medium loam not as a lot of the commercial bagged stuff used to use and still do today thick clay soil I suspect subsoil in some mixes. Also layering the ingredients in the pile before hand then turning three times allowing the mix to fall in on itself was key to achieving a good mixture of ingredients.

 The make up at that time was
7 barrowloads of soil ( stacked for years but unsterilised ). (The commercial nursery I worked at prior to the Parks used to batch steam sterilise their soil all moved by hand )
3 barrowloads of peat. (We had a massive stack of dark peat bought in loose loads)
2 barrowloads of horticultural grit ( this was bought in bagged up)
We pH tested the soil from time to time but apart from when it was used for odd choice plants such as Campanula pyramidalis to my recollection rarely added any lime.
For the fertiliser as standard we added two 5" pot fulls of Vitax Q4 to each mix.

By the time I started there they had just gone over to using commercial two man lift bags of Levington Seed Compost. We did use some of the Levington potting compost but it was not as good as our own home made stuff giving inconsistent results.

There in the soil mixing barn stood a very useful soil pot making machine that produced excellent results with certain bedding plants such as Wallflowers and Stocks of which there were thousands grown. The soil mix for these pots was just the loam with added  Vitax Q4.

All the plants were fed by hand watering can once week using one of the vitax liquid feeds.

[rowlandwells]

that makes very good reading how you made your compost mix and from what your saying it worked out a good mix for potting on etc

and mixing compost is i know very labour intensive i use to mix our compost mix with my merrytiller put it altogether in a heap and run the tiller over it that was a job and a half

I've never used Vitax as i can remember because we used to buy our mix as i said as a commercial mix when we went to a commercial growers forum I think Vitax was mentioned as it was widely used in the growing industry

and i have to say that's also worth noting Ralph very informative these things are always a leaning curve from people like yourselves who have a wealth gardening knowledge to pass on to others

[Growing Weather]

 Vitax Q4 was originally made as a substitute for the JI base. When I first started at the Parks Dept we used up the last bag of JI base then moved over to very successfully trialling Q4 . Shocking prices nowadays. Wish I could afford it.

[grinling]

I put my compost into a plastic bin and fill pots there as less mess.

[Gleavo]

Never had a problem with peat-free and to be honest, if I had to use peat compost I'd probably give up the plot. My whole philosophy is based around sustainability so that would be a deal breaker...

Aldi peat free is comparatively cheap and I just mix it with my own sieved compost, sieved leafmold and organic chicken pellets where needed. I only go through about 3 x 70l bags in a given year and live off my veggies all year round.