Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Chatting => Chatting on the Plot => Topic started by: rowlandwells on June 24, 2022, 09:19
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we bought a couple of bags of peat free compost yesterday from homebase own brand and when we opened it the smell of the compost knocked you back so much that my wife needed to ware a mask because it got down on her chest
so as luck would have it I had some other compost by me peat based that I mixed with the peat free so hopefully what we potted on mite grow I'm really concerned about the smell and obnoxious fumes given of by this compost has anyone found this brand or others have the same obnoxious smell and has it effected your plants
I bought a 4 100 LTR bales from Homebase the other day Westland brand and they where perfect don't think they where peat free though may be reduced peat ?
so I need to try another peat free that we can use without that obnoxious smell what would you recommend trying
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Rowland we have stopped stocking Humax compost at our allotment trading post this year. This has always been a bit more expensive but top quality - however we have now access problems that don't let us get bulky stuff into the shed itself. You want to hear the complaints about the other composts available. Our tenants and members have tried many other brands. And there have been quite a few similar complaints to yours. Along with the fact that those who chose to try peat free complaining of the contents of the sack when opened - the general saying being that it didn't rank as compost due to not being properly rotted down or not being suitably riddled to remove the stones/wood/plastic/debris.
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Rowland we have stopped stocking Humax compost at our allotment trading post this year. This has always been a bit more expensive but top quality - however we have now access problems that don't let us get bulky stuff into the shed itself. You want to hear the complaints about the other composts available. Our tenants and members have tried many other brands. And there have been quite a few similar complaints to yours. Along with the fact that those who chose to try peat free complaining of the contents of the sack when opened - the general saying being that it didn't rank as compost due to not being properly rotted down or not being suitably riddled to remove the stones/wood/plastic/debris.
Which peat free was this please? We’ve had an issue with Sylvagrow/Melcourt & I got in touch with our supplier who forwarded my concerns today them & within days they contacted me & the chap arranged to come out & collect samples today, which has taken place. Really nice chap, very interesting & informative. They are going to replace the unsold bags even though there is unlikely to be an option sue with them. Really great service.
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Ah! I've just posted about Sylvagrow on Grow Your own as someone recommended it to me and it's great. What was the problem you had with it?
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Hello I've mentioned this before peat free compost can be br a blend of composted garden waste sewage sludge and chopped straw, I live within 1 mile of a composting site that uses this mix ,some others have composted bark and green waste in it,if green waste is composted properly there should be no smell and other ingredients bulk it up jezza
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Jezza, I use a compost with most of the ingredients mentioned, except the facility would never allow chopped straw (or hay, manure or poultry litter) due to aminopyralid. That compost is great stuff, odor comparable to composted manure. It is tested regularly for quality and safety.
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Ah! I've just posted about Sylvagrow on Grow Your own as someone recommended it to me and it's great. What was the problem you had with it?
There appears to be no or little nitrogen in it, but given the response from the company I can’t rate them highly enough. My tomato seeds were germinated in them & they came through fine, I then pricked them out into little modules & that’s how they stayed until the they finally started to go yellow. At this point I potted them in to different compost but some into the same, & those ones just haven’t grown, apart from some that I gave a nitrogen feed to.
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I think the trouble is all the producers are trying mixes that include lots of wood chip to replace the peat in the old mixes, and they have very little nutritional content. That's ok for seed germinations, most of my seeds germinated, but after that growth stalled until the baby plants give up altogether.
Even in very poor sieved soil, my most recent batch of seedlings have done better ::) It worked ok because I could tell the difference between brassica seedlings and the weeds that were in the soil that also germinated, so a far from ideal situation for everything..
It did however prove my point, that seed composts are pretty useless this year ::)
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I've decided after this season I will no longer purchase any compost, after some of the rubbish I've seen sold as general purpose and given the methods and raw materials used in production its just not for me.
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I think some of the problems seen with various composts (yellowing leaves, stalled growth, etc.) are probably due to the pH of the compost. Composts for seed starting, especially, tend to have low pH and therefore low nutrient availability. Once the seedlings start growing, moving them as soon as is practical into a soil or compost that is more neutral in pH, and therefore has better nutrient availability, they should perk up.
For those that may be interested, I started a topic in General Gardening called "Can we Talk Soil?", my latest post there is all about soil pH and nutrient availability https://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=136383.msg1571514#msg1571514 (https://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=136383.msg1571514#msg1571514). Compost pH too!
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in answer to your question snowdrops it was Homebase own brand only fit for the landfill but I bought so I'm having to use it I see B&M are selling there compost 100LTR bale at a good price but not sure if its any good ?
mite try a bale to see what's its like it can't be any worse than that tosh from Homebase we always use Clover compost don't know why I decided to go with Homebase certainly a bad move