[Paul Rhodes]

being looking to buy a branded compost specific for seedlings,young plants and potting on. Is it beneficial to buy this or does a regular compost with a bit of grow more added just as good, and cheaper?

[mattwragg94]

a general muti-purpose compost should be suitable for all three - there is no need to add a fertiliser.

[New shoot]

It's true you can use multi-purpose for most things but it is a 'jack of all trades' as the name suggests.  There are specific composts you can buy for seeds and seedlings, but they are pricy so I tend to mix my own using a decent multi-purpose as follows:

Seeds - need fine compost with no big bits to block germination, so you can buy a cheap garden sieve and sieve your multi-p.  Also need a combination of moisture but also good drainage so they don't rot.  You can add perlite to achive this.  Don't need fertiliser at this stage.

Young plants and potting on - multi-p is fine and perlite will do no harm if you want to add this, but multi-p only holds nutrients to sustain the plant for a few weeks and the nitrogen content can be reduced if the bag has been outside and got wet.  The pallets are wrapped until they go out on sale, so if your local supplier has theirs under cover, assume 6 weeks max for feed.  I use a basic liquid feed after that once a week to keep things growing