[SpudtheBinx]

After seeing last weeks GW special, myself and Mrs StB decided to try the peat free stuff. Normaly we buy the three for a tenner bags of multi purpose from B&Q or Homebinx so we were expecting to shell out a lot more this time. Well in Wyvale they had the New Horizon grow bags that topped the Which trial at 3 for a fiver, and they are 35 litres each which makes them the same price as the 'cheap' stuff. Bonus! Anyway, we got 6 of them and got them home tonight. I appreciate as grow bags they will be too rich for seeds, but we happened to find bricks of coir in the pound shop! The instructions said place one brick in 6 litres of water and leave for 15 mins and you have 8 litres of sowing medium. I left mine for an hour and all I have is some kind of quicksand made from coconuts You win some, you lose some I guess. Has anyone tried these coir blocks before and has any tips? I am thinking of chucking in some gel crystals I have and a load of perlite to see if that will help.

[jb]

The instructions said place one brick in 6 litres of water and leave for 15 mins and you have 8 litres of sowing medium. I left mine for an hour and all I have is some kind of quicksand made from coconuts You win some, you lose some I guess. Has anyone tried these coir blocks before and has any tips? I am thinking of chucking in some gel crystals I have and a load of perlite to see if that will help.

I tried using coir a few years ago and found that it is highly variable with some brands giving lots of nice fibrery media and others giving the brown slops like yours. The bad stuff can be partly saved by adding much less water and topping up to see if you can produce something useable. Unless someone has a way of turning the poor stuff into something useful I'd just dig it in to boost any poor soil and try and find some decent stuff

[savbo]

I found mixing coir (from blocks) 50:50 with B&Q peat-free MP compost (a bit lumpy on its own) gave a nice seed compost...

[WebSiteEvo]

I used miracle grow organic (new formula!) this year,  I have mixed it with perlite and a little sand for sowing. Seems to have worked fine, results just as good as peat so far. Tried,  tomatoes, peppers, rocket, lettuce, nasturtium, marigolds.   Dries out quick so will try adding vermiculite on the next batch.

[Beejay]

I have a part-time job at Homebase and was surprised how the price jumped, lucky I have a discount

[celjaci]

New Horizon was best buy from Which?  but I found it rather coarse and woody

Best bet is to mix your own