Peat-free compost?

[TheSpottedZebra]

What peat-free compost is everyone using this year? I'm using std B&Q's own. I've bought multiple huge bags of it, but it is… shite. Mostly woodchip, very coarse. And almost all my plants, and there are many, are very yellow and illing. No pest damage, I don't think it's the weather, it is multiple seeds and plant families. It must be the compost.

How are people finding peat-free?

The environmental concerns about water use and digging up peat are poles apart.

Dalefoot. Pricey. And my chillies are yellowing .. and my sweet peas have totally stalled Can't decide if the latter is about still being a bit nippy... But I've been peat free for years and spending a lot on sequestered iron instead. I think it's been a funny season (north). Dry. But still cold.

I found the B&Q Enriched Multipurpose compost, it's £6.50 so only slightly more expensive but much better than Horizon which was dryer.

Why the iron? Is this due to the peat free?
It didn't occur to me this could help...!

Yes sequestered iron for the plants that love ericaceous - or acidic conditions, that really love high peat content. Rhodos, azalea, blueberry, camillia and Japanese acer. Particularly potted. Definitely a dry top but over watered thing going on with peat free. Struggling with this with indoor plants I think this year.

Agree with this, it does smell a bit, but outside plants are doing well.

Same here with the Homebase stuff. It does smell but I've used it for almost all our outdoor containers this year and they seem to be doing well.

It does definitely have the 'crispy top / soggy bottom' issue going on though so I have to be careful not to over-water kill with kindness

I've mostly used New Horizon for the last few years and it's been really successful.

@TheSpottedZebra You don’t need sequestered iron for most things. But if you’ve been using peat beause you’ve needed it for plants in the Heath family (rhodos, heathers etc) which can’t take up iron if they’re in a neutral to alkaline soil, you need to present iron in a form that they can take up.

For everything else, tomato fertiliser is fine

Oh thanks for explaining. Nope, you have nothing in that family, but had a sudden hope that a dose of iron 3ojld ake all my poorly plants better, if it was something that was lacking in peat-free!

It is mostly my many tomatoes, plus assorted veg and flower seedlings that are all illing. I grow everything for my allotment from seed, to 'healthy' plant stage before I plant it up there. Nothing is looking well!

Not a very good advertisement for peat-free, is it? I KNOW it’s better for ecological reasons, but so many growers seem to have problems with it, judging from other gardening groups.

As I grow a specialised group of plants (cacti and succulents), I need good quality compost for them, as they are in their pots for several years, so bad compost could be a real disaster.

I have heard good things about Melcourt Sylvagrow, and will probably try it when i next need a bag.

Not a very good advertisement for peat-free, is it?

It's really not! I wish, now that the wonder of Chelsea is over, that Gardener's World would focus on this a bit. But maybe it's not aspirational enough?

Not a very good advertisement for peat-free, is it?

As I said above, I've been using it for a couple of decades, maybe it's more that people switching just need to adapt to its properties being different to peat.

The mail order supplier I buy all my plugs from specifically recommends not using peat free compost as it ‘ may cause nutritional problems’. I now mix potting compost with top soil and sometimes the manure you can buy in bags. This seems to work okay.

I think it has been difficult for young plants as it is still cold ( slight frost in Berkshire last night!) the established ones in the ground are terrific this year though.

I have used almost every type of Peat Free over the years. From cheap to expensive. I've taken back bags of woodchip declaring themselves to be 'peat free compost' because if you can still see what it was, it ain't compost.

If you have a high level of woodchip or unrotted material in there, it will take nitrogen that your plants need and they just won't thrive. Woodchip is fine as a mulch but needs to be rotted down to be compost.

Sylvagrow is probably the best quality for the price, but I've had alot of success in making potting compost with half Sylvagrow and half coir; and I also make my own early in the season with half coir and half wormery compost, which I've already started putting aside for next year as I moved last november and had to leave all my home made compost behind.

Here in France the best potting compost I've found is a coir based one from Lidl; with a handful of chicken manure pellets that I found in the shed when we got here. This will keep me going until I have enough for next spring with my own home made stuff.

I agree it could be a good segment for Gardeners World: to talk about the difference and, importantly, the different ways to garden with peat free to get the breast results.

At the moment it's like you can just swap peat for peat free and not notice the difference which doesn't appear to be true. You've spent the last few years convincing us it's absolutely right to go peat free, now tell us how!

Peat free compost is disappointing but I just read this on google
Peat is formed by decomposition and accumulation process of plant materials that grow on the land which is influenced by dry and wet season period. Peat formation occurs in a long period with the formation rate of about 1 mm per year (Charman, 2002), which means 1 m deep peat needs 1000 years to form.

We are kidding ourselves that anything produced in a couple of years from rotted leaves etc can be the same. Manufacturers are doing their best. I would imagine that over the next few years peat free compost will be improved. Meanwhile we'd better work harder on our own composting and wormeries.

Thank goodness it's not just me.

I've tried several sorts and it just doesn't do the same job. It's too clunky seedlings hate it and just don't germinate and cuttings never seem to root in it. I'm not a novice gardener (old gimmer!) and have never had this trouble before using peat free.

I do make my own compost, but it all gets used up on the borders in the winter - horrible clay soil that needs some organic matter to make it at all usable.

And if one more media gardener (Monty Don, I'm looking at you) lectures me on the glories of peat free, I might bury them head first in my (one, small, no room for any more ) compost heap.

I was being slightly sarcastic, but I guess I should have made that clearer.

Wow. This cannot be real?

I was being slightly sarcastic, but I guess I should have made that clearer.

🙈 sorry @BuwchGochGota! I thought you were being serious.

@NanTheWiser I use a mixture of peat free and sharp sand (New Horizon before the company was taken over). It’s so long since I’ve used a JI based compost that I can’t really compare. Cacti are no longer my main passion and I’m slowly running the collection down. I’d suggest buying peat free now and trying it on some of the tougher plants while you still have a soil based compost easily to hand.

During Covid they had to make do with garden compost and sand, as we were shielding, and I wasn’t going to make a delivery person hump not strictly necessary bags of compost. That was surprisingly successful, no worse than peat free.

I'm using Asda and it seems OK.

I got some Miraclegrow & it's like wood chip.
Lidl,peat free compost is much better & more soil like.

I got some New Horizon this year and it absolutely stunk, and the texture was weird and fluffy. I've been very happy with it in previous years but it's changed a lot in 2022. Some plants died in it, but they weren't very happy plants in the first place.
I got some Sylvagrow as well, and that is actually really good so I will be paying the extra for that in future