Absolute best compost please. Lots of complaint last year on gardeners world forum about poor compost

[Summerwhereareyou]

As above can anyone recommend amazing compost please.

Depends where you are.

Round here west Scotland, a lot of ours contains seaweed and upon googling does appear to be good for plants/soil.

Hate to say it, but pretty much all peat-free compost is dreadful.

I've always found Melcourt Sylvagrow peat-free to be very good.

Compost from a cannabis grow show has no weeds or plastic in it. Lovely stuff.

Shop not show.

South East

Black Gold from compost Direct - marketed as a soil improver, so depends what you want it for. I’m also in the SE, and it’s brilliant for clay soil. I buy a one tonne bag every year and use as a sort of mulch.

CarbonGold was excellent for me last year. Have been using this year- bit early to say benefit!

Melcourt Sylvagrow.

Jack’s Magic if you can’t get Sylvagrow.

Avoid the rubbish “soil improver” made from the contents of council green waste collections. It’s likely to contain glass and plastic as well as all the weeds and stuff nobody wants to put in their own compost bins. Most of the population are too lazy and/or too stupid to sort any of their recycling properly.

Lots of complaints on Facebook groups about Levington compost being particularly bad this year, but Aldi often better than it has been in the past.

Another vote for Jack's Magic 👍

Westland New Horizon which you can get in Tesco and Sainsbury is good.

New Horizon from Homebase was dreadful two years ago so I didn’t buy it last year. Perhaps there are local variations?

www.thecompostcentre.co.uk/

Rocketgro. Brilliant organic compost made from anaerobic digestion in Somerset. Now endorsed by River Cottage. It’s taken a couple of years to get the formula right but now it’s great.

That could be the case @YourWinter

I'm South West England. I bought a bag at my local Tesco and used half a bag at the weekend. It's nice and crumbly with good moisture retention, without being that ghastly powdery stuff that feels all gritty like sand.

All the gardening magazines seem to be discussing how bad the peat-free formula is now.

It's a minefield now. I bought some last year that was clearly made with old Christmas trees, tinsel included. I've got Erin excel (recommended by the local garden centre) this year and it's definitely an improvement and quite cheap.

I got some rhs manure thinking it woud be par excellence and it seemed full of wood
Ood chip!

I've got peat free this year and it is dire. Dries out too quickly, it's awful stuff. I'll be trying it 50/50 with horse manure next time.

Glad to find this thread. I've been feeling guilty about hating the quality of composts these days, since I guess that the decline is the result of attempts to make compost without peat.
So many brands are horrible now, like someone has just swept everybody's garden paths and patios, and put the resulting pile in plastic sacks. And as posters have already said, they don't hold water efficiently, uniformly or predicably
It is particularly grim if you need compost for houseplants. I don't want pots full of debris in my house.
I do make my own compost for improving the garden soil, but it isn't usually good enough for containers, especially houseplants.
Agree that Jack's Magic is good.
Sometimes, in the deepest most shameful part of my heart, I wish we could forget about the environment just for this one little luxury

I so agree! I'm almost at the point of squirreling away enough sacks of the peat based stuff for next year's seeds and seedlings. The bigger stuff can just about cope but it's heartbreaking to see my carefully nurtured babies struggling and dying.

Hopefully the manufacturers are still working on improvements, though I fear that there isn't anything that does the job as well as peat.

@Summerwhereareyou I collect my own horse manure from a local stud, which has a huge well rotted mound the size of a small room, with the added bonus that you can drive right up close to it. Last year I think they changed whatever it is that they put down in the stables because the pile had much more wood chip than before, much less broken down. I used it anyway as a mulch and by this year it has become the lovilest, fluffiest thing you can imagine. So don't write off the RHS stuff too quickly.

Levingtons is awful, as was Lidl's cheap stuff last year (sorry can't remember the brand name).

Jacks magic was dire for us last year. Levington 👎🏻. Bought some young plant compost ( John Innés 2) which is Westland was AWFUL, if I was a young plant I would die in protest.

B&Q own label is now our go to, mixed with filtered topsoil and grit if for herbs or succulents. But it’s a pain, and things don’t grow as well, especially seedlings.

Garden centre & shop bought plants are no better , I give them a good soak in water with liquid food as soon as they get home., they don’t have a properly formed rootball . .The Horticulture Trades Association is in despair.

I buy mine from Thompson & Morgan and get it delivered ( I'm disabled)
It's very good compost, peat free and I use it for everything 😊

Is that the Incredipeatfree? Do you have a link for it please? I can only see it at the increadiprice £19.99 for 70 litres which is was out of my range for the amount I need.