The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: wayland on November 09, 2017, 09:24:22 am
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Not wanting to get into any environmental arguments here, but do any of you find as I that peat free compost is nowhere as good as peat based?. This does not include John Innis of course which is great. We have been trying to boost up this modern medium with various stuff which does help a bit, but it does not stop it from drying out too quick. Water just seems to run out of it with little retention. I think that as peat was born in water it is far more adapted to retain it.
We are now working on a home brewed potting/seed compost recipe. We take 50/50 of sieved garden soil and compost from our heap. Two kilo of this is put into VENTED polythene bags and microwaved for thirty seconds. Initial results looks promising.
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We use New Horizon pest free organic compost. Never failed yet
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We use New Horizon pest free organic compost. Never failed yet
Pest free? Hope so :D
I have struggled for several years with various composts. I had always used New Horizon but then things went very wrong with traces of weed killer (neonicotinoids) in the mix, so I've been searching for the ideal ever since. Yes, I have tried peat based recently, in spite of my principles. I felt that as it's used as power station fuel, my little bit wouldn't be doing so very much harm. I know, every little bit counts. I have also tried various home made mixes, with varying results (I included seaweed meal, wood ash and suchlike as well as the usual stuff).
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I did some work with the horticulture industry who use a lot of peat, they suggested that there are younger more environmentally friendly (renewable) brown peat products on the market now. Might be worth looking into...
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With the addition of Neonics and weed killers necessary in potting compost puts me off even more. Peat based compost should be free of weed seeds naturally.
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With the addition of Neonics and weed killers necessary in potting compost puts me off even more. Peat based compost should be free of weed seeds naturally.
The neonicotinoid weed killers were not intentional ingredients in the compost, but accidental. Hopefully that problem has been sorted.
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Not wanting to get into any environmental arguments here, but do any of you find as I that peat free compost is nowhere as good as peat based?. This does not include John Innis of course which is great. We have been trying to boost up this modern medium with various stuff which does help a bit, but it does not stop it from drying out too quick. Water just seems to run out of it with little retention. I think that as peat was born in water it is far more adapted to retain it.
We are now working on a home brewed potting/seed compost recipe. We take 50/50 of sieved garden soil and compost from our heap. Two kilo of this is put into VENTED polythene bags and microwaved for thirty seconds. Initial results looks promising.
A lot of the peat free stuff is pulped wood wetted with the juices of composting farm manures . Occasionaly you may even actually get some composted farm manure in the bag as well but don't count on it .
The last bag of peat free I got was was part composted green wood fibres and dozens of visible cobbles of horse muck, no straw whatsoever . It grew more weeds than a jungle .
I like the sterilizing method , have been doing it myself but I've been using a big lidded Pyrex casserole instead of a vented polybag
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The last bag of peat free I got was was part composted green wood fibres and dozens of visible cobbles of horse muck, no straw what so ever . It grew more weeds than a jungle .
I like the sterilizing method , have been doing it myself but I've been using a big lidded Pyrex casserole instead of a vented polybag .
So far I have not had a problem with weed growth in my mix. I am now working on organic fertility additives. Like powdered egg shells and used coffee grounds. Wrong time of year of course but time will tell.
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I use New Horizons Peat free as well but I can't say that it's weed free. I also had problems with beans starting to germinate in my propagator but dying. The second year this happened I found baby slugs hiding so removed them. It is just possible that they came in with the pots although I do check them before using them but I suspect they were in the compost. I will continue to use it because of the very reasonable price but this year I used organic slug pellets and had no trouble.
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Propagating slugs used to be a hobby of mine too . Then I discovered that microwaving stone free home made compost killed them and any eggs in about 2 .30 seconds min for each four pint pyrex dish of compost that got nuked .
The nuked soil was & then left to cool once emptied out on to an old kitchen tray .
I asked for a dirty old but working microwave with turn table on my local area's freecycle & got given a very good quality large 800 watt " ONN " that was very clean .