[katog]

What do you think of an "Organic" Potting compost which has Melamine board in it's composition? I think that must have formaldehyde in it which is poisonous and if so would it transmit poison to veggies growing in it?.

[Mel]

Never heard of it,do you have a link? I don't believe I would use it,there again,I make my own!

[deepinthewoods]

i would report it under the trades descriptions act as being unfit for purpose!
 
what a cheek.

[Ina]

I've found all sorts of contamination in compost. It's very difficult to keep everything out in a commercial compost plant...

[escapedtothecountry]

I sometimes have similar worries about topsoil. I need to buy some for raised beds and the other bits that Im doing in the garden and yet how can you know what sort of nasties might be in.


If only there was a bulk supplier of spent mushroom compost nearby  that's what I'd be buying.

[deepinthewoods]

you can make your own topsoil by stacking turves upside down.

[escapedtothecountry]

Think I need about 20 tonnes.... and no Im not digging that much turf up before you suggest it 

[deepinthewoods]

try your local turf supplier to see if he has any left overs. i got about a ton for free that way a few years back

[Lesley Silvester]

Think I need about 20 tonnes.... and no Im not digging that much turf up before you suggest it 

You'd need to dig up a field to get that much.   

[escapedtothecountry]

Its actually amazing how little an amount 20 tonnes would be (if you dont have to dig it yourself). I made the builders we had fill my raised bed with all the soil dug out from the foundations for our extension. I reckon my 4 large raised beds (made up of 6 railway sleepers each in a rectangular formation probably have 10 tonnes of earth in each.

[bloomer]

we have supplied and installed raised beds all over the place, often for schools etc, the standard bed we supply if 8ft x4ft x 16 inches high, it takes about 1.25 tons to fill it and after a year you will need to top it up with up to another .25 tons!!!

[deepinthewoods]

i started my beds of with 10 tonnes in total, i had 5 ton of well rotted donkey manure delivered, the rest i made from compost or from digging up the leafmould from the horse churned  paths through the wood. i aim to make 2 ton of compost a year, ive yet to hit that target but ive had over a ton this year.
 i got quite a bit back from laying out the chooks run with a thick layer of straw, let them dig it in and decompose it, add more, do the process again , then let it mature a bit and shovel it up, mixed in with compost its great.

[Tala Orchard]

We have found all sorts of things in compost this year, we normally buy UK compost however our this year demand outstripped supply some weeks and so we purchased some from Lidls about 150bags of it, and we found chopped up crisp packets, lumps of painted wood and chrysalis of insects and eggs of spiders and snails, bit of yoghurt pots etc, we contacted Lidls and were told that it came from a UK supplier and was bagged in the UK.  It turns out that this if from council collections of supposed compostable materials. Does this mean that we have to be wary of compost in-future as we must pot up a few thousand plants a year.

[bloomer]

for the amounts you need surely bulk buying direct from a manufacturer would be better and help assure quality.


for my work i buy various blends for different projects from pure soil to pure compost to mixes with sand in, getting the supplier to mix to my spec and supply in bulk bags or loose makes life much easier, the only contaminants i have found in recent times are the odd rock and the often found bailing twine (lots of the compost id horse manure based from stables etc)

[deepinthewoods]

the majority of superrmarket/cheap suppliers are now using council made compost. its awful.
 buy from a reputed supplier, . especially in bulk quantities,ive yet to have a bad bag of j arthur bowers
 
 i remember bringing this issue up in the spring.