The latest growing trial test results from Gardening Which.

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Nice one for that OT .....

Just to add to it about the Westlands Multi with added JI, all the ones i've found/used come in 60L bags and you get 3 for the price of 2, it states this on the bags and has done for years. The new formula it states it has is just more JI from what I can tell, it's a lot more gritty now but saying that i've had plants in the new stuff for a few weeks now and they're looking really well for it. I reckon it should be able to keep a plant looking better for longer with the extra JI, time will tell.....

Hope you don't mind OT....

RAZ

whats it say then
i cant read it with or without glasses!!!

You clicked for the large pic? Its crystal clear for me and I have appalling eyesight.



Not at all Raz, feed back about what works well for our fav plant is what the site is about.

Aye, I managed to read it even without my specs on

RAZ

I enlarge and save a copy to use this technology to see it


NK.

Thanks OT, most informative for both the Grow and this Years Gardening!
Shame they have not got "Natures Own" on there - its brilliant for the Grow.

Hiya can I just check that I'm reading this right, cause I need to go out and buy my compost tomorrow.
Does this chart mean that from start to finish, the best for my grow would be Levingtons multi-purpose compost?
Or is it not that easy?
Cheers

I'd go with the Westland with added JI over the Levingtons Ali

I tried this stuff last year, and ALL my plants went yellow after a couple of weeks 12/12......

Westlands Multi with added JI is one of the best as far as i'm concerned......

RAZ

And after reading about Levingtons raping the ecosystem to obtain peat by whatever method they saw fit, put me off ever buying it again!

cheers, cheers, and cheers again

re: levingtons mp



I'm on my first grow with it and my Nlxhaze plant is stunning, maybe it depends on which var you grow




Still, according to that I will be changing to westlands next time...raping the ecosystem ain't good at all

OT posted a link about it sb - i'll have a look for it tomorrow as i couldn't find it earlier.

Here ya go sb - http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releas...1201010051.html

I had a number of strains, Chronic, Blueberry, Master Kush and NYCD. All went yellow at about the same time.....

The stuff is pure when it comes to growing canna in it ....

RAZ

RAZ I think we need to take into account that there have been reports where members have done well with Levingtons mp.

One of the good things about Gardening Which is, when they do their trials, they buy 6 or more bags of each type of compost each bag from different garden centres. The Westlands mp with added JI although it did very well did not get a recommended because they also got a couple of dud bags. This may have nothing to do with Westlands formulation but that a garden centre had some old stock.

Gardening Which have been campaigning for years for the compost manufacturers to stamp the bags with a sell by date as it is a product that goes off. The full compost report is several pages and the difference in the plants between the best and worst composts or between good and bad batches is pretty stunning.

So this is not about Westlands or Levingtons but that it can be a bit of a lottery, ie get your compost as fresh as you can, with fresh made compost, the better your chances of success are. Keep an eye on the garden centres when you see new deliveries of compost, thats the time to buy. September to the end of Jan mid Feb they don’t sell much and chances are its old. Ask them how old it is, some places are very friendly, will tell you, or when fresh is due in.

Levingtons Multi-national compost........



thanks Bish. I noticed however that this press release dates back to 1998, since which time (2002 to be precise) the govt has designated Thorne Moors & Hatfield Moors as Special Areas of Conservation to stop destructive peat cutting. I suppose Levingtons import their peat now...(I've tried their helpline but get no answer atm).

How do other brands compare in the ethical stakes? It's hard to balance the organic/ethical compost equation
in my opinion, allmix for example contains peat whilst the ones that don't have poor results. Non-organic peat free brands fair better but it seems you can't have your cake and eat it...

Your probably right in saying it was an old bag OT, i've noticed that there pallet of Lev's go's down very slowly, where-as the Westlands seems to fly out, even at this time of year. I had the very same prob with Allmix, where everything yellowed when put in flower. The only compost that has'nt given me these effects is the Westlands, so whether it's a water thing or old stock they're both something I won't be using again.....

RAZ

Post up here if you get a response from levingtons sb - would be interested to know myself.

Some interesting points raised in this thread about peat.

A lot of organic gardeners are against the use of peat - they consider it inorganic. And i can see where they're coming from. I still use peat based composts as i have good results with them. I've used the peat free JAB & had terrible results with it - but that's not to say it won't or can't be improved over time.

I suspect peat based mediums will be a thing of the past in the not too distant future.

Cheere OT give a usefull info guide

Is your water soft or hard Raz?

I notice Westlands spec is that its ph is between 5.5 and 6, if you are on soft or rainwater I would have thought adding a little dolomite lime or calcified seaweed would make things even better.

I'm using the Westlands too, but a couple of months ago I had a single bag of Allimx from one of the other members here. I was due to re-pot some plants into their final pots and so used most of it in the one go, also adding Soil Secrets granules to some.
It was like someone had waved a yellow wand over all the plants. Within a few days they were all suffering so badly, the only thing to do was to remove them and re-pot into Westlands again. Even then, recovery and re-vegging the plants took a great deal of time. The yellow growth stayed stopped growing until new growth from beneath had overtaken it and finally the plants shed all the old yellow leaves. It was a massive lock-out and seemed to shut down the plant's ability to take up nutes almost entirely.
Our tap-water supply is soft, which I was using at the time, as the last time I tried Allmix, I had used rainwater with it with similar, but slightly less dramatic results.

I dunno, could the Allmix micro-herd be somehow less robust and more susceptible temperature variations than other composts? I ask because I don’t actually use anything to measure the water temps, going instead with the old stick-yer-finger-in-it routine to gauge the temp, and it’s the only variable I can think of at the mo.

We have soft water OT, think I might give the calcified seaweed a try... Cheers

RAZ

Aye, give the seaweed a try Raz.

I'm using Westlands with added JI plus rainwater (ph 7) - haven't had any probs as such, but just started using the seaweed & the plants couldn't be any healthier

I had pretty similar results to Raz when i tried All-Mix. The All-mix was bought from the UK420 shop (when branching were doin' it) and arrived on my doorstep fluffy and clean lookin', and lookedand felt like good stuff, but just as Raz says, t'was like the yellowin' wand had been waved after just 10 days 12/12 and i had hell of a job tryin' to keep them lookin' vaguely health. So i went back to usin' some compost from my local grow shop called 'Special Mix' (in a plain gold sack, can't remember the brand ) and back to no probs at all. Usin' Westlands MP for this grow, (mostly 'cause it's a 1/4 the price) and all is lookin' good so far.


BTW, i always use rootgrow or Soil Secrets whichever compost i'm usin'.

nigfis I just can’t answer you question because I to be honest don’t have a clue why, I can only speculate. I am just finishing off an allmix grow, its the first time I have tried it in several years, what ever they say, I know its been reformulated, was offered some very fresh, so gave it a try.

I’ve seen no yellowing or Mg problems, I still don’t like it, there seems to be to much N for my liking, leaves very deep green, practically unnatural. Our water is hard about 7.8 with plenty of carbonates. The plants have been in allmix for over 16 weeks with no real problems, I used it from pricking out.

I might get a couple of bags of the Westland mp with JI to see what it does. I like to try new things and there is no way I can really comment unless I have grown with it.

What could inhibit plants in a few day, I really don’t know, it sounds like their roots were damaged or they took something out of the compost that did for them. Because if left in the small pots they would not yellow like that, as nutrients ran out growth would slow and the stem would lignify, then lower leaves would start to yellow giving up nutrients to keep the meristem going. All that would take weeks.

That is really weird, the only thing I can think is that somehow the compost had gone anaerobic and there had been a build up of toxic byproducts. To have it happen on two seperate times, I just don’t know!

spoke to someone at Scott's products earlier with my query and he said he'd get someone to call me back this afternoon....this hasn't happened yet but I will post the response when it does

I have used Levingtons and had good results. Allmix and me don't get on at all - don't know why. But as it contains mined peat I would not use it anyway.
Not all peat based compostsd are bad. I am using "Natures Own" which uses a non-mined peat which is harvested from moorland streams that naturally carry small particles of peat (called "Moorland Gold"). Mixed with either coir or perlite it has proved itself in my Growroom anyway, and is fully organic.
It is available from This place, hope this isn't spam.

Ok, I've just had a call from Scott's advice line. At first the chap I spoke to seemed to 'circle' around the issue of peat sourcing and instead talked about the steady increase in 'green compost' used in their products. I was told how Scotts are "adhering to govt guidelines" and "marketing pressures" and how Scotts have "donated 1000's of acres of peat land to English Heritage" (how altruistic). I pressed him on the peat issue and was eventually told that "some is imported from Ireland and some comes from Scotland". Apparently Scotts have bought up Scottish peat sites from some company that went bankrupt (he mentioned the Stirling area)

The guy was very articulate and well trained in PR, that was obvious. He listed several products such as 'Miracle Eco-grow' and 'Murphy's Multi-purpose' and the ICI garden range (I shuddered a bit at this point, IC fucking I ?) Yes, Scotts own everything and everyone it seems. He was also quite dismissive of 'Friends of the Earth' saying that "their trouble is they only draw attention to the negative points and fail to acknowledge the good work done by Scotts". He also argued that peat sites were sustainable (or at least refuted my opinion that they weren't) and lauded the fact that "you can't get much more organic than peat"

hmm...I have been left feeling less than convinced

p.s. thanks for the Nature's Own tip Arnold

Indeed Thanks for sharing the info sb.

Shame on you AL!!!

Thought you were a real Yorkie! Ah well

You live and learn, I mean, would a real Yorkshire man spend that much on compost? I DONT FINK SOOOOO

Me, I'm gonna stick to the cheapo Focus Peat Brand at 7p a litre iirc.

Typical tight-fisted southerner I see. Ah well.....

In answer to your question: A green Yorkshireman!
Peat will give you psycholsis G, or is that Skunk? I can never recall......

hi all

i was at our small local garden center yesterday, they had sold out of westlands mp with ji perlite. the owner showed me some levingtons m3 professional range potting compost that they use for most of their plants at the garden center.

i realise that the levingtons debate is ongoing but i bought 2 bags to try it. £4.85 for 75ltr and it has a lovely texture.

looked on the net for info and found a few vegetable growers use this m3 compost, we will see !!

cheers jon

I recently tried some New Horizon peat free organic compost and thought I would share my thoughts on it.

Firstly I only bought it as the local supermarket had a new delivery of the stuff and i needed to pot on some plants rather rapidly so it seemed easiest.

Bad move on my part tbh some of the plants had a 50/50 mix of new horizon and allmix as I had a little left from my last grow. (so the allmix was fairly old) The other half of the plants had just new horizon. All of them were treated with a pinch of calcified seaweed and soil secrets funghi.

Within 2 days almost all the plants had some signs of yellowing, not in the way nitrogen deficiency causes, but in odd patches on the leaves and the top growth was a bit twisted looking. Those in the neat new horizon were by far the worst affected. A couple of the ones in the allmix/nh mix were perfectly normal looking. Only 1 or 2 of them had any odd patches.

Within a week the new horizon ones were getting worse and started to look hungry too so had a drop of fishmix and maxicrop. The ones in the mixed composts looked all normal at this point and had no added feeds at all. The yellow patches did not get any worse at all and the only issue was the couple of yellow patches that had showed up a couple of days after potting on.

I also found that those in the neat NH were dry within 2 days and those in the mix needed watering every 3-4 days.

So anyway needless to say I won't be using the New Horizon peat free again. All the plants have now been potted on and those in the neat NH had as much of the old compost removed as possible during the repot.

Sorry but New Horizon peat free gets a definate thumbs down from me.

EO.

Hmmmmmmmmm, I've used NHPF for over a year and I love it I use it from clones all the way to chop, I'm using BioBizz for feed, maybe you got a bad batch

Yeah you could well be right s2001 I am sure Ot posted to say that new horizon peat free was tested in the compost trials that Which ran, but they had a couple of bags which weren't good too....

tbh I didnt give it much of chance either, I potted on with allmix as soon as I could. I know that other growers use it happily too.

I'm still a learner when it comes to compost but i grow my young uns in westlands

I have just this morning bought some Westlands mp with ji peat free.I must say it smells a hell of a lot different than the original and has quite a few big wooden splinters in it

We'll see if it performs the same

Dont look as good though

Owd

Just like to add my finding & my reasons for swapping to what im using now :


I was using wilkos 99p Mp compost with pertile for many months/grows , however i have noticed that the wilko mp drys out very quickly leaving the plants dry most of the time meaning watering is needed most days also every single bag ive had contains some sort of white fly in the compost a few weeks after potting up & putting the compost in the flower room id start to see fly's emerging from the compost , i know there not harmful but i dont want them in my room

Ive come to the conclision over the months that wilkos Mp must contain the larve of these fly's hence them coming out after being in the warmth


Ive now ditch the wilkos mp compleltly & now use in my mix 60% B&Q mp 30% natures own & 10% pertile , not a bug in sight its a very light airey mix thats holds water very well no more watering everyday , this is the 1st gow using this though so cant comment on anything else YET

My 2ps worth ...

Mna you would think with all the money spent by these company's that one could actually bring out a descent fully organic compost that actually works well .

This new bag of allmix i got few weeks ago has loads of hair biuts of wood etc etc in there , my young uns look like shit init , started in rootriot blocks from seed and one rooted through put into small pots with all mix then voilla wierd leaves started and it even burned the top of one of em so half the leaf looked crisp ,3rd set of leaves cumming out now look ok this stuff is just way to hit and miss if you ask me.

Yet i dont want the hasself of hydro i kinda like soil/compost feels kinda right if you know what i mean.

But, Allmix isn't going down the organic route of not using peat. All or most organic mediums available, are peat free.

ok so after reading thisthreadihave decided to change my medium from bio-bizz all mix to westlands MP with added JI and what a great choice to make.I have now got 6 bags of the stuff and it didnt cost me an arm and a leg

BUT i have 2 types of Westlands 1 normal and one with this west plus formulae ,Whats that when its at home??????

They've only just brought out the new fomula mate. I haven't used it yet. let us know here how you get on with it.

And they also do a peat free.

This is a very useful thread if I might say.

I am currently (and have always been) using Biobiz Lightmix for my plants. I've been using this medium for some time, partly because the guy in the growshop advised it was good stuff (if you didn't have much experience with growing), and partly because I haven't had any problems using it. He reckoned that I was less likely to get into trouble with Light Mix because as the compost doesn't really contain much in the way of feed for a plant any problems i subesquently encountered with the plants could easily be traced back to the levels of feed I was using.

However, it's getting to be a bit expensive to replace and so I thought it was time to look for a cheaper alternative. Could anyone therefore suggest a compost that has very similar characteristics to the Light Mix please?

Also, am I right in now thinking that the Light Mix should be used for say seedlings and cuttings and i would then move onto something else (All Mix?) for the vegging/flowering?

Ta in advance.

Aye.

Westlands MP's are faultless TR, & you can pick up 80 litres for a fiver Just mix in a little extra perlite for seedlings & cuttings, until you know what your var can/can not cope with - but i've never found Westlands to be too hot. But it's always better to be on the safe side.

I got a bag of the westland with added john innes and west plus a couple of weeks ago.I have some sun flowers in it as well as some chillis and some chronic.I dont know what the west+ is but it is white-ish and almost looks like some kind of straw,and even though i took care not to over water, the compost has a greeny look to it after a couple of waterings.

Thanks Bish.

That's very useful. Westlands it is!

I just had a real close look again and think that the west+ is deffo straw.

BISH


I will keep you updated im just about to repot into it so lets see what happens

ghengas




Cheers dude

i am using westlands with west+ at the moment along side allmix
both are growing well though there only just goinig in to flower this week but the west+ seems to need watering less