I note the makers of JAB compost have lost the contracts to supply B&Q, Focus DIY, and Wilko's, one can only speculate about why.
Good!
You don't need to speculate.
It's because someone else has offered to supply them cheaper.
Or, hopefully, it's because JAB "compost" is terrible quality.
Whoop Whoop & I don't do that very often because of my age ;) ;D.
I do hope it's because of all the complaints.
Great news. No more bags of unbreakable clods; multi-coloured plastic and lengths of skirting board. Disgusting stuff!
I see from their website that they took over a composting company in Yorkshire a year ago. Maybe their quality problems are traceable to that.
Quote from: Melbourne12 on December 08, 2011, 07:40:41
I see from their website that they took over a composting company in Yorkshire a year ago. Maybe their quality problems are traceable to that.
Sinclairs own there own vast tracts of peat bog - if you look at a map of scotland they basically own the top edge where no one lives, plus large areas in Lancashire around Bolton. They have to stick a percentage of green waste in now by law, hence the purchase of a composting facility for green waste. The problem with green waste is its far too variable, and always will be, and lack of quality control.
Yes, the variability of the quality of the green waste was their excuse when I complained about their composts the other year. I have not used their stuff since. However, I suspect it is all down to money in the end...... :-\
Quote from: Deb P on December 08, 2011, 15:10:10
Yes, the variability of the quality of the green waste was their excuse when I complained about their composts the other year. I have not used their stuff since. However, I suspect it is all down to money in the end...... :-\
Yea, the solution is to process it a bit more to make it consistent, but they wont do that because it costs too much (You could boil it up in water and then reduce it down again to a fine crumble). Professional growers dont bollox about with such stuff, they all grow in compost alone, a lot of them custom mixes. Its the fault of the last government, and carried on by the WetDems.
They want to stop the digging of peat to be 'green'. In practice all that will happen is they will start shipping peat in bloody great 42 tonne lorries from Checzoslokavia and the Black Forest, where they have no qualms about harvesting it. Hardly a policy designed to produce a green result.
Is B&Q Multipurpose compost, the "Which" recommended one, rebadged JAB compost?
Thanks.
Quote from: InfraDig on December 08, 2011, 15:19:42
Is B&Q Multipurpose compost, the "Which" recommended one, rebadged JAB compost?
Thanks.
it was last year, this year Scots won the contract. Since i dont work for either of them anymore, im quite happy to reveal that B&Q Multipurpose is Scotts Levington Multi Purpose, but probbaly cut down a bit to make it cheaper.
We have to use peat free compost under RHS guidelines. I do not have enough 'home grown' so I get a couple of tons from the council composting site to mix with our own, with some added ingredients. They cannot call the council stuff compost so they sell it as soil improver. If I cannot get up to the tip and pick my own I drop the loader a drink now and again,so when he knows it's for us we do not get the fresher stuff. What the driver does bring is pretty good though and I expect it is from the older piles. At about £12 a ton it is good value. Don't bother getting any between xmas and easter as can be a bit fresh and full of xmas tree waste, (including the tinsel ).
I did buy a bag of peat free once as somebody mentioned that it deters vine weavil. Chipboard and pulped wood made up most of the ingredients and it held too much moisture. Most of the plants in the pots rotted off.
I did hear that all the wood that washed up on the south coast a few years ago, that the receiver of wrecks would not let us on the beach to collect, was pulped up for composting.
Another good use for the soil improver is to mix it with fresh wood chippings for a mulch. What the wood chippings initially take from the soil while rotting down is replace by the council stuff. A couple of years of doing this really makes a lovely tilth in your beds.
Thanks ACE, good info and a couple of good tips there 8)