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Georgie,did any of those plants you repotted pick up ??

Oh and I thought my gardening abilities were diminishing.  So this thread offers some form of reassurance. Last year I bought 2 for 1 60litres of Westland Garden Health compost.  Terrible stuff.  Only recently have I thought it may be the compost and have gone for some John Innes multi-purpose.  Too late for many of my non starters.

I received a £20. 00 cheque for complaining about the Erin. I sent them the empty bag & the 'rubble' that I had sieved. They think there was a blockage in the system. Handled much more efficiently than JAB.

Quote from: betula on July 13, 2011, 21:46:18
Georgie,did any of those plants you repotted pick up ??

So far no.   :(  But I only repotted a few, fed a few others and left the rest as a control. Early days, will keep you posted.

G x

Hi all

Time to give you all an update.  I wrote to Scotts with the following message:

'I am writing to let you know that I am very disappointed with the compost I have purchased from you this year. In May I bought four 50l bags of Miracle Gro Organic Choice all purpose peat free compost from A J Clockhouse in Enfield. I used it in containers for potting on a variety of plants I'd grown from seeds including herbs, salad crops and flowers. None of them flourished. All sat there in their containers neither growing nor keeling over. At first I put it down to the strange weather we had in early June but after 6-8 weeks I realised that for whatever reason the plants were simply not getting the nutrients they needed to thrive. Whether this was down to the soil being too acidic or lacking the nutrients in the first place I do not know. By way of an experiment I changed the compost in some containers, added additional feed to others and left some as they were. The ones that got new (different) compost and those that were fed are beginning to pick up but the others are still stunted or have died. I have some of the compost left if you would like me to send a sample for testing.

I look forward to receiving your response.'

And they responded as follows today:

'Thank you for your enquiry, I am sorry to hear that you have not achieved a good result following the use of the Miracle-Gro compost earlier in the year.

This product is made to high specification that includes good levels of nutrients to get plants off to a good start. Once established, with regular feeding plants should then flourish. It is interesting that the plants have done better in new compost and where additional feed has been applied.

It will not be possible to analyse compost after this time as changes will have taken place. The best advise [sic] is to try and encourage better plant growth with liquid feeding using  Tomorite or Miracle-Gro soluble plant food. These are balanced feeds that contain good levels of potash and trace elements to improve the vigour and health of the plants.

To this end, we will send garden vouchers to you that can be put towards the suggested additional feeding.'

So they seem to be suggesting that in order for plants to grow in this compost they need additional even in the first six to eight weeks?   ???

Views welcome.   :)

G x

HI, Georgie had the same problem , I phoned them they said if I would like to send the bags back to them at my cost they would send me some more well told them that they will be getting no more money out of me. Am know buying compost from hydrogrow systems.co.uk dont buy it direct from them as the postage is very expensive  the site tells you were your local stockist is I pay £13-50p for a bag it is compost based it is 100 better than anything else i have used look them up it may help you (plagron royalty mix)

Quote from: Georgie on August 11, 2011, 19:52:00
Hi all

Time to give you all an update.  I wrote to Scotts with the following message:

'I am writing to let you know that I am very disappointed with the compost I have purchased from you this year. In May I bought four 50l bags of Miracle Gro Organic Choice all purpose peat free compost from A J Clockhouse in Enfield. I used it in containers for potting on a variety of plants I'd grown from seeds including herbs, salad crops and flowers. None of them flourished. All sat there in their containers neither growing nor keeling over. At first I put it down to the strange weather we had in early June but after 6-8 weeks I realised that for whatever reason the plants were simply not getting the nutrients they needed to thrive. Whether this was down to the soil being too acidic or lacking the nutrients in the first place I do not know. By way of an experiment I changed the compost in some containers, added additional feed to others and left some as they were. The ones that got new (different) compost and those that were fed are beginning to pick up but the others are still stunted or have died. I have some of the compost left if you would like me to send a sample for testing.

I look forward to receiving your response.'

And they responded as follows today:

'Thank you for your enquiry, I am sorry to hear that you have not achieved a good result following the use of the Miracle-Gro compost earlier in the year.

This product is made to high specification that includes good levels of nutrients to get plants off to a good start. Once established, with regular feeding plants should then flourish. It is interesting that the plants have done better in new compost and where additional feed has been applied.

It will not be possible to analyse compost after this time as changes will have taken place. The best advise [sic] is to try and encourage better plant growth with liquid feeding using  Tomorite or Miracle-Gro soluble plant food. These are balanced feeds that contain good levels of potash and trace elements to improve the vigour and health of the plants.

To this end, we will send garden vouchers to you that can be put towards the suggested additional feeding.'

So they seem to be suggesting that in order for plants to grow in this compost they need additional even in the first six to eight weeks?   ???

Views welcome.   :)

G x

Allow me to translate:

"It may well be our compost, but were going to claim its too late to analyse it, so you cant prove a thing. Here's some vouchers, now bugger off"

An interesting reply but one that I would expect!

The key points seems to agree with the consensus in this thread namely;

QuoteThis product is made to high specification that includes good levels of nutrients to get plants off to a good start.

Quote
It will not be possible to analyse compost after this time as changes will have taken place

I took this issue up with the RHS a few years ago to see if they can have the 'spec' written on the bags like the quantity!

For example most bags have a statement to the effect that this bag contained X litres of compost and the time of packaging, could we not have say" this bag has an NPK  of a//b/c at time of packaging as well?

Apparently the first part is in law but the second is not required by law!

So as the RHS said; until it is law there is nothing anyone can do about it, which I thought was a poor answer as I had asked them "WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT?"

QuoteThe best advise [sic] is to try and encourage better plant growth with liquid feeding  using  Tomorite or Miracle-Gro soluble plant food.

WHY SHOULD WE? should be the reply to this statement!

If the spec is so good there would have been no need to add more of THEIR products to get the results we require!

QuoteIt is interesting that the plants have done better in new compost and where additional feed has been applied.

The reply here should be; if the initial spec had been any good there would be no need to do this either!

QuoteOnce established, with regular feeding plants should then flourish.

But we do not use this compost on 'ESTABLISHED' plants we use it on seedlings, and this is the time your initaial spec should come in to play but obviously it doesn't

QuoteThese are balanced feeds that contain good levels of potash and trace elements to improve the vigour and health of the plants.

Could this be construed as the initial spec is not a 'balanced' one?

Then why is this?

The mind boggles :o

I suppose there is one consolation you got some recopence back(vouchers) to purchase more of their rubbish, I would spend it on Tomorite I have found this not too bad but I would stay clear of their compost!

Is it any wonder there are riots around us when commerce & politics treat us like this?

I am glad I am nearing the end of my gardening career because I don't think I could have spent the last fortyodd years with practices like these around me!

I feel sorry for the younger gardeners coming along when the have 'a crop failure' that is not down to them but is due to  the stuff they are buying that is not fit for purpose!

Sad!!!!  :( :( :(

"Up the revolution"  8)

No compost maker will print the recipe on the bag,  every one is a trade secret. Sinclair's have a database of over 10,000 recipies, and only about a dozen peopel have access, its a bit like coca cola.....

Thank so much for your speedy replies. :)

Rugbypost, I will look into your recommendation.  :)

Lincsyokel and Tee Gee you have cheered me up no end.  ROFL  ;D 

I toyed with entering into a dialogue with Scotts but assumed I'd be wasting my time.  So I'll see what value the vouchers are before I do anything else.  I think the compost cost me about £20...

G x

 ;D ;D ;D, oh Tee Gee, you rebel! Absolutely agree with everything you posted.

Of course they can do something about it. They can get the officials and the MP's to agree to change the stupid law.

I am convinced that these companies are buying the rubbish that we put in our brown bins. Lets face it where do you put your grass cuttings after spraying the lawn with weed killer. What do you do with your carrot root fly infested carrots, the trimmings from you conifers and bits of rotten wood and old canes. We fill up our bins with anything that we would not ever  dream of putting on our compost heaps. I wonder how much these companies pay for a ton of the stuff. And I ask are they really sterilised to a high degree. We had this discussion last year and like grannyjanny said after sieving 70 litres of JAB their was barely enough soil to fill a couple of tubs. I found old bits of leather and laminate flooring and all manner of unidentifiable things. There is recycling and recycling. I was told all this by my friendly man at our local tip. All big woody stuff is pulverised and made into cat litter.

Well folks, my vouchers from Scotts arrived this morning so I'm off on a mega shopping spree tomorrow if I can find someone from Securicor to accompany me to the garden centre.  Can't be too careful around here these days, especially with a whole £6 to spend.  ;D  ;D  ;D     >:(  ::)

G x

What a disgrace G,get on the blower and tell em you want your money back as the stuff was not fit for purpose............tell them you will report it to Trading standards >:( Don't let them get away with it x

Quote from: queenbee on August 12, 2011, 22:13:48
I am convinced that these companies are buying the rubbish that we put in our brown bins. Lets face it where do you put your grass cuttings after spraying the lawn with weed killer. What do you do with your carrot root fly infested carrots, the trimmings from you conifers and bits of rotten wood and old canes. We fill up our bins with anything that we would not ever  dream of putting on our compost heaps. I wonder how much these companies pay for a ton of the stuff. And I ask are they really sterilised to a high degree. We had this discussion last year and like grannyjanny said after sieving 70 litres of JAB their was barely enough soil to fill a couple of tubs. I found old bits of leather and laminate flooring and all manner of unidentifiable things. There is recycling and recycling. I was told all this by my friendly man at our local tip. All big woody stuff is pulverised and made into cat litter.

the problem is the last labour government committed the country to reducing the us eof peat,  in composts, and for ten years the compost makers have been trying to find a credible alternative, and believe me, all sorts has been tried, from shredded carpet (leaches chemicals)  to cocoa fibre (shipping it 5000 miles isnt very green). Its all got a snag to it. Furthermore,  this and the last government has an irrational  fetish for recycling. The fact is all the stuff you but in the brown bin could go straight into landfill and help fill the hole in, because its all natural compostible stuff, but forced to make recycling pay its own way, the council sell it (the going rate is about £10 a tonne.) So the Compost Makers are being squeezed from all sides, and the days of beautiful, dark, black peat based compost are numbered. Your best bet, having been on the inside , is cocoa firbe  based stuff, the JAB New Horizon stuff.  Compost based on anything other than peat or cocoa fibre isnt going to get any better for a long while.

I am thinking of making my own for next year.  Does anyone have a recipe and how do I sterilise my loam/soil?

it's disgusting,the crap we have to put up with ,I'm fed up spending good money on the rubbish compost,blaming myself for the failures ,the seeds ,everything but the compost,until this year .i wont buy anymore going to make my own there must be a recipe out there lets get looking a4a.

Quote from: lottie lou on August 13, 2011, 22:53:14
I am thinking of making my own for next year.  Does anyone have a recipe and how do I sterilise my loam/soil?

Ah thats the expensive bit, and the debateable bit. If you sterilise it you may well kill nasty stuff, but you will also kill the good stuff. Ive never sterilised it yet, the trick is to not take it from your allotment.

John Innes seed compost: In the following loam is sterilized and peat and loam are passed through 9mm sieve.

# 2 loam, 1 peat, 1 sand, and
# 0.6kg ground limestone and
# 1.2kg superphosphate per 1 cubic metre of mix.

John Innes Compost for Cuttings:
# 1 loam, 2 peat, 1 sand no fertilizer.

John Innes Composts No's 1 - 3:
# Mix 7 loam, 3 peat, 2 sand

plus one of the following fertilizer mixes:-

J.I. Compost No. 1 Fertilizer to add per 1 cubic metre of mix.
# 0.6kg ground limestone,
# 1.2kg hoof and horn,
# 1.2kg superphosphate,
# 0.6 kg potassium sulphate.

J.I. Compost No. 2 Fertilizer to add per 1 cubic metre of mix.
# 0.6kg ground limestone,
# 2.4kg hoof and horn,
# 2.4kg superphosphate,
# 1.2kg potassium sulphate.

J.I. Compost No. 3 Fertilizer to add per 1 cubic metre of mix.
# 0.6kg ground limestone,
# 3.6kg hoof and horn,
# 3.6kg superphosphate,
# 1.8kg potassium sulphate.

1pot of soil 1compost 1 course sand mix and get planting!Would sterilise the soil ,Will give this a try .