Potting on advice

[selfraising]

Some of my seedlings are ready to pot on. They are in seed compost at the moment. Do I pot them on in seed compost again or multi-purpose compost or a mix of the two? Any other potting on advice would be great too!!

[kentvegplot]

Multi-purpose should be fine- it's got more nutrients than seed compost, which is what your seedlings need now. Make sure it's open textured - if it looks a bit lumpy, sieving it can be useful. You can mix it with vermiculite or sand to make it more free-draining.

Hope that helps!

[selfraising]

That's great kentvegplot, thanks. Just spoke to daughter whos at Canterbury Uni, I'm suprised that Kent seems to have milder weather than us, she says her bulbs are already flowereing, mine have barely poked their heads out of the ground!

[Flummery]

I do everything in multipurpose. Norty step for me!

[selfraising]

I have to say, up until this year, I've used MPC as well but a friend of mine gave me some seed compost so I've used that. I have to say it's a lot finer than MPC and lighter. It'll be interesting to see if there's a difference in germination rate.

[sewer rat]

I only use MPC - I seive it for seed sowing and then for potting on I take it straight from the bag and mix it 75% MPC, 25% Vermiculite. Having said that, not a lot of my stuff gets potted on before planting out due to a) lack of time, and b) lack of space.
Any lumpy bits from the seive are bagged and this goes at the bottom of any pots I use that are over 1 litre in capacity - mostly for leeks and for fruit bush cuttings - and at the bottom of my 60 odd hanging baskets.
Two years ago I used Foremost MPC and had hardly any seivings, last year I got a pallet and a half of Gem MPC and had bags of seivings. This year will either be using Foremost or Humax.

[selfraising]

Hi sewer rat, like your lumpy bits idea! Is Humax just another form of MPC? I've seen it mentioned before on the forum.

[sewer rat]

Hi sewer rat, like your lumpy bits idea! Is Humax just another form of MPC? I've seen it mentioned before on the forum.

Yeah, Humax is just another brand name.

[SarzWix]

I sow and pot up in Multi Purpose. J Arthur Bowers was my favourite for lack of lumpy bits, but LBS (where I get my gardening stuff) stopped doing it and got Gem instead which was pants! So I've been using Humax which is a lovely consistency, slightly more sandy than a lot of other brands.
For final potting of things like tomatoes, chillis, peppers etc into their big pots, Humax is too expensive, so I use own brand (B&Q/Focus etc) mixed with some bagged topsoil.

[selfraising]

Hmmm might have to do some research into where I can get Humax cos I haven't seen it at my local garden centres (I guess they're too busy promoting their own brands!)