How do you make ericaceous compost?

[Jaxom]

If they returned to the days of deposits on bottles and refunds on return then Kids would actively seek out rubbish to pick up and return. As a kid I used to seek out beer bottles that the teenagers used to throw in bushes to hide their evidence. Sweets always tasted so much nicer when bought with the money I saw as being free and no one could question how I spent it.
Jax (Recycling 35 years ago)

[nick the grief]

I stillactivley seek out beer bottles Jax, only they're full now not empty

[Jaxom]

There are now bracken based ericaceous composts coming slowly onto the market, see:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magaz...581065,00.html
http://www.samshrub.co.uk/compost.htm
Normally ericaceous is:
three parts (by volume) moss peat, one part sharp lime-free sand or perlite and chempak. However you could substitute the peat for bark, add sand or perlite, skip the chempak and leave it to compost in a seperate bin.

Andrewo, the liks were very helpful. many thanks.
Jax

[pigletwillie]

In large parts of Africa you can only buy dinks in glass bottles as they do not have the facilities to keep making plastic ones. We should go like Ireland and have a tax on platic carrier bags which would cut consumption of them down and indeed go to brown paper sacks like America.

You can cut down a good chunk of your bin by not buying things in plastic bottles or tetrapacks and taking the glass to a recycle bin which actually get collected for recycling unlike the council collections.

Two of us live in our home and our standard wheelie bin is put out for collection about once a month, rather than once a week.

Fresh produce has no packaging.

[BUFFS]

Answer.... Buy a bag of Peat.
I was at the garden centre and turned a bag of ericaceous compost over to read the instructions and there in small print it said, "This product contains 100% peat"
There was me thinking I was being so good not buying peat due to environmental concerns and buying ericaceous compost instead only to find out I was still buying 100% peat.
Jax

i compost some fruit/veg seperately,citrus peel shredded liberally into one lot gives me a constant(after 12 mths) supply for my magnolias,azaleas,etc,and after 6 years of doing it,i havent found any obvious problems so far,all my limehating plants are flourishing and flowering away quite happily

[snohare]

I am reliably informed that pine needles are also ericaceous, I have met people who use them as compost on ericaceous plants with no problems. Not too surprising really when you look at the acidity of the soil under a mature conifer plantation.

[Katharine]

There is one peat free ericaceous compost on the market, but it is only available mail order.... Lakeland Gold - bracken based soil conditioner - natural peat free organic fertiliser in fact all of their composts are peat free!

[Two_Sheds]

There's more than one Katharine:
Monty Don's peat-free compost - Telegraph

[binley100]

Question..........if I fill a bag with bracken as I do with leaves, will it rot down over the year to make me some compost to use in Mont's recipe ?