Furious over seed compost!

[bobbin]

Well...bought a 25L bag of Levingtons seed compost. Had one last year...fine. Year before bit crap but used it. This year awful. I don't know how they dare sell it for seeds. I've had to put EVERY single scoop through a sieve and as its damp that was no mean feat. Still some to go but I've two sizeable plant pots full of fibre, (like a wool jumper) lumps of wood I can't break down.sticks and a couple of stones. It's so damn time consuming as well.
Yes I know it's mandatory for there to be a % of recycled material in each bag. I'm fine with that and were it for the garden or compost pots I'd have no problem. But how can tiny seeds ..amazing though they are battle through all this crap. That's the reason I bought because it's reasonably fine or "open texture " as they laughingly refer to it. I also wanted a medium low in nutrients.
Anyway if you wish to AVOID it it's LEVINGTONS SEED COMPOST WITH JOHN INNIS. £4.99.
I will be contacting the company.

[muddled]

Thanks for the heads up, I'll give that one a miss!

[Bigmallly]

I don't blame you bobbin, seed compost is supposed to be a fine medium, try this if you get stuck:

Scotts Professional - manufacturer and suplier of growing media, fertilisers and plant protection products

[SaraJH]

I dint know whether I've been lucky or not but the Verve MPC I have bought this year has been superb, literally nothing in the bag apart from crumbly fine brown stuff. I'm using this for all my seeds, when I get around to planting........#lazybones

[donksey]

Classic First World Problem.

[Martin H]

I agree with Sara about the texture of the Verve MPC. I do seive it but don't often find much.

I use MPC for all quick-germinating seeds, like most veggies. For anything more uncertain or temperamental I use John Innes seed compost because it's low in nutrients and doesn't go mouldy. This year I bought Verve JI, it does need seiving though because it has pebbles, lumps of clay and lumps of peat in it.

I get the impression that quality control on compost ingredients is rubbish nowadays. First world problems indeed...

[Penellype]

I agree the general standard of compost seems to be declining. I've given up on seed composts altogether and my last experience of Levington was that simply nothing would grow in it.

Recently I sowed some spinach using Westland MPC which I usually use and have had very few problems with. My method is to fill the container with compost to slightly below the level I want, level it and water, then sprinkle on the seeds and cover with a layer of compost which I rub between my hands to remove any large lumps. I've done it this way for years. This time when I washed my hands afterwards I noticed they were covered in scratches as though I had been rubbing something sharp. More fool me for not wearing gloves, I suppose.

PS I do not have soft "ladies" hands - horses and gardening see to that!

[Kirk]

Think I am on my 3rd bag of compost and this final one seems half reasonable, little more the half however. The previous 2 were poor. Will say this one has sat in the bag for a full year so in a way had another year to compost a bit more.

For seedlings I have taken to mixing half of this with half of the "potting on" compost I had, seems to make a reasonable mix.

The first seed compost was so poor I added it all to the raised bed and didn't really bother with it. Think I described it on here as more akin to poor mattress stuffing in texture.

It is all getting a bit hit and miss concerning what you end up with and even the same stuff from the same place alters - thinking of the Verve here. I suspect that depends on the source that B&Q obtained it from and which ones make it to the store where and when it was purchased.

[gardengeordie]

I bought four bags of it and it was damp and full of twigs last years was fine

[cptncrackoff]

I'm very suprised to hear this! Levingtons has always been kind to me!
I don't use seed compost though..

I use levingtons MPC for all my growing, ok, I'm buying through work at £3.60 for 75lt but I'd pay more.
It has very little fibre and wood when sieved, its dark, delicious and behaves well, moisture wise..

I'd get on to where you bought it, you'll probably get little response and have to contact the manufacturer!

Regarding compost in general, I'm sure I read that all multi purpose composts have to contain a certain percentage of reclaimed, perhaps not the best word...
'Green waste'... By some sort of regulation!?
I

[Philthy]

I think I normally buy Levington seed compost. Not bought any this time around as I had half a bag left over from last year. I sieve it, mainly to get out the bits of wood (agree, why is this in seed compost anyway), but I expect it to be a quick process and get equally annoyed it it isn't.
I use a larger holed sieve on growbag compost as that's usually quite lumpy and I prefer to use it in GH pots over MPC. For any lumps that remain in the sieve I run the back of a trowel over the mesh a couple of times and give it another shake, usually does the job.
I bought some growbags from B & Q last weekend; on opening the first one contained shreds of plastic wrap, a scrap of plastic netting, a bit of polystyrene, and a small piece of electric cable! Its probably largely filled with recycled green waste such as from fortnightly household brown bin collections which might explain where the rubbish comes from. I'd imagine a lot of bagged topsoil is sold to horticultural firms by housing developers.

[vixylix]

Philthy that is not cricket. I'm not sure I'd be happy buying compost that is just recycled brown bin waste - best case scenario is its where everyone puts weeds and diseased plants... worst case scenario I don't want to think about!

I'd be better just keeping my own brown bin as a composter - at least then it would be free and I'd know whats in it!

[Bigmallly]

I'm lead to believe that council waste is composted at such a high temperature that any diseased plants or perennial weeds would be killed off.

[Philthy]

Organic stuff would break down, non-organic most of it would get sifted out during processing, but any chemicals added to brown bin waste, would they still be an issue after 8 months in a steaming compost pile? Can't really screen for that. They must take samples and run tests on the finished product, checking for contaminants. Beyond that who knows?

[Muddy_Boots]

Brown bin waste collected by councils Should ..... and I say Should be processed using high temperatures to kill any persistent weeds and any bacteria and microbes are killed off. I know our council do this as I've been to the plant at Wanlip in Leicestershire and seen it being done.

The biggest problem councils have is the fact that collections of brown bins with garden waste are only as contaminate free as the householders intelligence they collect from. You only have to have one idiot thinking they can throw some fruit that's gone off from the supermarket that's in a plastic net in the brown bin still in the net and it contaminates the whole lot. When its collected and processed, if its not spotted and removed then the plastic is chopped up with everything else and the whole lot is contaminated.

The resultant 'compost' is then put into piles and the composting continues but most of the processing to compost has been done in the plant already. If this stuff is then sold to be added to growbags, seed compost or MPC then the contamination just continues on.