Gardening without buying compost

**Jay-ell** · 11-06-2019, 07:42 PM

Originally posted by veggiechicken View Post

Think how many more seeds I could buy if I stopped using it.

VC - you need to buy more MPC

You could get a cheap second hand slow cooker / pressure cooker and sterilise some soil with that.

**burnie** · 11-06-2019, 07:46 PM

I can remember my Dad making his own compost, I used to get sent out with a hessian shopping bag to collect leaf mould which he added to soil and his home made compost. I remember sowing seeds direct in the ground, I don't think he grew that much in compost like we do now. By the late 1960's he had a proper greenhouse, not one he had made himself(I had the old home made one for my gardening mostly growing lupins I think, can't remember growing anything else lol).
I remember going to the local nursery to buy our fruit and veg, this would have been before we had any supermarkets, I have no idea where Dad got his seeds from, possibly the ironmongers shop in Leicester as there were no garden centres back then.

**chillithyme** · 11-06-2019, 08:45 PM

I can't seem to stop myself from buying in mpc even if I try, especially for my veg in pots, seedling to adult stage.
To attempt to buy in less mpc for flowers grown in pots, I've reused compost and added to it food i.e chicken manure or anything that i've got lying about, and bulking up with leaf mould, though its difficult for me to make enough leaf mould, in addition to not making enough compost! Im not keen on reusing mpc for veg in pots as I really love my veg. But there must be another way. I have seen a video of somebody using straw on top of potatoes as a mulch on the ground instead of earthing up, maybe the same principle could work in a grow bag too, but then where would we get enough straw from?

**Bren In Pots** · 11-06-2019, 08:50 PM

Mines scale growing so I only buy one large bag of MPC from B&Q it's around �6-ish other than that for big seeds I make a mix like Burnie's Dad used.

**Chestnut** · 11-06-2019, 09:25 PM

As a child I used to get sent out collecting molehills. The nice piles of fluffy well dug soil all went in a bucket, and that was mixed with MPC for seedlings.
Won’t stop you buying mpc, but might reduce how much you need.

Pure freshly dug peat shouldn’t have pesticides, particularly if you have friends with crofts - but there are other strong reasons for leaving such ecosystems alone .....

Only other idea I can think is those completely artificial set ups like hydroponics or those brightly coloured gel crystals that were briefly fashionable in the early 2000’s, but they’re probably pricier than compost.

**bikermike** · 11-06-2019, 09:35 PM

I've got through quite a bit this year (setting up new beds).

I don't think i'll be giving up on it for now, but some thoughts.

Reuse of compost with fresh feed eg comfrey
Home-made compost doesn't look too good, but if you sieve it and keep it for another year it look quite impressive.

I wonder if we'll have to buy it and cycle it through a year of green manure before growing crops in it

**veggiechicken** · 11-06-2019, 09:40 PM

Its not really the expense of buying compost that's swaying me - but the poor quality and risk of not knowing what's in it.
Plenty of molehills in the garden but removing the mound leaves a hole that has to be filled with something else!
I may try, for the 3rd time, having a wormery. Never had much luck with worms. Probably starve them as there's so little kitchen waste with 3 dogs!!

**nickdub** · 11-06-2019, 09:41 PM

I certainly re-use MPC by adding some slow-release fertiliser to last year's and swapping it round to a different types of plant - I also mix in home saved leaf-mould - but that still leaves me buying in several new bags each year.
In terms of seed sowing compost the main issue is sterilizing small amounts at home - one option is to put whatever medium you are using in a plastic container and heating it up in a microwave.

**veggiechicken** · 11-06-2019, 09:43 PM

Nagging question - why do we need to sterilise compost?
We don't sterilise the garden beds before sowing direct.

**Jay-ell** · 11-06-2019, 09:52 PM

we do, however, spend ages weeding.

**veggiechicken** · 11-06-2019, 09:54 PM

Weeding a seed tray wouldn't take long!

**nickdub** · 11-06-2019, 10:15 PM

Sterilising is more for diseases than weeds - not sure why there is a difference between open sowed seeds and those raised in containers, but if I had to guess I'd say that in a tray, if there is disease in the growing medium it will have more of a chance of reaching levels which will kill the seedlings than in the open ground.

Of course it will also depend on what sort of seeds you are taking about, some types will look after themselves whatever I expect, but things like tomatoes say are susceptible to damping off even under clean conditions

You could always set up some trials and see what results you get with both sterile and unsterile compost VC :-)

**Small pumpkin** · 11-06-2019, 10:23 PM

I've cut down a lot on MPC buying this year. Limited myself to 10 bags. Because I've limited myself I've used very little brought stuff in my chilli pots. Using lots of homemade and saved from last year MPC. It's been very noticeable how much more weeding I have to do. I'm doing well, I have one & half bags of MPC to last me the rest of the season. I prefer to use it in my salad bar and for micro growing. Don't really want to have weeds coming up in them when it's not just me eating them.

If I'm going to grow more in home grown, I'm going to have to make a lot more. I've run out this year. 3 darleks now empty and started on the big compost bin, which really isn't ready yet.

**rary** · 11-06-2019, 11:56 PM

As others have mentioned, when younger we used to collect the leaves which were left in a corner to rot for a year or two, we also collected mole hills and burn sand(river sand) and the only thing I can recollect is pouring boiling water over I think, the sand the three things were mixed together but don't know what prepositions were used, and of course all that stopped when cheap bags of peat started to appear in the ironmongers, as for home made compost I am now getting a good supply from a hot box which I now put into a wormary but that's more for potting on as it will be too rich for seeds, I will be using washed course sand for sowing seeds in future and it is a great medium for cuttings, plus its cheap

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Gardening without buying compost

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