Buying prepacked compost(can I mix it with garden soil)?

cooking-mama

I am a total beginner...in other words "I havent a clue":o,
however im gonna try hard to be a kitchen gardener,ive sown seeds of spring onion/cucumber and mixed cabbage ,broccoli,cauliflower in little plastic propogators next to my boiler in the kitchen,I am planning on growing in containers in the garden,I have some containers but no compost,was gonna go to Aldi on Thursday to buy 20L compost packs for 99p a bag...but is this an extravagant way of growing my Veg...could i maybe mix the compost with some soil from the garden to make it go further?,or should i just used the prepacked compost to fill my containers to increase my chances of having a successful 1st year?All advice greatly appreciated.
ps/also got tomato,thyme,carrot,lettuce and kale seeds...was thinking of buying one of those plastic growing tent things for tomatoes,and maybe strawberry and peppers/chillie-does that sound like a good idea.
planning on potatoes in a big 60l garden bag too.

Wookey

Mix it up if you want, if you do use garden soil try to keep it as free from weeds as you can. To look forward to next year and if you have the room get yourself a compost bin and make your own, most councils still sell them at around £10-15, which is a tenner less than any i've seen in a garden centre. 300l bin when full will go along way to filling some pots etc.

davethorp

If you cant get a bin for free or cheap from your council, Tesco direct have one for £18 which is about the cheapest I've seen. We plan to get one to use as a second compost bin as soon as our clubcard vouchers turn up

LINKY

ALIBOBSY

I put topsoil and ripped up newspaper in the bottom of a pot last year(particularly if it is veg with shallow roots such as lettuce), have even seen suggestions that bits of ploystyrene in the bottom to take up some space. Then the compost can go on top.
This year I have some of my own homemade compost (defo get a free council bin if you can), and sone used grow bags stacked up. This will do the bottom of my pots and/or top up the raised beds, with some extra shop bought compost on top (got mine from makro when it was really cheap in early feb).

To be honest the only things you mention that really need deep soil are carrots, plus peppers and toms like deeper soil (although can manage in alot less-think growbags).

Think there is a long thread somewhere regarding growing in pots, worth a search for.
BTW if you like herbs I got 6 plug plants from Aldi last week for £1.99. They are now in pots on the window sill and look pretty good. They are sweet marjoram, tarragon, rosemary, flat leaf parsley,garlic chives and thyme. Think there were other selections but they only had the french one left in my local, worth watching out for. Think I got something simular (but different herbs) last year from morrisons for around the same price.

Herbs are defo something to go for as they grow easily in pots and can liven up any dish.
I have several types of mint in the garden in pots which I love.
TIP basil and quite a few of the soft herbs from the med prefer to be watered from below as the roots don't like to sit in water.
good luck-it will become and obsession-we started with a few pots on the patio and now the whole back is raised beds and a greenhouse lol.

ali x

valk_scot

Can I just say that cauliflower and overwintering cabbages...indeed most brassicas....need firm deep soil for many months and don't do well in pots. If you can plant them out in the garden it would be much better. Also, it's a bit early to be starting most varieties off. Only the fast growing summer types like Hispi and Greyhound get started off now.

Best advice from me here would be to invest a few pounds in a book called The Vegetable Expert by DG Hessayon, which gives sowing and planting charts for all common vegetables. It will save you £££s and hours of wasted time, belive me.

Compost. Why not just grow the veg in the garden I ask myself? Is there a reason you want to use pots? Pots are almost always less satisfactory for big vegetable growing than using the garden soil. They need constant feeding and watering and there's seldom enough soil depth unless you're using really huge pots, and these take a lot of filling. Tomatoes, salads, herbs etc will do fine in pots because of the fast turnover however.

But to get back to the original question...50:50 bought or home made compost to garden soil would be acceptable. BTW Aldi compost is poorer quality and more expensive than going to the garden centre and buying 80L bags of a good quality branded type, and these often have 3-4-2 offers on them.

Janey3

Try the golf-ball sized carrots, they don't need a lot of depth to grow, mine were successful last year in pots of garden soil topped with compost.

Make sure your plastic growing tent is firmly anchored down, also the internal shelves, as some of my pots slid off the shelves last year! I used a couple of stones to anchor it.

It was only my first year growing veg last year and I can't wait to get going again. It's very addictive. Have fun!

Janey3

A._Badger

Some excellent, sensible, advice there from valk_scott there.

May I add that if you do decide to grow in pots you will need to feed your plants as well as water them? The reservoirs of plant foods in the sort of soilless compost you are talking about using won't go very far. Soil holds fertiliser better, but you are starting with an unknown quantity.

Ideally, you would have a high nitrogen feed for leafy plants and a high potash one for fruiting and flowering crops. In reality, that's probably going to be too much trouble for a beginner, so I'd suggest you get yourself either a packet of Phostrogen, or the Wilkinsons clone of it, which is a lot cheaper and just as good.

cooking-mama

Thanks for all the advice guys,all very helpfull and appreciated,Im planning on pots/containers as these would be easier for me to manage(I have rheumatoid arthritis mainly affecting my hands +feet,so digging with spades isnt an option,for the same reason I cant have a compost bin as the two injections i take a week supress my immune system making me at risk of aspergillus infection-"farmers lung")
Thankfully i didnt use all my seeds,got plenty left,it sounds as tho ive started too early,especialy as im in Scotland!! maybe i should leave things until the start of March?,il keep gowing with my little trays at the side of the boiler and see what happens(hope for the best)
im on holiday from work this week,so il use this week to investigate garden centers(I live near the clyde valley so have plenty to choose from..I take it i should steer clear of homebase,B+Q etc)and il visit the libray to check out the books.Thanks everone.

A._Badger

Actually, B&Q compost scores consistently well in the Gardening Which? tests and I've often used it in the past.

Sadly, composts change every year, so you can't be certain what's in a bag until you open it but the balance of probabilities suggests that B&Q would be a good choice.

Hope that helps.

cooking-mama

Thanks A.Badger,that does help.

roosterpotatoes

Last year was my first year and i used b&q's value compost (99p for 10 litres) i didn't grow much at all but what i did grow did really well, every seed grew and had a mass of chillies from 7 plants, loads of tumbling tomatoes, carrots did extremely well.
In fact the only thing that failed was my pepper plant which was established from Tesco and i planted straight into the soil lol