Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

DawnW

@foxgloves do you think that your issue with your pepper and aubergine plants refusing to grow might be compost related? I thoroughly approve of the move to peat free compost on environmental grounds, but I haven't yet found a peat free one that is anything like as good. The year before last my tomato plants were badly affected, and although we ended up getting some fruit, the plants were puny and we definitely didn't get the usual yield. I suspect that they were affected by weedkiller that had been sprayed on whatever stuff had been composted to substitute for the peat. Google told me that others who had used this brand were affected and this was what others thought also. Last year I swapped brands and it was better, but very rough and fibrous and difficult to get seedlings going. This year's (cheapie from Lidl) is similar, but also dries like concrete on the top, and tends to waterlogging beneath. Not much worse than the much more expensive type I resorted to last year though. Most plants do ok, but not as well as they did in earlier years. Not sure what the answer is really, except to hope that the manufacturers improve the product.

Blackcats

Full of admiration for your stoical attitude and for keeping productive despite how unsettling the saga is.
hopefully Foxgloves - The Docker won't need to be unleashed.

Moorviews

I really appreciate the vegetable and fruit growing updates; no scrolling by for me! All our radicchio has been pecked and pulled out. I was surprised as I assumed the leaves wouldn’t be tasty to the birds. Now I know that I need to net them next time. Our currants have mostly been eaten by the blackbirds. Our early ripening apples were probably being scoffed by 5am. We need to build a fruit cage for some soft fruit as naughty beaks are a big feature in our garden. I do comfort myself with the thought that I am helping wildlife though and I will always make sure that there is some fruit that they can have. 

Soup is eaten as a meal with us too. That recipe sounds delicious so I will have to try that out soon.  

milann

Dawn W I’ve had the same issues with my compost this year. I usually get the BnQ peat free in a big bag but picked some up at the garden centre this year…..it’s absolutely rubbish. A very course texture and the plants are so much smaller - the lettuce took three lots of seed before germination and my tomato plants are half the size with a few flowers. Good job I’m not relying on it as my only source of fruit and veg 😡 I’ll revert back to my usual brand next year. Annnnnnd it’s staining my path with the browny wash off after heavy rain or watering 😡😡 like you say the top is rock solid.

EssexHebridean

Dawn that's really interesting about the compost and I wonder if that is why we've had no luck with tomato plants over the past couple of years. I know it's partly (this year) down to us being away at the wrong tie, and also not being able to sow until later than ideal - but I did expect that we'd see a bit more enthusiasm from the seedlings when they finally appeared. 

Foxgloves that run down of your veggie garden is really interesting - and has lead to me making a few more notes on my "Moving stuff - garden" list! 

themadvix

My mum and I had some really naff H0riz0n compost a couple of years ago - it was very lumpy and fibrous, like you found Dawn. I've kept well clear since. However, I'm not sure about the logic re chemicals in it, as I ordered two tonnes of garden waste compost last year for my allotment and it worked really well. I've not had any problems this year with the Bee'n'Queue stuff though.

Swayingseaweed

I've had similar problems until this year and we used Seaweed extract to boost the nutrients in the compost. 
Seaweed x 

Elisheba

Sorry to hear about all the hospital faff @foxgloves Hopefully the next one goes well.  Thats a really good tip regarding the citronella - the flies are driving me mad this year, and I've been spraying some left over insect repellant at them, which I am sure isn't good for anyone!

Tescodealqueen

Thanks DawnW and Milann and of course Foxgloves. Feel less bad that it took three goes to get any Lettuce sprouting up at all this year and hope that it is compost related. Our strawberries are not liking the rain but we have had some  and I think some of ours are later varieties so hoping for some later in the  summer

foxgloves

@DawnW - Yes, I do think it is compost-related. I've been discussing this with my best friend who has an allotment. I think I had 2 related issues.....one was that the first seedlings which were ready for transplanting went into compost I had leftover from last year. It hadn't been left outside. I kept it in the greenhouse over winter, but it may well have been very cold, damp & perhaps not as nutritious as it was originally, idk. 
Re peat-free compost. I am absolutely in favour of banning peat. It is just pure vandalism imo digging it up for gardening purposes when it is known to hold so much carbon, as well as habitat destruction. Last year, I tried both the wood-based & green-waste-based peat-free composts & got on better with the latter. The woody ones, despite being a good brand I'd used before (before they changed their formula) were very coarse & fibrous & I found seedlings did poorly. The other variety made from green waste (probably via council collections) was better, so I bought several bags of the same brand again this year. Some plants have done well in it, no difference from usual, but others just stopped growing as soon as they were transplanted into it - some tomatoes, all the peppers & aubergines, a yellow variety of cosmos & even easy things like sunflowers. My friend & I think that there are nutrients in these new composts but that they are not accessible to tiny plants which are needing to make good root growth. When I decided to compost the failed seedlings, I pulled them up & inspected the roots & these were often v poor. Both of us are finding that we need to feed the seedlings once they have been transplanted into peat-free. I found that some plants rallied well with a dilute seaweed solution drench, although others still remained utterly in stasis. 
I am all for using green waste for commercial compost, but an issue it throws up is that is will contain different ingredients each time. There could well be traces of weedkiller or pesticides, & nutrition could vary because there is seemingly no standards covering what is in it. I will keep persevering, but I am already wondering about adding a little bit of vermiculite when transplanting next year to see if this helps the roots find their way down.
The watering is a recognised problem......pots look dry as a bone on the surface, so we water them, then find later when the plants look sickly, that the pots are completely waterlogged at the bottom. Even the advisory test involving sticking a finger into the pot to check moisture levels isn't foolproof. 
I didn't have any problems with the peat-free seed compost from the same manufacturer, it's the big bags of multi-purpose which I use for everything else, especially transplanting that have been tricky. Also, I've had no problems with bulbs & containers, it is just these young plants which once set in it seem to stop growing. Very annoying. I think the manufacturers need to work on this & do some trials with real growers across the UK (citizen science) - I'd be prepared to put the effort in, in order to end up with a product which works better, As I say, my very green-fingered friend agrees with me that it is something to do with the nutrients not being accessible to little newbies.
F