Hi....... I have not joined to promote my business or to give advice. As a compost producer, this pandemic has created many new gardener's for the first time, which in itself will create new challenges in the coming months/years. Looking at some of the posts regarding composts, can the industry cope with all these new gardener's, where is all this compost going to come from and is there enough substitutes to replace the phasing out of peat?
Hi and welcome to GC It's a good question! IME, the chopped wood waste and dodgy 'composted ' material being used as a substitute for peat doesn't come close to producing the results formerly achieved. Certainly here in France, there's a noticeable increase in xylophage insect larvae and sciarid fly infestation.
Hi gks, welcome to Gardeners Corner. Well, doing so will breach the GC rules and Protocols, gks, and would lead to any member doing so being banned. But we do have other members who are Gardening Retailers and they have recognised that they can enjoy GC without any marketing.
I fully understand, here in the UK the government they are giving the engery companies large sums of money in subsidies to burn bio mass. To think 30 years ago you could get bark for next to nothing, it was classed as a waste product no one wanted, now its twice the price of peat to purchase. We have also seen the phasing out of Intercept, Suscon Green and now Exemptor which we mixed into the compost for the commercial grower. We understand the need to phase out pesticides, but then to expect us to make quality growing media with green waste is more likely to increase insect larvae and pest problems. I sterilise my soil with steam, it cooks the soil at 160c which will kill anything in the soil, yet the structure of the soil is still fibrous.
It's interesting to hear the facts from the 'other side' I suppose it's not economically viable to invest in machinery that will process the materials more finely? Or filter a first batch and re-process the residue? Just as an aside, for us amateurs, sticking a match or two, head down, in pots deters sciarid flies
It was on me too, @NigelJ My first thought was 'sulphur'.... I'll be trying it out on my sowings this week so will let you know if ordinary, French supermarket matches work. They're not much cop for lighting bonfires