Peat Free Compost 2023

For anyone looking to buy some peat free compost, these are some current prices:

Wickes own brand 50L for £5 (no green waste compost, a mix of wood fibre, composted bark and coir, I quite like it)
Sainsburys 2 x 40L Levington for £8 (I wasn't happy with this stuff last year, contains green waste compost and had quite a bit of plastic contamination)
Home Bargains 40L for £3.49 (not been to a shop to see it myself, if it's the same as the Growmoor stuff they usually sell it's decent quality)
Lidl 40L for £3.49 (no idea what this stuff is like, if they're like Aldi it'll be mostly green waste compost)

I've found the Aldi peat free better than last year. Last year, the Wickes compost I had held no water at all. Very strange.

I've just bought loads of the Wickes 50L bags at three for £17 so wish I hadn't seen this! At least I got the manure cheaper than their current prices...

I’m not even considering peat free (sorry Planet!) until I can no longer buy compost with peat in it.
Lost so many plants and seedlings when I tried to do the “right thing”.
Hopefully the manufacturers will have perfected a mix that works for us home gardeners by then.

Morrison's had 3 for £12 peat free and with added John Innes (go figure?) same price. If by that they mean it's soil based, it may be worth speculating?

I've found the Aldi peat free better than last year. Last year, the Wickes compost I had held no water at all. Very strange.

 I think the wood fibre and bark dries out quite quickly. The peat-free stuff Levington make for professionals (https://icl-sf.com/uk-en/explore/nursery...e-sustain/) has a wetting agent added to hold on to water better. 

Aldi last year would've been fine if it didn't contain so much plastic. My peppers absolutely loved growing in it. I am happy to use green waste compost as long as it’s properly made and properly screened, but I absolutely do not want bits of plastic added to my garden.

Morrison's had 3 for £12 peat free and with added John Innes (go figure?) same price. If by that they mean it's soil based, it may be worth speculating?

I guess they are just adding a bit of loam to the peat free and calling it John Innes? You can never tell how much of anything they are adding to a bag since the ingredients are never properly listed on the packaging. In the USA they have to publish a full list of ingredients.

I’m not even considering peat free (sorry Planet!) until I can no longer buy compost with peat in it.
Lost so many plants and seedlings when I tried to do the “right thing”.
Hopefully the manufacturers will have perfected a mix that works for us home gardeners by then.

The main issues I see with peat free are green waste compost and wood fibre. With green waste compost it's the potential for weed killer contamination if the batch is not tested properly, with plastic contamination a secondary concern. With the wood fibre, its made from virgin wood, so when it gets wet it will start to decompose which leads to the nitrogen being tied up and plants being unable to use it. You will have a similar problem with non-composted bark. Adding extra nitrogen is simple to do yourself, but when you buy a bag of compost you shouldn't have to add more fertiliser straight out of the bag, especially when the packaging says it will feed for up to 6-8 weeks. 

There are several brands aimed at professional growers which they are using with excellent results. From what I've read they have to play around with the watering and fertilising schedule a bit at first, but once they've got that dialled in the plant growth and health is no different to peat based composts. 

Here are two interesting videos where a professional grower trials a few popular peat-free composts, including a Sinclair professional one. In the first video he is very disappointed in the New Horizon, but in the second video he adds a bit of Osmocote fertiliser to it and gets similar results to the peat compost. So I think the problems people have been having with New Horizon and other wood fibre based composts could just be a lack of nitrogen?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFp9Z5EwSuI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snGTavFpqnw

Just watched the first of the two videos.
Very interesting - but not surprising.
thanks for posting - I’ll check the other one later

Unfortunately I have been finding bits of plastic in the Wickes peat free. On their website they say it doesn't contain any green waste compost, but on the bag it says 'composted material'. I assumed this was composted bark but I don't see how that could contain bits of glass, plastic bag and artificial turf. Nowhere near as much contamination as last year's Aldi peat free though, but looks like it's another compost I won't be buying again.