VEGETABLE GARDENING IN DENTDALE

 

COMPOST
 

Seed Compost

One could be forgiven, I think, for assuming that Multi-purpose compost can be used for anything. Not so! Even the Levington catalogue will tell you that whilst their Multi-purpose compost is just wonderful for everything, for germinating small seeds their Seed compost is even better. I have tried both and it does appear that germination rates are better using a seed compost. For small seeds in particular, multi-purpose compost is too coarse and lacks the grit content which provides the drainage so essential to germination. Additionally, multi-purpose composts will often contain essential plant nutrients. Seedlings thrive best in a very low nutrient environment although they will benefit from a small amount of phosphate to encourage root development and calcium which is essential to the growing tip of the seedling.

One problem with using seed compost is its cost. You will pay between £3 and £4 for a 20 litre pack of seed compost. You can get 75 litres of multi-purpose compost for the same price. The solution is to make your own and if you intend to grow all your vegetables from seed and sow successionally, you will make a significant saving.

I have made up a batch of seed compost for this years seeds using a mix of 3 two-gallon buckets of leaf mould put through a ¼ inch mess sieve to 1 bucket of sharp sand with the addition of 2 heaped dessertspoons of superphosphate and 1 heaped dessertspoon of ground limestone. See below for some information about leaf mould. If you can't get any leaf mould, peat or a peat substitute will do but you will need to put it through a ¼ inch mesh sieve which can be a bit of a chore as the fibrous nature of the peat tends to clog the sieve. The sand must be sharp sand and will be cheaper if bought from a builders merchant, loose by the bucket. (Take your own bucket). Mix the whole lot thoroughly to ensure the even distribution of the very small amounts of phosphate and calcium.


Mixing the seed compost in a barrow


Seed compost ready for this
seasons sowing

One drawback of making ones own seed compost is that, unlike the purchased product, it will not be sterile. The really committed experts will sterilise their homemade compost in small batches in the kitchen oven. I don’t go this far and have found that a couple of squirts with a Cheshunt Compound spray after sowing the seeds reduces fungal damage due to damping off to an acceptable minimum.

 

Leaf Mould
The annual task of leaf sweeping in our garden with all its nooks and crannies can be really time consuming; it just goes on for weeks. But it does have a plus side. By storing the leaves, after a long wait, we get some really useful leaf mould. For making seed compost, its fine structure and low nutrient level makes it the ideal base material. It also makes a good autumn ground conditioner for the patch where you intend to grow your carrots, parsnips and beetroot where the normal manure application has to be avoided. Making leaf mould is a long term task and needs a small investment in a roll of wire mesh to make a number of storage bins. I have eight bins (see picture) made from 3 feet wide mesh cut into 10 feet lengths with the short ends held together with soft galvanised wire to make cylindrical bins.


Bins for making leaf mould

The task is long term because leaves take a long time to rot. In our garden, one year's leaf fall will fill about 6 of the 8 bins. By the next year, those leaves will have rotted down by 2/3rds and the contents transferred into two bins. At the end of the second year, the contents of those two bins is put into the plastic compost bin. It isn't until the third autumn after sweeping that we are rewarded with some really good leaf mould. Obviously, once the process is started, there is a 'crop' of leaf mould every year. The process of leaf sweeping inevitably picks up twigs and other unwanted material so I put the whole lot through a ¼ inch sieve before storing in old plastic feed bags.


Return to Home page