Trouble with germination using peat free compost

I’ve had real success with Evergreen peat free compost. It’s a lovely friable dark brown. I always sow more to allow for non germination and this year everything has come up.
I did buy some cheaper bags, but one look at the stuff and I could see it was dry, sawdusty and no good, so I used it a mulch on the flower beds.

You can get compost with sphagnum peat moss which is renewable.

I have had trouble with germination, have sown two or three lots in some cases. Worse than that is the quality of the multi purpose compost for bringing seedlings on. I have been using westland as I had it in and have started watering with my own comfrey water, there has been no noticeable growth in the mp compost

Next year I am going to try and sow my seeds as much as possible, directly into my garden soil.

Mine are mostly germinating but so slowly that I m putting them in the ground much earlier than normal the compost is abysmal this year just full of total crap I m using it but not at all impressed with it but I have grown some good toadstools in it !!!
Don’t know what I ll buy for the next lot

The peat-free composts are so difficult to judge when to water as the top dries out but it is soggy below. Seeds are in the top layer and so cannot be allowed to dry out but the once they germinate, rot off as roots hit soggy soil. I find keeping the pots in a plastic zip bag means they don’t dry out but I need to be vigilant not to leave them in there post germination. I am just going to re sow lettuce, usually so easy to grow! Meanwhile I have just potted on 48 tomato plants, why is it I cannot throw seedlings away?

I am using this and it’s fine, good germination.

karmalady

I have had trouble with germination, have sown two or three lots in some cases. Worse than that is the quality of the multi purpose compost for bringing seedlings on. I have been using westland as I had it in and have started watering with my own comfrey water, there has been no noticeable growth in the mp compost

Next year I am going to try and sow my seeds as much as possible, directly into my garden soil.

I’ve experimented with germinating seeds in my garden beds this year because of the compost problem last year. Some have been successful, some not.

The problem is the overnight temperature which is quite low around here.

I’m now trying sieved compost from my compost bins. I’m way behind though with tomatoes, squash and courgettes.

With Westland's general peat free, I found that seeds germinated but were reluctant to grow.

I switched to their Jack's Magic and seedings have just romped away.

Worth paying £1 a bag extra.

Jack’s Magic is marvellous Silverbrooks I have a stash!!

I bought a bag of Westland multi purpose peat free and had to sieve it before I could transplant seedlings into it - it was shocking the detritus I ended up with. And the seedlings didn’t do well. I always used Jack’s Magic until last year when they went to peat free which was awful, but I thought I’d try it again because the garden centre said they'd changed the formula, so I bought a bag last week. The difference is amazing. Very good to handle and it doesn’t dry out as much.

Jaxjacky

I am using this and it’s fine, good germination.

Thanks Jaxjacky, I'll give it a whirl!
Last year was a complete disaster in terms of growing Cosmos & Lavetera from seed! Only a tiny handful germinated and they took a very long time to get going too !😠

Do you get the Jacks magic online as I don’t have a car to go to nurseries

Yes BlueBelle I bought mine from Amazon - traditional blend on the packaging.

Makes note of Jacks Magic.

Daughter recently brought me a couple of bags of one I hadn't tried before, Emerald Gold, an Irish blend containing seaweed, produced by Evergreen Horticulture. Not sure where she found it, but she lives in Andover, Hants so around there. It has a fine texture, a bit like the coir based composts. I have done a last ditch, probably too late sowing of corn. Fingers crossed.

Jaxjacky

I am using this and it’s fine, good germination.

Yes all mine have done really well with this Westland compost, also used it for on.

Well I do think that sometimes it is not necessarily the fault of the compost.

Day heat, night cold, overall heat. Moisture levels and light levels all aid or mitigate germination, and it is never the same year on year.

It is a minefield really. An example of this is my spring onions. I always get a good crop from an early sowing, but this year despite following the same sowing routine I had poor germination. I decided it must be the compost, but was looking it up when I realised that the issue was the dry spring, so although I had watered the seed, because of the very dry weather, they had not been consistently moist snd so failed. This lack of moisture had not affected other seed sowings lime carrots, beetroot etc.

You definitely need seedling compost, usually that’s OK the main problem I have is with any compost is keeping it moist not wet.
Any recycled is best used for mulching where mature plants can tolerate some chemical contamination, grass mowings are the worst if you use weed killer on it.

I use Westland Super Fine Seed and Potting Compost, success every year, so many seedling that I feel like lady bountiful giving many to friends.

Melcourt Sylvagrow is the best. Not cheap but gets results and holds moisture.

I have mixed seedling compost with topsoil and this year results seem better. Haven't found a peat free I've liked yet. As OP have said seems to be bags of rubbish. Do wo der at tge oeatlands being removed to accommodate the space station in Scotland given all the hype about protecting the environment.

I use seedling compost, it makes a huge difference to germination rates and healthy seedling growth. I've used peat free compost for a few years for growing on seedlings but I mix it eith my own home made compost 50-50. It makes a big difference but I appreciate not everyone has access to a well rotted home compost bin!

I used Sylvagrow multipurpose compost which I mixed with my own leaf mould and some sharp sand. All germinated fine except runner beans, but that's probably my fault for using a three year out of date packet of seeds.

Most of my seeds germinated OK. I mixed peat free compost with a light, sandy seed sowing one about 50/50. Courgettes cucumbers, tomatoes, beans and various flowers doing well. Perhaps I have just been lucky though.

My climbing french beans were a disaster in the first sowing in peat free compost so I tried the germination method I saw on a YouTube video. I put 8 seeds on a sheet of wet kitchen roll and sealed it in a zip lock bag. After only 4 days the seeds were starting to show growth. All 8 germinated over the next few days! When they had about 1" of root/stem growth I planted them in individual pots and they've been growing happily since, even in the peat free compost.