Every gardener has their own way of doing things and when we don't have the necessary gadgets to finish the job in hand we always improvise. Over the years this has led to many handy tips that each gardener has acquired, and a conversation with an aged gardener is an inspiration in itself. When times were hard most of the chemicals and gadgets that we have available today were either not on the market, or the gardeners could not afford them. So they improvised with what was on hand at the time.
One old gardener often asked me, did we really need all the composts, fertilizers and chemicals that are on the market today. We used to grow most of the plants that are available today just as well as you can, with our own concoctions. I had to agree with him about the composts. After all the commercial growers (well most of them) just buy a lorry load of moss peat and add a shake of lime and the necessary amount of slow release fertilizer. In this mixture they pot up everything except maybe the family Ericaceae, which have a slight variation to the above mixture.
Why then do we need houseplant compost, hanging basket compost, seed compost, potting-on compost, and numerous others that I can't remember at the moment? That cost up to ten times more than making your own from a bag of moss peat.
I use soil-based compost myself, most of the time except for hanging baskets, which would not support the weight of soil. I don't have any particular formula for mixing compost, just a handful of soil, a handful of leafmould and a handful of sand until the mixture feels ok for whatever I am potting up at the time. If it needs good drainage I add more sand, If it is in the Ericaceae family, I add a handful of peat. There really is no magical formula for growing plants.
Another habit I have which draws a lot of criticism is the recycling of potting compost. Now you cannot recycle peat-based compost, but soil is a different matter. I keep a large dustbin in the potting shed, and when I am potting on plants or disposing of dead plants, all the used soil is put into the dustbin. When it is full I put it through a ΒΌ inch sieve to remove any roots or debris before adding the other necessary Ingredients and fertilizer to make it suitable for whatever job is on hand at the time. I have been told on numerous occasions that this practice will only assist in the spreading of disease and fungal spores, but after 20 years I have no such problems to report. You can take a look at my garden and see for yourself.
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Michael Campbell's Gardening in Ireland topic, please visit the Discussions page.