Peat Bogs take many years to form and at the present rate of use they are being depleted. I therefore can understand the need to try and produce alternatives to Peat Based Compost. Many substitutes are being trialled. I am happy to use a good Peat Free Compost. Some even seem to have better re wetting properties that Peat Based ones.
Producers have to be very careful on the selection of material. Even regarding my own Compost Heap I am very careful about adding any weed treated grass cuttings. Every year a trained idiot from the idiot Local Council comes and sprays a very concentrated Non Selective Weed Killer along the edge of the grass verge where it joins the foot path and all around the lamp post which has its base in the verge. This results in an immediate death area of 100mm around the spray region followed by active growth of tall and creeping weeds weeds NO GRASS. For some time after the treatment I avoid the grass cuttings from the verge. If the Council comes to cut the grass they do not pick up the cuttings but distribute them across the road and footpath. After a time when the weeds are growing strongly I resume the verge cutting, getting in before the Council, the cuttings are then allowed on my Compost Heap.
What was that about Tomatoes? Well, it all started with a lady ordering some Compost from the Milkman, yes Milkman. She didn't realise what two 40L packs of Compost looked like and had no room for them in her flat, thus I was called in to take a 40l Pack off her hands.
This Peat free compost was the one that my Tomatoes were sown in. Germination was fine the plants a little leggy, from a late sowing too, strange that.
As growth proceeded they were transplanted into the same material. Shortly after a problem started to show both in transplanted and those not yet done.
I have blogged previously about the Local Ex Military Man and his Weapons of Mass Weed Destruction. He reported thin curled tops on his Tomatoes last year. I know he terrorises every weed in his grass and wouldn't mind betting he keeps his missiles in his greenhouse thus inviting such trouble.
I have no such weapons around yet those plants are showing classic symptoms.
I conducted a test. Three were plants transplanted into a) Wickes Compost b) J.A.Bowers Compost c) Compost X. I am not naming Compost X, the suspect, as I am in communication with them and they are acting very responsibly. Should they have acted differently this blog entry title would have been 'Compost X Poisoned my Tomatoes'.
The results so far are proving my suspicions to be correct, a) and b) are showing signs of improvement, c) in Compost X are looking decidedly sick. That is how I am feeling too, someone in the supply chain has failed in their duty of care. I have spent years avoiding the vile man made poisons in Weed Killers and Insecticides and have purchased Compost tainted with the stuff.
I have a further test going on. Three separate sowings of Tomatoes in the three different composts, I want to independently expose the culprit.
The only other sowing I made in Compost X was Sweet Corn, this is fine, further indication that the culprit is a Selective Herbicide.
