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I'm back once again with another compost test, this time we are looking at ASDA's offering.
*All thoughts shared here are my opinions. All testing was done by me to the best of my ability, but I am an amateur, and could be incorrect - so take it with a huge pinch of salt!*
Video
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Looking Through
I tipped the compost into a tray to get started and had a good rummage through. The compost was very strange.
It was very fibrous and had big lumps of this white, matted, fibrous material, which I am guessing is sphagnum moss?
It's different from what you would expect from a compost; it does not crumble and is very, very fibrous.
But there was nothing in there that shouldn't have been, and there also wasn't tonnes of wood like you can get on some other composts, but it was certainly strange.
Nutrient Testing
Now it is time to move on to the nutrient testing. The usual caveats apply here. While I am using a professional-grade soil testing kit from Hannah Instruments, I am in no way a professional and have no scientific training. Many mistakes could have been made, so take the results with a pinch of salt!
First up, we have the nitrogen test, and the compost performed poorly with a low score. I was suprised by this as i found green pellets in the compost which i believe to be fertiliser.
As you can see above, I performed the test again but got the same result.
When it comes to phosphorus, we got a high score, great result here. Phosphorus is usually considered as the general plant and root health nutrient so a high score here is promising.
And then the final test to round of the NPK is of course potassium, which scored very high medium in my opinion.
So a mixed back here, lacking in nitrogen but good in everything else!
The Growth Test
You can never truly know how well a compost will work until you test it. So I have sown some french beans and also transplanted some lettuce, Kale and Basil into this test to see how it fares.
It's a little early to have any results from this yet, so you will have to check back in a few weeks. But the seeds have started to germinate and the results are very good. I am getting a very high germination rate.
Is It Any Good?
So, what do I think? Overall, its hard to say, one thing I can say is this compost is strange and I personally am not a fan of all of how it looks and feels.
Test results were okay but the poor nitrogen is a concern. But the growth tests are very promising so far so I don't know what to say really!
It is not organic, and I do like to garden organically, so that probably means I won't use it too much if I'm being honest.
Ron Norris says
I was suckered into buying 3bags for £10.
I think it's rubbish,I topdressed a plant pot with it and watered well.1 day later it looked very dry so i picked up a small amount of it between my thumb and forefinger and there was a slight breeze down my garden.The compost blew OUT of my fingers.
The compost in my opinion RUBBISH!
Owen Lee says
Great review! I have sadly realised that this deal wasn’t a good one. I used it in all of my allotment beds this year (it was my first year starting from scratch) to save on costs and brought loads of- the fiborous woody type texture put me off and it was constantly dry and very hard to keep moist. It has been very rainy recently and the compost now looks great, I think it suggests it would need tonnes of water to keep this looking good even though it contains peat but I would not buy again as not organic and generally not very absorbent and very low in nutrients.