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A vegetable garden can be the perfect addition to your landscape. Growing your own vegetables organically ensures healthful produce and saves you the high prices of organically grown produce at the grocery store.
John Innes composts are loam-based recipes with sand or grit and fertiliser, with different nutrient levels for different growing stages.
Traditional recipes contain peat. Choose from the current products below, including clearly labelled peat-free composts with added John Innes.
Peat-free compost with added John Innes for seeds, cuttings and young plants.
View seed & cutting compost
Peat-free multi-purpose compost for stages 2 & 3. One product, not separate No.2 and No.3 recipes.
View multi-purpose compost
Traditional loam-based John Innes No.3 for mature plants and final potting. View the bulk-bag option.
View No.3 ProfessionalAbout this guide: The ingredient and No.1, No.2 and No.3 descriptions below explain traditional John Innes recipes. They are not ingredient lists for the peat-free composts with added John Innes shown above. Check the individual product page for its current formulation and pack options.
The main purposes for John Innes are; sowing of seeds and rooting cuttings, large seed sowing, pricking out, potting up, final potting and mature plants. All of the John Innes products, simply offer a different level of nutrients to boost initial growth all the way until the final result. Our most popular compost, John Innes no3 compost is a rich mixture that is intended for final potting or for the re-potting of mature plants. If you want a general potting compost for everyday use, then John Innes no2 compost is perfect. John Innes no2 has excellent soil structure, and includes sand which promotes drainage and provides stability for larger plants. A perfect everyday compost.
Loam - Loam is the most important ingredient in all John Innes compost, supplying the main body of the compost. The loam supplies the nutrition needed for the base of the plant, which helps to absorb and release plant nutrients as required. The loam also contains micro-elements and organic matter, which provides a slow release of Nitrogen to the plant.
Peat - Sphagnum Moss Peat in the John Innes Compost increases the total porosity and improves both the aeration and the water-retaining capacity. Peat decomposes slowly into humus.
Sand - The coarse sand or grit is used as a physical conditioner to allow excess water to drain from the compost and thus prevent water-logging. It also helps to provide stability for larger plants.
Fertilser - The compound fertiliser in John Innes Compost provides a wide spectrum of plant nutrients needed for balanced growth, including :- Nitrogen (for top growth Phosphates - for root growth) - Potash (for flowering and fruiting & Trace Elements for optimal growth, colour and flavor.
***Nutrients are typically sufficient for 1-2 months of growing, after which time additional proprietary feed should be given***
Many people are very comfortable planting up containers with annual planting, such as summer bedding, but how about planting up a container with perennials? The considerations for what to put in are rather different, because your plants may well grow more slowly, but eventually reach much larger sizes. But the rewards are a display that grows and changes year by year, and much more variety of planting than is possible with an annual display. Here are our top tips for choosing plants for a perennial container display. Don't forget you can visit our Grow Your Own section for all the tools and equipment you need to get started.
