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Welcome to the Garden Guru!

You will find lots of useful information on compost, composting and all things grow your own, from hints and tips to step by step how to guides on all sorts of interesting subjects.

Browse through all our garden guru's articles below to find the subject you are interested in.

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What is Compost

What is Compost?

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What Is Compost?

The word ‘compost’ comes from ‘composite’, and it means a mixture of decomposed organic substances. The word is widely used to describe a whole range of suitable growing media for gardening purposes, including home-produced compost from kitchen waste, general purpose compost, potting compost and specialist composts such as mushroom compost or ericaceous compost.

What Can Compost Be Used For?

Compost can be used as a growing medium by itself, for example, in pots, plant containers or raised beds. You can buy compost for this purpose from garden centres or compost suppliers, and a wide range of suitable options are available, depending on what you want to use it for. For example, mushroom compost, or mushroom and manure compost are very good options for growing vegetables in raised beds. Mushroom compost consists of composted straw and animal waste that has been used for growing mushrooms, and then treated to destroy any spores. Mushroom and manure compost consists of mushroom compost with added manure. Both of these therefore have plenty of organic matter and nutrients suitable for vegetables.

You can also use compost as a soil improver in gardens or on allotments. Adding organic matter to soil has long been recognised as a way to improve soil structure, whether the soil is silty, clay or sandy. Whatever the structure, the organic matter seems to make the soil closer to the ideal soil, loam, with its mid-range particle size, close-to-neutral pH and good but not excessive drainage. You may consider it a bit extravagant to buy compost just to add it to your soil, and many gardeners choose to use farmyard manure for this purpose. However, if you’ve made your own compost from kitchen waste, it can feel very satisfying to use it to improve your garden beds, especially if it’s to grow vegetables!

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What Can Ericaceous Compost Be Used For?

If you want to grow ericaceous plants in pots, you will need ericaceous compost, which is acidic and so ideal for these plants, which dislike alkaline soil. If your plants are less specialist in their requirements, you may find that the ideal compost is multi-purpose compost or one of the John Innes Composts (a loam-based compost). These were formulated by the John Innes Institute for Plant Research, and contain the ideal balance of nutrients for plants at different stages, whether seeds, potting on, or mature plants. Because they are loam-based, they don’t dry out as quickly as some other composts. However, they’re made to standard formulae, and at present include peat, so if you want to go entirely peat-free, these may not be for you unless you can find a peat-free version.

Whatever you want from compost, there are so many varieties out there that you’re bound to find a suitable sort for your purpose.

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Garden Weeding Top Tips

It’s the job we dislike the most, yet it’s the biggest task on our “To Do List”.   Weeding. It often feels that no matter how much we pick, pull, spray and dig these troublesome tubers and pesky plants they still push their little green heads through, looking weak and defenseless, they then take hold of our borders or lawns like a tsunami of garden intruders.

Read more …Garden Weeding Top Tips

How to Grow Chillies

How to Grow Chillies

Discover how to grow your own delicious, flavour-filled chillies at home

Growing Conditions

Chillies are the delicious ingredient that gives that kick to so many recipes from around the world. While mass growing is usually linked with hot countries in Africa and Asia, they can also be grown from your home providing they are warm enough. You can start growing as early as January or February.

Chillies should be grown indoors in the UK, as our weather just isn’t warm enough to give us a successful crop. It is essential that chillies are kept warm, both in the early stages and later on in their development; although a greenhouse is usually warm enough once the plants have become established.

The minimum temperature your chillies should be exposed to is 10°c and they should be in a place where they get a lot of sunlight. A conservatory or windowsill is ideal. By May, the weather should be warm enough to move the plants into a greenhouse.

Equipment You Might Find Useful

Canes or sticks and string: Chillies are one of the many home grown foods that require something to support them. When they are smaller plants, they may flop under their own weight, whereas larger chilli plants may flop purely under the weight of their fruits. Tying them loosely to a garden cane or a large twig from your garden waste is usually enough to prevent a falling plant.

Troughs: Since your chillies should be grown indoors rather than in the soil for best results, you will need some pots or troughs to put them in. Troughs are better in greenhouses to maximise space, but they might look better in a nice round tub if kept in the home.

Clingfilm: Useful for keeping heat and moisture in seeding trays to help your baby chilli plants to germinate.

Capillary Matting: Roots may grow better and stronger if watered from below.

Getting Down To Growing

Plant your seeds. Fill seeding trays with compost, water them, and let the water drain. Seeds should be sown around 2-3 centimetres apart (one inch). Then, cover the trays loosely with Clingfilm.

It can take 1-2 weeks for your chillies to germinate, although some varieties can take up to six weeks. Popping the tray on a heated propagator can speed this up a little (although an electric blanket would serve you just as well).

Water your chillies regularly, but don’t soak them. In fact, some sources reckon that stressing your plants a little can give your crop a better flavour. In the early days though, keep soil damp but not ‘wet’.

Keep your trays somewhere warm with lots of bright sunlight such as a windowsill that gets a lot or sun, or in a conservatory if you have one.

When the seedlings are approximately 5cm (two inches) in height and have gained their second set of leaves, they are ready to be moved into their own individual pots. These pots should be around 8-10cm in diameter. You will need to re-pot them again when they have reached 15cm (six inches). Pop them in their own pots, or you can get three plants in one 12-inch tub. Make sure the pots have lots of compost, filling them up to around 1cm from the top.

One of the most important things to remember if you are growing indoors is to hand pollinate your chillies when they flower. This can be done with a cotton bud, just dabbed into each flower.

Harvesting your Chillies

When your first chillies have grown, cut them from the plant while they are green. By doing this, your plant should continue to fruit right through the season (which is between July and October).

If you want a better flavour, allow your further chillies to go red before harvesting.

If you moved your chillies to a greenhouse and they are struggling to ripen because of bad weather or poor sunlight, bring them back indoors and put them back on the windowsill, ensuring you keep the house warm.

For Best Results:

  • Use tomato feed weekly for better growth.
  • Check leaves daily for aphids, treating if needed.
  • Freeze or dry your excess chillies so you can enjoy your crop all year round.

Read more …How to Grow Chillies

Horse Manure

Composted Horse Manure

Rotted Horse Manure is a very popular compost & fertiliser and has been used by farmers and gardeners for many years to improve their soil and vegetable gardens.

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Why Use Composted Horse Manure?

Man Holding Manure

Composted Horse Manure improves soil structure, helping soil to hold more nutrition and water, as well as fertilising the soil and encouraging microorganisms. All soils can benefit from horse manure, particularly sandy soil which is known for drainage issues.

Horse manure provides good levels of the vital nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Our rotted horse manure is of an excellent quality having been shredded and well rotted down, and will continue to improve your soil the more it breaks down. Composting it yourself can be time consuming and there may be an unpleasant odour hanging around while it rots.

When creating raised beds, composted horse manure is commonly used as a thick bottom layer to encourage growth and to prevent waterlogging by improving the drainage.

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Benefits of Composted Horse Manure

Man Holding Manure

Provides vital nutrients like Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium.

Encourages Growth.

Helps to prevent waterlogging.

Continues to improve soil as it breaks down.

 

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