Which? Gardening has named Thompson & Morgan’s peat-based 'incredicompost'  as best overall compost for sowing seeds and raising young plants.

T&M say they launched the compost, a blend of 80% Irish peat and 20% wood fibre, in March 2015 because  customers’ were incfreasingly disappointed with other blends on the market. The compost was launched alongside incredibloom® and incredicrop® fertilisers.

Which? Gardening gave incredicompost a score of 95% for sowing seeds, well ahead of the next best performer, which scored 80%. For raising young plants incredicompost scored 90%, leading to a Which? ‘Best Buy’.

Two seed varieties, antirrhinum and cabbage, were sown in the Which? trial and two plant varieties, fibrous begonias and tomatoes.

In another Which? Gardening compost test looking at container performance, incredicompost was listed as a recommended product.

T&M’s horticultural director Paul Hansord said: “We always knew we were on to a winner with our first move into the compost market. Our aim with incredicompost has been to develop a premium-quality product that brings consistency and reliability back to the market – something that has been missing since the increased use of green waste materials in a bid to reduce peat content in many well-known brands. Gardeners are keen to reduce their peat use but many have reported poor results with green-waste products.”

He adds: “To reduce the peat in our blend we have instead included wood fibre, sourced from Irish saw mills, actually making use of a surplus by-product. This wood fibre is graded by chip size, so each time we make a new batch we can guarantee consistency from our ingredients, leading to consistent performance from the compost, no matter the time of year or which ‘batch’ our customers are supplied from.”

Incredicompost contains trace elements, minerals, a wetting agent and a little pre-mixed fertiliser for early growth but is sold with a sachet of incredibloom for mixing in at planting time to feed plants for around seven months

When GTN Xtra checked online, typical prices were £9.99 for a 25-litre pack (very.co.uk) and £14.99 plus £4.99 shipping for 70 litres (greenfingers.com).

Full coverage of the compost trials can be found in the Jan/Feb 2016 and April 2016 issues of Which? Gardening.