Compost woes

[Odsox]

That's potting compost not compost in bins, a very ambiguous term.

Anyway, one of my problems this year has been root rot or foot rot.
I lost about half of my early broad beans and French beans and a few Borlottos, plus 3 tomato plants.
A lot of the ones that survived still have symptoms to some extent, mainly brown lesions at the bottom of the stems, but now the temperatures are higher I think they will survive.
Looking up the problem in my gardening books it tells me that it is a fungus problem caused by bad hygiene. The plants however are in 3 totally different places and I can't think that all 3 places are infected, but the common denominator is that they were all started off in pots, sterilised pots at that (as I learnt that from a damping off problem a few years ago), so I'm 99% sure it's the bought in potting compost.

It has only affected my beans and tomatoes, but as those are my two main crops it's something that I have to overcome. Bought potting compost clearly isn't sterilised these days or there wouldn't be any weed seedlings appearing or any compost gnats, both of which I get.
So I think from now on I shall mix my own compost, sterilise it myself and mix the nutrients myself and if it happens again I will know for certain who to blame.
Another benefit is that I can make sure that the added nutrients are organic, something that I'm sure a lot of people don't realise when they buy seed and potting compost.

[Green Aura]

Seems the way to go Tony.

I remember my Dad baking compost in the oven in an old metal biscuit tin - although I can't recall us ever having a compost heap If I'm right he must have been baking his old John Innes to re-use He did put a little BF+B in it.

[MKG]

I have compost bin in the sunniest part of the garden purely because of this. Shop-bought compost nowadays seems to be a very hurried thing (Does it look brown? Yes? Bag it and sell it). I recently bought some which smelled very woodlandy - I thought at first - but actually it's just musty. Admittedly, it was a cheapo bargain, but even so ...

Anyway, it all goes in that bin for a few weeks to re-heat and complete. That does seem to do the trick.

Mike

EDIT ... Well, I thought it was a bargain - is £10 for 300 litres good?

[Odsox]

Seems the way to go Tony.

I remember my Dad baking compost in the oven in an old metal biscuit tin - although I can't recall us ever having a compost heap If I'm right he must have been baking his old John Innes to re-use He did put a little BF+B in it.

I used to sterilise my own years ago too, steamed over a Baby Burco, then I got lazy .. or work got in the way, or something.
BUT, it just so happens that I will have a calor gas oven surplus to requirements by the weekend, so I already had that in mind.

No idea if that's cheap or not Mike, but it's probably a case of you get what you pay for, or not in your (and my) case.

[MeganW]

Apologies if I'm being stupid here, but why do you need to bake compost in the oven before re-using it? This is a new concept to me!

[phil55494]

The baking is to sterilise the compost before reuse so there are no nasties lurking in there.
We generally use coir or a mix of coir with leafmould or garden compost for a seed mix. Seems to work ok for us.

[Odsox]

Apologies if I'm being stupid here, but why do you need to bake compost in the oven before re-using it? This is a new concept to me!

Not a stupid question at all Megan.
As Phil said, it's to sterilise the compost.
The problems I've had this year would have been averted if the manufacturer had sterilised my compost, but instead it was infected with foot rot fungus.
Baking would kill the fungus spores along with other things like tomato/potato blight spores, onion white rot spores, any weed seeds and any pest eggs.

[MeganW]

I feel like a bit of an idiot now - I've been re-using last year's compost without doing anything to it. Glad I know what to do in the future. How long would you normally bake it for?

[Thomzo]

Don't worry, Megan. I've been doing the same thing for years. Could explain my patchy germination results.

I shall have to rethink.

Zoe

[Odsox]

How long would you normally bake it for?

I would aim for a temperature of 100c in the middle of the compost and keep it there for at least a few minutes.
Or you could zap smaller amounts in a microwave.