Gardening Which? magazine have brought out a critical report on peat free potting compost. Each year they trial 20 plus bags of compost and peat compost always come out best. Not suprising as peat is an ideal growing medium for most plants. The problem is peat is extracted from fragile wildlife havens and the sale of peat compost is going to be illegal after 2012. I always welcome Gardening Which? reports but there was one organic peat free bagged compost they didn’t trial. Fertile Fibre. I don’t know why. I know plenty of people who have used this recycled compost (its made out of waste coconut fiber – coir) as an effective alternative to peat free. You can get it from the organic gardening catalogue. Alternatively you could make your own potting compost using a mix of one part home made compost to one part top soil to one part sharp sand (available at garden centres). The best peat free compost in the trial was Westland Peat Free Multi-Purpose compost with added John Innes. This is made out of composted bark and got the same rating as two peat composts and better than two others. This should be available from most garden centres. Also it should be noted that Gardening Which? deliberately pick seeds that are notoriously hard to germinate.