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For British Members,

First of all I hope you all are safe and our thoughts are for the 4 innocent people who died and 20 others who got injured earlier today in London. I just don't know why people do this.

On the bright side I found a dealer for horticultural professional grade pine bark. FINALLY!!..Yay.. The manufacturer is Melcourt and they got some really fantastic growing mediums. They don't sell any of their professional products directly . But you can get most of their good stuff delivered from here,

https://www.thegardensuperstore.co.uk/

Really good quality perlite can be bought from here ,

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281572419852

Disease and salt free coco coir can be bought from here,

https://www.fertilefibre.com/

Finally the best and economically viable potting mix can be bought from here,
Edit: Clover Professional Potting mix

http://www.gro-welldirect.co.uk/growing-media/professional-composts/clover-professional-potting-compost-80ltr/

For fertilising , I use Dyna Gro Foliagr pro or miracle gro 3:1:2 starting from mid march till mid April and then I use Vitax vitafeed professional 141 or Dynagro bloom till mid July. From mid July I use Vitax Vitafeed pro 214 or any good quality tomato or strawberry fertiliser would do.
Late ripening varities stay inside the greenhouse till mid June. I even got Panache to ripen and harvested nearly 40 Figs last year. We had 6 weeks of 25-32 C weather last year and it stayed 18-25 for most of the season. Inside the greenhouse of course it was like Miami.
I have had many bad experiences from cheap suppliers and I thought these information might help some of you.

Cheers,

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Our thoughts and prayers are with our British brothers and sisters! It has become a scary world ....
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Thanks Tony .

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  • Kelo
  • · Edited

Thank you for the links, Vinny, handy to know.

I just potted up another 24 :/ lol


BTW, can't open your ebay link.
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Thanks for the info Vinny, particularly about the late ripening varieties, I've got a few late ripeners i've put outside in the garden as they get more sun, conservory is hotter but quite a lot shadier, i thought light would ripen them quickest?, but i know they need heat too. Such a shame sometimes where both heat and sunlight are fairly scarce in this country ;-)

Steve
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Thanks for posting about the pine bark,good find!,are you going to let us in on the secret of what potting mixture you are going to go for for you have access to pine bark?
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Originally Posted by haslamhulme
Thanks for posting about the pine bark,good find!,are you going to let us in on the secret of what potting mixture you are going to go for for you have access to pine bark?

Hi Mate,

Sorry missed that lol, I've made an edit .
I used to use that John innes no:3 with some extra perlite and bark, but being loam based it's way too heavy for me to carry around and I regretted it this winter especially when it gets wet. The best I found is " Clover Professional Potting mix ", I'll post picture of the bags when I get them delivered . I used it for few trees last year with 25% bark and about 10% perlite since the potting mix already got some perlite in it and found it very good with excellent drainage. Too bad we don't have so many potting mixes like they have in the states. The other one is "Bio Bizz all mix", the best ever! but way too expensive like £12.50 for a 50 litre bag.
The garden superstore is part Fargro horticultural distributor for nurseries etc, so you can get good stuff from there.
Cheers
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Originally Posted by ukfigsteve
Thanks for the info Vinny, particularly about the late ripening varieties, I've got a few late ripeners i've put outside in the garden as they get more sun, conservory is hotter but quite a lot shadier, i thought light would ripen them quickest?, but i know they need heat too. Such a shame sometimes where both heat and sunlight are fairly scarce in this country ;-)

Steve


Hello Steve,
I think Essex is fairly dry compared to other parts of the UK and it's definitely an advantage for your trees, especially for the ones in ground. I think your plants would benefit more inside your conservatory than outdoors at the moment since the weak sunshine in spring wont do much, ideally a sunny conservatory. That way the heat will break the dormancy way before the plants growing outdoors. You are right they need the heat and the light, but we got to wake them up as early as possible. Can you get couple of grow lights in your conservatory? Maybe few daylight bulbs .

Cheers 
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Cheers Vinny,I'm gonna start playing around with mixes going forward,my potted trees are all in a mix of Cour and Perlite with granular feed,its. It's light but not sure how great it will be long term,it was just a quick and cheap way of getting potting mix whilst avoiding using cheap 'compost',if that's what really is in the supermarkets(I once found a whole egg in one bag).

I'll have to look up the clover.It isn't until I started growing in pots I realised how important it is to have good quality compost,all my other trees are in ground so wasn't really an issue before figs came along
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Cool, thanks for the info Vinny, the place is rented alas, so i'm a bit limited as to what I can do, but I will look into grow lights. I have built a fairly small ramshackle greenhouse and i've got the latest ripeners in there. If I install grow lights, people might think i'm growing weed though, it is essex after all ha ha ;-)

cheers,
Steve
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You can buy Melcourt on ebay, too.  http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152407913974?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
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Originally Posted by Kelo
You can buy Melcourt on ebay, too.  http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152407913974?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Kelo,
Thanks for the link,
The one I use is the Potting grade, the orchid bark is also good but way too expensive simply because it's pure pine bark chunks. The grade is also bigger . The advertised sale on eBay is £9.95 for 15 litre but you can get 70 litre for £10.95 from farago. The best grade is between 3-15 mm. Having said that you can buy pine bark from many suppliers around the country and many even supply in ton bags. But most of those are full of dust and fines. I had some bad deals in the past. The potting grade is specially made for nurseries and the eBay seller might've got his for whole sale from Farago (the garden superstore) and selling it for 15 litres. Is this eBay seller a Melcourt approved seller? You can check on their website . So far this is the only quality stuff I can compare with nursery standards and I thought it might help fellow collectors in our country.
I've added pics.
Cheers

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Yes, the ebay stuff is more for cymbidiums. I want to buy 70 litres but I would have to wait for some considerable time to use it all on my orchids lol.

What mix do you use for your figs?
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Originally Posted by Kelo
Yes, the ebay stuff is more for cymbidiums. I want to buy 70 litres but I would have to wait for some considerable time to use it all on my orchids lol.

What mix do you use for your figs?

As above,
I use Clover pro potting mix (hight peat content), 10%perlite about 25% pine bark, grow well Organics, lime, Bit of rock dust.
And every year I add micro nutrients and calcium.

5-1-1 mix is very good too for our climate but I add a bit of compost for nutrients. But never plant them directely into just compost. Well most of the garden centre composts are 70% peat anyway.

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I need to build a greenhouse of biblical scale to contain my new found exuberance.  I really have no idea what I'm getting into lol.
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Originally Posted by Kelo
I need to build a greenhouse of biblical scale to contain my new found exuberance.  I really have no idea what I'm getting into lol.

Yes mate, growing Figs in the UK is more like an engineering challenge.

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