Bloomin Amazing was launched in March 2018 and at Glee later the same year won the Best of British and GIMA Innovators awards, since when it has become firmly established as the UK’s leading organic soil enricher and mulch. With its great sustainability credentials and success as a retail product, the team were excited to investigate its potential as the basis for a peat-free potting compost.
In extensive trials sponsored by Bloomin Amazing, Rachel Greenhill, a PhD student working at the University of Sheffield, has been looking closely at the physical and chemical properties of digestate mixes, and exploring their use in growing media.
She looked at the use of digestates as a constituent in peat-free compost formulations, blended with a range of other likely candidate materials. She also tested existing branded products based on digestates and other organic materials available from garden centres.
It’s been a sobering process and the scientific team at Bloomin Amazing, together with Rachel and University professors, in the end had to conclude that NONE of the digestate formulations tested, including several branded products already on the market, performed well enough to be considered a viable alternative to peat-based compost.
Nick Finding, Managing Director commented, “To be honest we are disappointed because we recognise that there is demand for good alternatives to peat and Bloomin Amazing would be a great and sustainable option. Whilst we did produce some acceptable formulations that gave us reasonable results, we don’t want to go to market with anything less than an excellent and efficacious product that will delight our customers. We are aware of quite a lot of problems with other digestate based growing media products and its very important to us that we only market products that we can guarantee are of excellent quality and effectiveness.”
Bloomin AmazingSoil Enricher is available in 50L bags with a suggested retail price of £6.49.
To find out more about Bloomin Amazing go to www.bloominamazing.com or e-mail Nick at nfinding@bloominamazing.com or call head office to speak to us on 01305 889525
