On the Beechgrove Garden last night, they found that New Horizon gave the best germination rate tested against a few other brands. That was just for seedling compost, however. I've been using Levington's-With-Added-John-Innes, but find it varies quite a bit from bag to bag, sometimes quite fine and sometimes with lumps of stuff in it, so I'm also interested in the answers here, because I am going off it.

Is Westland the compost that uses peat filtered out of the water at water treatment works? I use this when I can get it as a seed compost (not very often) and have found it to be good. I am currently using New Horizon (plus coarse sand) for germinating seeds and am satisfied with it. Otherwise I much prefer to use my own mix of loam, grit and leaf mould for potting on plants.

Remember this has been an extremely odd season with March temps in the 20s, April in the low teens, if that. Cold early May and now heat... So what I am attempting to say is that it may well not be the compost but the weather

yes, that's too true MG! It definitely is the weather, but I just wondered if I was making things worse with my compost. I think next time I shall do a mix with the JInnes and add some multi-purpose to give it a bit of a lighter density. I wish I could make my own, but I've tried in the past and it's not nearly as easy as Monty makes it out to be....especially when a hedgehog takes up residence in it! lol. I don't have the room sadly, but I do have a wormery....unfortunately all the worms died over winter so I need to get some more worms!