We recently had a customer telling us it is great to find a garden centre that (a) stocks peat free compost (b) understands why people choose peat free and don’t question their decision to buy it!!!
For The Secret Garden this seems a no brainer as we have been supplying peat free, peat reduced and organic composts for a number of years.However it seems that not all within our industry are giving customers a choice or providing the information about why the ongoing use of peat can be harmful to the environment.
SO WHY USE PEAT FREE COMPOST?
Peat-free compost containing recycled materials is a greener, kinder compost – and here’s why!
-It is made from recycled materials – which is good news for the environment because it cuts down the amount of organic waste that is sent to landfill.
-Peat-free compost containing recycled materials is made from garden waste which would have previously been sent to landfill sites but is now being recycled on a large scale commercially for use in peat-free products.
-It also gets blooming good results for your garden. For a great feature on peat free see the Earth Friendy Gardener
_And it won’t cost you the earth – whereas continuing to use peat based compost might cost us the earth.
Today, lowland peat bogs and their wildlife are threatened through peat extraction for garden composts and other uses. Peatland wildlife such as butterflies and birds depend on peat for its survival.
As peat is slow to develop, no more than 1mm in depth per year. A 10 metre deep peat reserve will have taken 10,000 years to develop. So when peat is mined for garden compost it will take 1,000 years to replace every metre that is taken away. Quite a shocking statistic!!!!!
Photo courtesy of Earthday
So glad you addressed this Brian and an appropriate choice of topic for Earth Day.
I was looking for peat free or peat reduced compost myself recently but to my complete disappointment, my first choice of garden centre didn’t have any. Once people are informed of the reasons for choosing them over their usual multi purpose composts, hopefully it will encourage them to start asking for alternatives and all garden centres will stock them.
We’re currently growing seeds into peat free modules in the community gardens to show gardeners they don’t automatically have to reach for the peat and I’ll be blogging the results as they appear.
Looking forward to seeing the outcome of your own trial, and by doing it within a community garden you should increase both the awareness and practice of the participants.
Still amazes me that more garden centres are not providing peat free still.