Did anyone else hear the debate at the end of GQT just now about the pros and cons of using peat? The consensus seemed to be that no peat-free compost is as good as peat, and that the depletion of peat stocks is a tiny problem compared to other environmental disasters. One speaker claimed that gardeners are an easy target and that the non-peat market is just a way of making extra money for the producers and garden centres.
What do you think?
I prefer to use peat free to peat composts because no matter how small, all conservation of resources is valuable. Peat is also a habitat as well. I have got John Innes seed compost because I do not seem to be able to find peat free seed composts around here. Even the J A Bowers one is reduced peat.
We tend to use peat based composts, simply because none of the replacements are very good.
The only time we use soil based compost is for germinating brassicas. A very old gardening programme on Central TV said that clubroot was endemic in peat, and therefore you should avoid germinating brassica seeds in peat based composts. Since doing this we have been clubroot free.
valmarg
Why are non-peat composts so bad, I've had no problems with them.
I saw a company jumping on the 'peat-free' bandwagon, a bag of horse manure labelled as such. ???
Unless the horse had been eating peat, there should be no reason for it to be in there anyway. ::)
Certainly Caroline,
I found this whilst "Googling"
http://www.nettles.org.uk/nettles/activities/nettlemanure.asp
Somehow that got into the wrong thread, Fork, but thanks anyway!
Sorry caroline,must be my age ;D
Never had any problem with Clubroot so far.......