Where are you located? Like you, I will not provoke an off topic discussion about peat moss. I do have an opinion but it has nothing to do with your question. However, my experience with peat moss has not been such that I would use it to hold water. I don't know why but it seems to be hydrophobic in my use. Have you heard of using shampoo to make your soil more absorbent? Search this forum for more information. I am not suggesting it for your grass seed, but once it is established it might be helpful. Back to your question, can you post a picture of this soil crusting issue you have?

A meeting of horticulturists in Iran in the 1970's issued a statement that peat moss is a non renewable resource. The British Hortucultural Society is asking its members to cease using peat moss because harvesting of it is unsustainable. Unless you live in a desert, or the plains, where few trees grow there are better, renewable resources that can be used, often at less cost, to improve soil. I watch people aound here diligently rake up, bag up, and actually pay to have these leaves that fall from trees every year, hauled away every fall and then in the spring go to the garden center and buy bags of peat moss to replace the organic matter they threw away the previous fall. I watch people around here diligently collect the grass clippings when they mow, bag them, and pay someone to haul them away so they can go to the garden center and pay for a few nutrients to repalce the thousands they just tossed out. Like buying white bread made from flour that has 25 nutrients removed during milling and has 10 nutrients put back in and is called "enriched". In Indiana there should be no good reason for someone to buy peat moss to compost manure.

Peat moss is a non-renewable resource that's disappearing pretty fast, so people are trying very hard to get away from using it. If you live in the US or Canada you are almost certainly getting the peat from Canadian bogs which are government regulated to be harvested at a rate exponentially less than the rate which new peat is being formed. It is entirely renewable. This idea that the peat harvest isn't sustainable comes from three places: 1. Europe where peat harvesting has been disastrous (not comparable to the Canadian situation) 2. Various 'gurus' on the web who don't understand the way the Canadian government regulates the peat industry or confuse it with the problems experienced on the European Continent. 3. Those who profit from the peat alternatives who would like nothing better than to have the environmentally conscious believe they are destroying the environment by not buying their overpriced product. Coconut coir is an example. In most of the US it is exponentially more expensive than peat, yet it is nothing more than an industry garbage product that is now sold at great profit instead of going to a landfill. It ought to be super cheap, but in most of the US it isn't because people are willing to pay more to 'save the environment' even when it doesn't need saving. Coconut 'coir' is just the husk of a coconut. Why call it 'coir'? Because it sounds more trendy than 'husk'. It's just marketing. Since it is an industry waste product why does it cost more than peat? Because people are willing to pay for it. People seriously misinformed about an easily available, relatively inexpensive product that is just as good in every way, if not better.

I spend most of my GW time on the container and other forums, but today I'm just bored - roaming around, and stumbled on this post. I'm not sure about what controversy (peat) you're referring to, but in raised beds, you're certainly not relegated to the use of sphagnum peat- especially if you're concerned about the controversy over the supposed 'nonrenewability' of peat. Reed/sedge or Michigan peat is is an excellent product for gardens and raised beds. I would bet that the "Beats Peat" product is coir, too. That it is or isn't better than sphagnum peat is open to plenty of debate. I don't think there is enough difference between the two, when used in the garden, to bother mounting a 'for' or 'against' argument. Reed/sedge/Michigan peat is a sludgy mix of partially decomposed - you guessed it - reeds, sedges, and lakeside grasses, and probably enough aquatic animal skeletons/shells to supply a good bit of mineral nutrition as well. Mixed with a healthy amount of composted or partially composted pine bark and some native soil or sand, it will yield an inexpensive, rich, black, free-draining soil that looks like this: I've grown in this soil for years & find it extremely productive and full of life. If you have more interest & want to discuss it further, let me know - I don't come around the SF forum often. Al