I see from your profile that you live in the US. The peat available in the US is from the US or Canada. It is harvested at a rate far less than the rate of it's regrowth.

The environmental impact of peat harvesting for North America is negligible.

The horror stories you have heard/read are from the other side of the pond where the supply/demand is different. Problems have occurred there.

If you want a super aerated soil head over to the container gardening forum and read any of Al's (tapla) postings.

If you just want a peat alternative use coconut coir, if you can find it reasonably priced. Very small bark chips, peat, coco coir, vermiculite and perlite are common potting mix ingredients.

Wise person, happyslappy, good decision.
Potting mixes before about the 1960's usually were homemade and did not contain peat moss at all, market hype created the need for that. What I remember mixing from back then is equal parts sand and compost. The biggest problem people had then was drainage, hence the marketing of vermiculite and perlite also. If your base soil is clay and you need to purchase sand you will be making about the same impact on the earth as purchasing peat moss, however.

happyslappy: I think that peat belongs in the bogs where it is found. I think, furthemore, that seedlings deserve more nutrition than is to be found in peat. My potting mix, which I have used for about 30 years with good results, is 1 part garden soil, 1 part good quality compost, and a dash of soft rock phosphate (optional). Please note: cost is zero to minimal; I also make my own pots from newspaper. The only reason for peat, perlite, or vermiculite is drainge. So, with my mixture, you must water from the bottom, putting the pots in trays or on a Gardeners Supply self-watering device. Watering from the top causes compaction. And use a cheap fan to stop damping off, which you can get with any mixture involving soil. Regards, Peter.

My daughter and I just did a science fair project on this, and found Supersoil (which has peat as only as a secondary ingredient) to outperform most other commercial products.

>If you just want a peat alternative use coconut coir, if you can find it reasonably priced.

The amount of resources used to import coir keeps it from being the environmentally friend alternative the poster is looking for.

"The amount of resources used to import coir keeps it from being the environmentally friend alternative the poster is looking for."

happyslappy is in australia (according to their profile) and peat is not readily available here anyway due to the dry climate and lack of peat bogs, whereas coir is abundant in the asia pacific region. Yes a lot of it is imported but so too is peat. The difference is coir is a waste product and peat is not. The fact that coir is so cheap over here and peat is so incredibly expensive gives a pretty good indication that coir is much more economical to import particularly in a compressed form.

TG

g'day happyslappy,

i have been looking for a potting mix that has no peat in it but so far there are none, the quality assurance standards have pretty much standardised the whole process.

can be some mix ups in what is what when this topic hits the air waves, peat moss is what happens to the growing sphagnum (sphagnum/peat if that is what it is known as in some locations) when it dies and decomposes and this forms the basis of certain wetland areas.

now the sphagnum moss can be harvested with care and do no damage to the habitat, but once the living sphagnum has been removed and the peat moss underneath is mined that is pretty much the end of that habitat as the peat takes thousands of years to form, and once that occurs and by no accident the land is usually reclaimed and developed for some other purpose.

in the US of A from what i have read they import their peat moss from canada and russia, some of ours would come from habitat destruction in places like tasmania and the rest from overseas.

but it must be readily available as it is much used in all brands of potting mixes, when as has been said coir would be a whole lot more cheaper one would think and at the very least a whole lot more enviromentaly friendly, but then again being that friendly counts for little with the profit rakers.

and at the end of the day there is realy nothing in peat moss to help the plants that much at all, recycled organic material would be far better.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page

If peat improves your output by as little as 10% it becomes beneficial for the peat bogs if you use it IMHO. There are Huge tracts of peat in Siberia, Alaska, and Canada, frozen solid and 50 feet deep in some places. If it warms up all of that peat will start melting, and decomposition will take away that peat far faster than 50,000,000 gardeners ever could (if only there were 50million gardeners in the US). Also, that peat represents an amount of Carbon equal to roughtly one third the amount of carbon currently in the atmosphere. We could burn all of the coal and oil on the globe and not equal that much Carbon. This is only important from the currently accepted global warming climate change models however.

I cant figure out the whole dependence on peat issue, it's not widely available here (see link below) and certainly not in bulk. I was just stunned when I first starting reading posts here ages ago about people using it as a garden amendment. That just isnt done over here unless you planned on remortgaging your house ;). People over here use compost and mulch, that's just the way it is and as someone who has never used it as a soil amendment it seems such a wasteful way to go. I just dont get the logic of it. If we manage on some of the poorest soils in the world without filling up the beds with peat, then why do people in countries where the soil is a lot more fertile than here feel that they cant survive without it? Or is just that it has been so well marketed by the producers?

"Peatlands are a distinctive wetland type which, though common in some parts of the world, are rare in Australia."

Here is a link that might be useful: Australian Peatlands

I cant figure out the whole dependence on peat issue, it's not widely available here

In the US it is widely available and is one of the least expensive components of a potting mix or soil amendments. Also, the harvesting is mostly done in Canada where it is regulated by the government. The rate of harvest is well below the rate of regrowth making it completely sustainable. The peat harvesters have developed the means to recreate a peat bog in 10-20 years rather than the hundred-thousands years it takes naturally. People over here use compost and mulch,

Here too ;-)

While peat isn't perfect and certainly has it's shortcomings, so does everything else. Compost, as great as it is, isn't very stable and breaks down quickly. Peat will persist and aggregate the soil particles for several years. Peat (from Canada) tends to be very acidic as well and this makes it hard to beat when trying to create an acid soil for growing acid loving plants such as blueberries. For container growing peat is hard to beat cost wise as a primary constituent of potting mixes. There are longer lasting components, but for short term plantings it is hard to beat peat.

Given the expense of peat in Australia I would imagine I wouldn't use it if I lived there. I don't use coconut coir here, precisely because it costs a lot of money in comparison to peat. In some areas it is quite inexpensive from what I have been told.

Could I live without peat? Sure. It is just that certain things would be more expensive or require more work from me if I didn't have access to peat.

By far most people will go to the store and buy peat moss to replenish the organic matter in their soil rather than use a resource most of us have ready access to, tree leaves. I see most gardeners around here spending lots of time, energy, and money getting rid of their leaves every fall instead of using them to replenish the organic matter their soil needs. There is no real good reason where leaves are plentiful to spend money buying peat moss.

I don't like worrying about peat moss' acidity and when it dries out it repels water. That's enough to not use it for me

I realise that peat is readily available in countries like the us and canada, but playing devils advocate, is that a good reason to use it? my point about it not being readily available here proves that if it wasnt available to you, you wouldnt miss it. People over here have a couple of choices when it comes to amending their soil, they compost, they buy compost, and/or use mulch. Yes compost breaks down but it's a lot more fertile than peat is and it's a recycled product.

"I don't use coconut coir here, precisely because it costs a lot of money in comparison to peat. In some areas it is quite inexpensive from what I have been told."

over here coir isnt used in bulk either, but in small quantities it is great stuff for certain purposes and a little goes a long way. I used to use peat for propogating and then I switched to coir about 5 years ago because it was a waste product. As soon as I started using it I quickly realised it was so superior to peat. It's lighter and allows more air in, it holds water better and it doesnt have the water repellency problem that peat does, and from a propogating point of view, peat is so over-rated.

But when I said I dont understand the logic, I mean from an environmental & wastage point of view. some people here say that the peat bogs are sustainable but that only addresses supply and demand. Peat bogs are ecosystems and habitats which have to be seriously affected by peat mining. Is it logical to mine a product like this which is not necessary, when there are other easy alternatives available, just because it might be a bit more convenient and a little less work for gardeners?

Im not trying to be judgemental but I just cant convince myself that habitat destruction for the sake of a wee bit of gardening convenience is ok.

TG

"I see most gardeners around here spending lots of time, energy, and money getting rid of their leaves every fall instead of using them to replenish the organic matter their soil needs."

I dont understand why people over here throw out their grass clippings week after week and then go buy compost either, it's pretty silly

"and when it dries out it repels water"

have to agree with that

TG

Bark fines, perlite, and Turface MVP combine to make an exceptional container medium. It will be fast draining which insures freedom from root rot problems. The Turface has a good CEC, too.

Im not trying to be judgemental but I just cant convince myself that habitat destruction for the sake of a wee bit of gardening convenience is ok

I really hadn't ever considered the issue from this perspective.

My understanding is the the areas allowed for harvest are 'a drop in the ocean' in comparison to the areas where harvesting is off limits. It is also my understanding that the peat harvesters are regulated by the Canadian government to regrow the bogs after harvest. I don't have any details as to whether all of the bogs are replaced or not.

So, I guess my question is what habitat is being destroyed? I am speaking of the US/Canadian markets here.

There may well be an adverse environmental impact worth considering, I am simply ignorant of it.

too true tg,

lots of resources head to the dump, ok it gets recycled there but people should recycle the stuff the commonly end up buying processed in their own yards.

len

>So, I guess my question is what habitat is being destroyed?

"To harvest a bog for peat moss, it must first be drained, dried and then cut. The resulting fields can be too dry for Sphagnum to regenerate and even if the water level returns to normal, it can take years for bogs to return to their former state. "

to me that is habitat destruction and everything within that area including plants, birds, insects, and other life is going to be seriously affected. some things will probably perish while others will be displaced to other areas to compete in unfamiliar territory for their survival. Imagine for a minute that everything you rely on for survival like shelter, food etc is on your property. Then one day someone comes along with a bulldozer and knocks down your house, digs up your food crops, runs over your chickens and tells you to get out and go somewhere else, and you can come back in 20 years and start again. Then they said "whats the problem? yours is the only house in the suburb we're doing this to (for now) so it's not like it's a big deal" it wouldnt be much consolation to you :)

"Development or alteration of peatlands can have a significant impact on their carbon storage capacity, and can change them from sinks to sources of carbon. For example, drainage leads to the oxidation of the peat layer and the accelerated release of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere"

Is this something we really should be encouraging? It doesnt matter what we do, it always has an affect but the human race is very good at convincing ourselves (or being convinced by invested parties) that we're not really doing any damage.

But all that aside there is so much organic waste being thrown away that it seems so wasteful to spend resources on mining and transporting peat around, draining and disrupting peat bogs when we could just as easily use compost in most cases and utilise a lot more of this waste that we all generate.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Importance of Being a bog

I was considering coir, but while researching it, found this information and have since decided against it:

Here is a link that might be useful: coir study

If you feel that taking peat moss from a bog destroys a habitat then what about many of the other products used in organic farming/gardening. Saying we use soft rock phosphate means we're responsible for open pit/strip mining.Greensand, ag lime, dolomite lime, sulfur, sulfate of potash, chilean nitrate, bat guano and many other products we consider organic are mined or removed from thier ecosystem. So if you feel strongly about not using peat moss why would you feel any better about using these other products? It's all a balance. I liked peat moss but composted leaves's properties work just as well for me and are free. Maybe instead of villanizing one product as peat moss organic gardeners should look at the habitat destruction they cause by the purchase of all mined organic products. I'm not advocating not using them but that perhaps we should be aware that our purchasing some organic products indeed requires the "destruction" of ecosystems. Tom

goat man, I do agree with you in that we need to think about where things come from and try to utilize the least amount of resources we can. the difference in my opinion with peat is, that it is used in large amounts, things like rock phosphate, lime, potash etc arent used as bulk soil amendments, but more importantly (and this is really where i think the difference lies) is there is already an organic alternative to peat moss that is easily produced anywhere. compost isnt mined from anywhere and it makes use of organic matter that would normally go to landfill. Its a win - win situation.

as I mentioned above in countries like oz where using peat isnt the norm we dont even miss it, but I didnt mean to upset anyone, just thought it was food for thought. :)

Is the peat moss issue "Straining at gnats and swallowing camels?"
I don't think it is swallowing camels here, but think it is straining a bit at gnats....whew!

On the malarianomore.org site it will tell you that a chid dies in Africa every 30 seconds from malaria. How about some donating a few bucks to help save a life?

Well, Happyslappy, I don't get this whole discussion either. Seems to me like you just asked for a recipe, didn't you? For starting seeds I use two parts compost (homemeade, of course) and one part perlite. I use homemade newspaper pots and water from the bottom and have had great success. The little fan is a necessity to prevent damping off though because the compost does retain more moisture than the commercial mixtures that contain peat, perlite, and vermiculite. Cheryl