A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2007 Less harmful alternative to peat.....

I hope you all can help me! I'm ridiculously new to gardening and this forum has become my lifeline!!

A lot of books, magazines, and gardeners' advice refers to using a lot of peat moss. This deeply disturbs me as peat moss is strip mined from the earth's wetlands. A bog takes thousands of years to develop and is the earth's way of purifying our planet's water. Going in there with heavy machinery and ripping it out and leaving behind devastation so we can have pretty hanging baskets is upsetting to me.

Are there brands of peat that are not obtained in this way -the ones in my area proclaim proudly on the package that they are from actual bogs (shakes head in despair)? Are their other materials that can be used instead of peat?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated! At present I cannot bring myself to buy a single bag!


AT

Depends what you're using it for, but peat and peat moss are 2 different things i think. An excellent renewable peat substitute is coir, which is pulverised coconut husk. It's available in compressed bricks and has all the attributes of peat.
Peat moss on the other hand is a plant that i always figured grows on the peat bogs. May be wrong there though.
Good question BTW.

Yes, thank you! I've always used the terms interchangably, but you are quite right! It is "peat" that I meant. Now that I aspire to "garden-dom" I must be specific!

I have never heard of coir - I am relieved to have an answer! You are terrific!


AT

What exactly are you looking to use it for? Potting....soil amendment....etc? If you are looking for a soil amendment, use compost. If you are looking for a potting mix, stay away from the soiless mixes and use soil-based material. They have little or no peat in them.

I have never heard of coir
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It's a great use for coconut husks which were an otherwise throw-away item. Great for wormfarm bedding, mix 50:50 with coarse sand as a seed raising mix, (works great )used as a mulch if coarse, as a soil additive to retain moisture etc. They do make wire hanging basket liners out of the stuff too. You've possibly seen it and didn't know what it was.
Google 'coir bricks' for info

Yes, those 'coir bricks' is good,
I wish they sold it around here...
but don't..
The only time I see the coir is lined in hanging baskets...

You are all great!

I always feel stupid asking garden questions because I feel stupid to begin with, but everyone here is so friendly!

Thank you for the tip about soiless mix, JohnCT. The fact that there was such a thing confused me. I guess the idea is that it's somehow better because there are no weeds, etc. Actual soil-based is the choice for me!

I have seen those baskets, Longy! Wondered what that stuff was! Haven't seen it for sale locally, but I'll ask at the nursery. If not, I'll just buy a bunch of coconut fibre doormats at Walmart and feed them through a woodchipper! LOL!!


AT

hello fellow canuck,

where are you from,i m from laval,qc.

don t worry we ve all gone tru and still are going tru our silly questions period...a bit like in ottawa you know...lol

actually it helped me also the fact to know about coconut and the peat thing,thank you for sharing that.

and good luck with your garden.

Francine (franny ).

I use coconut long fiber when I need to admend in the soil for more moisture retentive plants this year I diffenatly will use it out side as another drought is expected.. I like it better than peat moss because peatmoss is sooooo dusty,, I also use coconut bark for epi's, orchids, pitcher plant( Carnivorous) as it''s closest to it nature. The bark has to be soaked first it will expand greatly so any a small amount is needed to break off Per plant,, I also use coconut fiber in compost occassionally.. I love coconut fiber and the bark!!

Hello!
I am from BC and I'm under a MILLION centimetres of snow right now! It snowed again yesterday! Thanks to the snowplow I have a six foot pile of snow right in front of our kitchen window! Ugh!

Our soil here is very very dense - it's hard to put a shovel into it, and lots of big rocks (about baseball size). I think coconut fibre is the way to go. This past summer was very demoralizing because a huge heatwave hit and everyone's plants just cooked. Everything just looked dead (except the people who were watering like crazy - which is just bad form in a heatwave if you ask me!).

Thanks for the vote of confidence! Once spring hits I'll be asking a lot more stupid questions!


AT

hello,

good luck with the snow,here for once we didn t had a drop before mid january,imagine going to midnight mass in sandals..IN CANADA,unbelievable normally,well good luck with the snow...you lucky devil you!

hope you won t have another heatwave,i don t know if it would be good during a heatwave but do you think lets say if you were to put (and i know it ll sound a bit silly...ut ) if you were to put some parasols in your garden,you think it would help a bit for a while?


well bye for now and talk to you soon.

Franny.

some thoughts

1. You have to watch with Coir, you can get high salt levels from it if it is not handled right.
also if the Coir is compressed into bricks, i wonder how that impacts the fiber structures.
2. Peat moss, is it sustainable? well it depends on the rate of use and I hear arguments from both sides all the time.
3. Commercial growers are now looking at ground pine logs as a possible replacement for peat moss and pine bark (greenhouse product news has an article on this in the Jan 07 issue)
4. Also FYI fiber lengthens can impact insect populations such as fungus gnats, but that would be another topic in itself.

They reason I keep up on this info is because my husband and I work with wood fiber pots, a competitor to peat pots (Jiffy pots). We think that the wood is a much more sustainable way even though there is some peat moss in the wood fiber pots.