On 14 May, 14:15, "Charlie Pridham"
wrote:
I think there is some confusion here, using or not using peat has nothing
whatever to do with global warming, although I suppose it could be argued
that it would depend on how far the compost had traveled to the point of
use, so those people using "organic compost" made from coir are having a
much worse effect than those using an Irish peat based compost!

Yes and no. Yes, because when you start moving the peat you cause it
to erode and all the carbon get oxidised back into the atmosphere.
Peat get thick by about one foot every thousand of years. That is not
renewable energy, not sustainable. Peat bogs act as a carbon sink and
holds more carbon than all the world's forests.

As for the no, not all peat free compost are based on coir. Coir was
used by gardeners before peat was and in 1951 it was said to be second
best to peat (Kew uses it for seeds). Some plants prefer it too, such
as fushias. The coconut fibres compost are imported from Sri Lanka, so
yes it has some transport issue - however you cannot compare its air
mile to the release of carbon. In Sri Lanka, wester India and the
Philippines that fibres is left to rot and uses land spaces. It is
used to bulk compost and facilitate drainage. But not all uses it.

We use organic none peat compost for everything we produce for sale, but we
do so because what we grow does better in it, not to please the green lobby,

Well that is just brilliant. But don't for a moment think that the air
the green lobby breathes in is not the same as yours ;o)

I would not hesitate to change back in order to grow something that did not
like it, and I am a long way from being convinced that peat extraction in
some places is causing much damage at all and in places like Finland they
reckon its being laid down faster than they are extracting.

It doesn't lay down faster - it is simply there. But you've got a
point that peat in Finland is being used for energy since it releases
less carbon than fossil fuel. But there's a transport issue there too.

You simply can not pick on one commodity and say "stop doing this its bad"
but ignoring the hundreds of products we all use every day that are all just
as bad.

Off course not, but when it's something that we don't need, like peat,
something that we can go without, why do damage to use it when it is
not really required?! That is the only point I'm trying to make.

And as for profit, it would make no difference to the level of profit being
made, the cost of the compost might, not the type. What we are using is
exactly the same price as the peat based compost we used to use.

Hmmm... perhaps I was getting muddled there in my thoughts. I can see
lots of garden centres using peat because it produces a fast growing
plant, attractive to buyers and the buyers, if naive, would think they
have something good on their hands because the plant looks great and
it's in peat. Once the plant is moved into another medium, it
struggles. So many people have asked me why the plant they got at
Woolworth drooped and floped after planting in ordinary compost. Well,
the plant was saturated and at an early stage - the growing was faster
but that didn't produced a sturdy plant, it produced a quick plant. If
you're an amateur you just wouldn't know. In this way you produce lots
of good looking plants in peat, with very little failure, hence my
thoughts on profits to the loss of our environment.

Chemicals have also influenced garden centres in this way. Producing
perfect plants, with no holes made by a bug. The combination of the
two have brought the fall of lots of insects and birds. We are now
just about to understand how to go back to old fashion gardening
practices, which took longer but the benefits were greater, because
they were sustainable.