I've had this concern brewing in the back of my mind for a while and if you are a gardener I have a few questions for you.
Do you put peat moss on your gardens? Why do you use it, and do you know where it comes from?
A quick tour down the aisle in your local big box department store or nursery offers consumers a wide range of peat-based products. You have your soilless mixes, peat post, peat pellets, soil amendments that all contain peat, and I would hazard a guess that most nursery plants are packed into some type of peat based product.
How did it come to be that a product (which is almost entirely banned in the UK) is so essential to North American gardens?
A quick tour of the Internet tells us that prior to the 1960s there were a plethora of "soil enhancers" that came from a variety of sources other than peat.
Can I remind you that composting has been going on since the dawn of time with great success?
Clever marketing seems to have convinced gardeners and landscapers that peat is a necessity in the horticultural world. In fact I have asked people why they use peat in their gardens and the stock answer usually is: "It is good for the garden, isn't it?"
Well the truth is that peat moss has absolutely no nutrients or organic matter. It can be difficult to work into soil.
Have you ever tried to work with a bag of peat moss that is already saturated? There are often pest problems associated with peat and it can throw your pH completely out of whack if used in abundance.
I read a comment that asked: "Where have all the bogs gone?" - and the answer was that they were sitting in garden sheds, bagged, bound and useless. Peat bogs are not a renewable resource.
Peat is made up of dead plant remains that get preserved in wet, acidic conditions of bogs that prevent quick decay. This takes thousands of years to occur and can hardly be considered a renewable resource. The peatland is a fragile ecosystem.
So what are the alternatives? Truthfully any organic material can be used to improve the content and structure of your soil. Compost and leaf mould are the top two - and you don't have to buy it and haul it home in a plastic bag.
There are also bark products, coconut fibre and coir. Some people like to mulch with peat, which is actually a poor mulch as when the peat dries out it blows away.
Peat is often used to increase the acidity of the soil so if that is your goal you could try pine needles. Here on the wet coast we have some of the most naturally occurring acidic soils on the planet so unless you are specifically growing blueberries I wouldn't be too concerned about increasing soil acidity.
For more detailed information check out an article called The Real Dirt on Peat Moss by Ken Druse at homegrown.org.
