Peat free compost

Considering the attention the destruction of peat bogs has received in recent years (e.g. this from the BBC gardening pages and this in the Independent from 1992!), and how devastating the impact of their destruction can be, I was recently surprised to find how much of the compost available to me contains peat.

On a recent trip to our local garden centre they had actually put the peat content of various composts on their signs...

First up, standard garden centre compost:

So standard compost is 60% peat. This is a no-go for me.

What about John Innes? That's good stuff right?

Good stuff it may be, but it's still 44% peat.

How about organic compost?

Nope, that's still 50% peat!

So it seems the only way to be sure is to buy stuff that EXPLICITLY says it is PEAT FREE!

The problem I find is that while the organic peat free stuff may actually work out quite cheap, it is also pretty rubbish. It seems that it is mostly just bark chippings that have been composted. And I'm pretty sure that if I did a pH test it would come up pretty acidic (it has a rather pine-y scent to it)

We've had a few fungus-related issues too...

Not to mention a couple of sudden-death incidents...

So if I'm honest, I just don't think peat-free compost is up to scratch just yet. It needs to compete with the peat-full stuff if it's to stand any hope of replacing it (before we run out of peat, that is!).

If you want to make a few bob I reckon there's a market opening up here!