Just found out that 90% of the peat moss sold in garden centers comes from bogs that take 1,000 years to form

I was reading a report from the Royal Horticultural Society and it said harvesting peat releases carbon that's been locked up for millennia, so I'm switching to coir or composted bark starting this spring - anyone else ditch peat moss yet?

3 comments

3 Comments

elizabeth43814d ago

Yeah exactly, I made the switch last season and all my plants are now THRIVING on my guilt free mistakes and total garden chaos. My first batch of coir ended up looking like a weird science experiment because I forgot to wet it properly, just a dry brick sitting in a pot like a FAILURE. But hey, at least my breakdown over the peat bog situation is now replaced by my breakdown over why my seedlings are all leggy.

taylor30514d ago

Ditched peat last year and now my plants get to grow in my guilt-free mistakes.

milar4614d ago

oh man the dry brick coir thing got me too. I bought a whole pack of those compacted bricks and stood there staring at it like "how is this supposed to be dirt." I ended up dumping it in a bucket with hot water and waiting forever. what worked for me was just using composted bark fines mixed with perlite for my seed starting. honestly it holds moisture better and doesn't get that weird dusty feeling coir can have if you dont soak it right. plus I get it from a local landscaping supply place for cheap and they actually compost it themselves so I feel less bad about the environmental angle than shipping coir from halfway across the world.