I'm with Hostafan on this one. The recycled stuff is literally rubbish. I know what I send to the council, I don't want to pay to get it back. While Ireland burns 94% of the peat extracted in power stations, I will use part of the other 6% to grow plants in, without fear of the many nasties such as 6 inch nails and bits of plastic in the last bag I tried.
Other: I don't use peat because it's not a very good medium and I don't like buying growing media (or plants or anything that isn't gardening equipment)..
(I use leaf mould, soil, garden compost and whatever composr feedstock I can carry home in a backpack, sponge off of friends, relatives and neighbours or have delivered by a farmer to save him dealing with it)
The way I look at it as a confirmed tightwad plants com out of the ground in the wild for free, so why spend so much money trying to replicate that.
Peat isn't really old school as some would have you believe. Its widespread use outside of the big houses came about only in our parents' granparents' generation as a result of the explosion of garden centres and the commercialisation of gardening. People used to use soil and home compost until the garden centres opened and those were the result of the advent of the motor car.
Where I live there is no peat free compost at all...it’s not even a glimmer of an issue. If we ask GC staff if they stock peat free they look at us blankly and ask what we mean. There is some with sphagnum moss, rather than peat, which I tell myself must be better judging by the speed at which sphagnum moss grows in our garden.
I'm with Hosta on this too. I'm also fed up with sticks and bits of plastic in peat free compost. I use my own compost as well.
The Norfolk Broads were peat bogs that have been dug out, they are beautiful and full of wild life.
I've been to southern Ireland and ridden horses over and around peat bogs, they are hideous and we were told that not a lot lived in them. There were certainly no birds. There were green fields and countryside around them and we were told that it was reclaimed peat bog filled in with soil and that it was now productive land with a lot more wildlife living in it. There were birds.
Peat is useful for energy and compost so I don't really understand what the fuss is all about if you finish up with something better, like the Norfolk Broads and green fields providing a good wildlife habitat.
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
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So can't vote as no option suits me.
I'm with Hosta on this too. I'm also fed up with sticks and bits of plastic in peat free compost. I use my own compost as well.
The Norfolk Broads were peat bogs that have been dug out, they are beautiful and full of wild life.
I've been to southern Ireland and ridden horses over and around peat bogs, they are hideous and we were told that not a lot lived in them. There were certainly no birds. There were green fields and countryside around them and we were told that it was reclaimed peat bog filled in with soil and that it was now productive land with a lot more wildlife living in it. There were birds.
Peat is useful for energy and compost so I don't really understand what the fuss is all about if you finish up with something better, like the Norfolk Broads and green fields providing a good wildlife habitat.