HortWeek, the coolest name in the industry, produces 4 part peat-free garden podcast extravaganza
Ashridge went through the Peat Free Thing on our nursery ages ago, so we can sit back and take it easy while everyone else sweats on this one.
But for growers and gardeners across the UK, moving away from peat is an ongoing challenge.
Full disclosure: peat bans are in our financial interests, so we have publicly supported them for years.
It’s nothing personal against people who want to grow with peat: we liked growing with peat too.
Our nursery does not specialise in the plants that most need it, so it was quite simple to phase out in our case.
Episode 1
Hortweek’s First Episode: Do we need a peat ban? goes over the backstory of why all this is happening.
- Introduction with emotive background music ends at 3:00
- We found the ideal listening speed to be 1.2x
- Even those who know about peat probably shouldn’t skip this episode, it’s pretty tasty.
Here’s our summary:
- Peat based potting soils work fabulously in all regards: moist, airy, nutritious, consistent, everything.
- It’s literally God’s gift to commercial growers who produce quality plants cheaply and quickly at scale.
- Peat probably made large scale, affordable garden centres possible by greatly reducing the cost of producing plants, and it’s ideal for forestry conifer seedlings too.
- Peatlands in the UK are a slow-regenerating resource and increasingly scarce wildlife habitat.
- Harvesting peat releases lots of the “miracle gas of life and death”, CO2, which is a contentious subject these days.
- Dashing Monty Don says that banning peat is the carbon emission cutting way to go, therefore in August 2022 Defra moved to ban peat in the amateur gardening industry by 2024.
- Opposition comes from smart, charming people like Bunny Guinness and Ken Cox, whose Open Letter on Peat Use is discussed by farmers here.
- Last year, the Defra deadlines to ban peat were shifted back to 2026-2030 depending on plant type, allowing more time for businesses that depend on peat to adapt.
So, what is one to do when the alternatives to peat have various drawbacks?
Well, the RHS is doing their best to smooth this transition to peat free growing, and the HTA has a technical workshop for growers that appears to be yearly, with content on their website for members.
Episode 2
Episode 2: From Multipurpose to pick ‘n’ mix is putting normal gardeners in the spotlight and their (your?) experiences with peat free potting media.
- Introduction with emotive background music ends at 3:55
- We found the ideal listening speed to be 1.2x
Growing at home is different from growing plants at scale here on the nursery, where we test and monitor plants to a much higher degree, and have a relatively high-tech irrigation-fertigation system, with biological pest controls.
Hold my mulled wine, here’s our summary:
- Many peat free potting soils, used by themselves, have proven themselves to be pretty rubbish. Low in nutrients, they require a lot more watering and feeding for still poorer results than with peat based mixes. Some brands are also inconsistent.
- Despite the ban not yet being in force, many garden centres have already gone peat free. Regular gardeners who expect a decent, ready-to-use product from well known brands are having a hard time getting the same results they previously enjoyed with peat.
- The results are especially poor for acid soil loving plants, and worse, for seed germination & seedling development.
- This leads to some people abandoning a key money saving and fun part of their hobby. Other people are forced to spend more on plug-grown or potted plants.
- Ironically, many plug-grown plants are imported, grown in countries with no peat ban plans.
- Same applies to growing food: peat is so much better than the alternatives for intensive home growing in containers that people will simply end up growing less and buying more food, again imported from countries that use peat.
- Multi-purpose compost has long been a loss leader product for garden centres. Growers constantly need more compost, so headline deals on multi-buying bags of universal compost became cut throat on price while subtly, gradually lowering quality.
- Even pretty low quality peat based universal compost should work well enough for most things, just sieve it first for growing seeds.
- But with peat free mixes, the key is specialisation. You want quite different mixes tailored to seeds & cuttings, potting on, large tubs & containers, annual bedding plants, fruit & veg, trees and shrubs; save the roughest stuff for mulch.
- This means that compost multibuys will do well to move from “buy 3 of one compost type, get 1 free” to a pick’n’mix “buy these 3 compost types, get 1 free” model. This creates a simple journey: sow seeds into one soil type, grow them on in another, and use different stuff for different mature plants, depending on whether they are in pots or the ground.
- Many peat free mixes have a “soggy bottom” tendency to dry out in the top inches while still wet underneath. This makes it difficult to tell by eye when the plants need watering, leading to overwatering.
- Overwatering is a costly mistake for plant nurseries, which already have high water bills. Everyone reading surely knows their Container Tree Nursery Manual, which obviously recommends the clever old method of weighing the plants to know when they are dry.
- Square jawed science hunk at the RHS, Alistair Griffiths, is enthusiastic about a water indicating gizmo for plant pots called SUS tee, available from all local Amazon stores.
- But even when the water issue is solved, there is still the need for more plant feed, which costs even more than water.
- Sally Drury, HortWeek’s resident techno-horticultural wise woman, points out the mathematical dead end: most people with families to feed won’t spend more money on plant feed and gizmos to end up eating the most expensive strawberries outside a Wimbledon VIP courtside seat.
- Happily, there is good news for suffering citizens. By spending more money, by making more compost at home, by working harder to learn and adapt, and most importantly by believing: you will make a difference! You have no choice.
- Andy Bunker, the Mastermind behind Alton Garden Centre, can see that more people ask for peat based potting soil than ask for “that peatless stuff”. His observations support the academic findings of Dr Chloe Sutcliffe at the RHS, who barely found one buyer in ten that actively seeks out peat free products.
- The podcast ends on a sobering note for all of us old enough to remember the Viking invasions starting in the 860s, or the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
If banning peat puts essential, food producing British businesses at too much of a disadvantage compared to the Danes and the Dutch, we could be finished this time.