Peat Vs Peat Free Composts - A Simple Side by Side Comparison - Part 1
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- Опубліковано 19 чер 2021
- The long-awaited move to peat-free composts will soon be upon the gardening industry. Although commercial growers will have more time to adapt than home gardeners, we have been trialing peat-free composts against traditional peat for about 15 years now, just simple trials each year to see how things are developing. In this video we demonstrate out of the bag performance of 3 products, Westland's New Horizon, a standard peat-free compost that has recently been re-formulated, a professional Sinclair peat-free compost, and a professional peat-based compost from Clover. These trials are very basic, and small in scale, but they demonstrate what the average gardener might find using various compost types, with a brief discussion of some of the issues that we might face going forward.
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Amazing difference! I used New Horizon for the first time last year (when compost was difficult to get hold of). I shall blame my bad growing year on that!
Yes, others have said the same. I have fed all these plants this week with Miracle Gro foliar feed, will be interesting to see if the New Horizon crops catch up a bit
Hi Heather, we will be uploading an update very soon, and the New Horizon with added Controlled Release Fertiliser has performed much better than before!
Interesting to see, thanks for posting the vid! On a techy-side, would be good if maybe some of the in between stuff was cut out, but the subject matter was great, just reinforces the current peat-debate issues! A lot more work is needed. DEFRA should be far more encouraging and supportive of the Hort industry than they currently are. 40 years of research and there is still no direct alternative for peat, but guess we are getting there slowly...
nice 1 m8 u should do a potassium only fertiliser experiment and then a general fert experiement to see the difference
Always good to do comparison trials as you go along otherwise you will never know how good things could be. I'm currently trying to improve my own composting methods and organic liquid feeds. I don't understand the avoidance of municipal green waste though? The stuff usually comes out hot and is tightly controlled.
I would like to see more experiments from you, and maybe a bit more basic stuff for beginners.
We've used a few composts that utilised green waste, even as a percentage of the whole, mixed with peat. The problem is consistency, the quality varied wildly. And there is zero control on what goes into the green waste bins. The best use for it we have on the nursery is as a soil improving mulch at the moment, just to add some organic matter to keep the soil alive. Just uploading the next part of the compost trials, look out for a surprise! :)
Bugger iv just got myself some of this 😭😭 what organic compost would you recommend for when i pot then up. Iv used some organic seaweed feed on then do you think this will help ?
A very useful trial - have you tried measuring the actual volume of the compost in each bag?
Impossible I think, even the 80 litre bags we use will only fill 20 x 3Litre pots.....they always make some statement about settlement.....
Hi Tim ive found peat free doesn't seem to regulate the nuterients very well, i always put my own foot into the compost put still get light green leaves and poor proformance, im going to be adding controlled realsesed fertiliser like you mentioned
Yes, some are definitely better than others though.
Nice video, even nicer overalls. What brand are those? They look great on you
A Lidl special I believe 😅
I've tried using a few different peat free composts, and they are crap, they are too heavy and hold to much water and are full of fungus and my plants do not root well compared to peat based., i've tried adding perlite which was slightly better, but they are all made from wood. All this ban will do is cause more fertilizer going into the water table and the sea. Nothing beats a good peat based compost, nice light fluffy. Just look at your results, the peat are 100% better. Consumer grade peat free compost is 100% garbage.
There are a lot of issues. Our next video will discuss them, and what can be done, but in all honestly we are dreading the switch to peat free in 2026
@timstopgardentips9634 Same here. There is nothing that can replace it, so I'm going to buy as much peat as I can before they ban it. B&Q had real good peat based compost. I used to buy a few big 70L bales of it, which would last a year, but the last 2 years there peat free has been garbage even adding perlite didn't help much,it's full of very large pieces of wood and I've orange mushroom growing in everything.
You're quite right. This Peat Free compost issue is no Panacea. Yes, Peat bogs will be saved, but if we're having to add in inordinate amounts of chemical Fertlizer, and the production of these fertlizers is equally as bad for the Planet, then we're just kicking the can down the road, and not actually saving the planet at all. Chemical fertlizers go through a highly specialised production process that can involve mining, high intensity heat, and the greenhouse gasses caused by furnaces in this process is well documented. It's also interesting to see that only the UK and Switzerland have adopted this Peat Free approach in Europe, and other countries in Europe seem to be happy to see the UK being sacrificial lamb on this issue. One thing's for sure, if we're saving the Peat bogs only to add more greenhouse gases and add to the CO2 footprint in the manufacturing and mining processes of more chemical based fertilizer to offset the Peat free product's shortfalls, then I for one, and really struggling to see any benefits to the planet whatsoever by adopting this Peat Free policy.
tl;dr ... peat wins.
Personally I use a combination of well-rotted horse manure, peat moss compost, and fertiliser. I've tried various eco-friendly products over the years, and they just don't work. If I'm going to be spending a lot of time, money and effort on my garden, I need it to work. Simple.
You better stock up then, a ban on peat is coming, like it or not 🤷♂️
I use Miracle grow