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| So in the last couple weeks, as a city balcony gardener, I've been trying to find a way to sustainably make/amend suitable soil using what Lowe's, Home Depot, and gardening centers have to offer.
After trying all these options, it seems overwhelmingly hard to find anything that does not use peat moss. Why does this matter..well, in short, ...harvesting peat most is not sustainable. It unlocks CO2 and depletes peat bogs, in Europe and Canada, which take much longer to grow than it does to harvest them. It isn't necessary for amending soil, but it's convenient in many cases to do so, and it has dominated the popular market in many places. You can't go anywhere these days without seeing the shelves stocked of soil that uses peat moss for organic matter. The peat industry and faithful users will tell you it's environmentally sound to mine peat bogs. Peat bogs grow back in a matter of centimeters per year, which is easily surpassed by any form of industrial peat mining process. So I think it's a better idea to use your local farmer for organic matter..manure, compost, etc. If that's not possible, vermiculture or composting works too - which saves your organic waste from going into landfills, and recovers some of the energy used to produce that organic matter in the first place. I can't support Scott's, or Miracle Gro, or any of that stuff anymore, it just makes no sense. I'd rather go out my way to do it correctly. Hopefully other people in the crowd will feel the same and will spread the word. Thanks for reading, just putting this out there |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Thanks for spreading the manure |
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| Is that you Franklin?? ;-) Lloyd |
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- Posted by gardengal48 PNW zone 8 (My Page) on Sat, Jun 4, 11 at 21:59
| Oyyyy! Not again :-) If YOU have objections about using peat, that's fine....avoid it. But your unsustainablity argument - as it applies to the Canadian peat industry - just doesn't hold water. And has been beaten to death. If you are restricted to container gardening, then you should be aware that organic matter - compost, vermicompost, whathaveyou - is not a desirable component. In fact, the less OM, the better and longer lasting the potting soil. There are alternatives to peat - coir, rice hulls, bark fines. Visiting the Container Gardening forum and reading some of the posts specific to potting soil mixes/recipes will prove to be very informative. |
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| Actually, mushroom, there are lots of people who agree with you. I thought we'd agreed to refer people to past threads regarding the subject, but evidently not. |
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| While living in an apartement makes it a bit more difficult to make compost it can still be done. You can also look for some place that picks up yard waste and then composts that, picks up deciduous tree leaves every fall, shreds them, and makes leaf mold, and those would be a good replacement for the unsustainabley harvested peat moss. |
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| With all the stores full of soil with peat & pure peat. I would say most people do not agree with you, but most people drive gasoline powered vehicles too. I still do not see the harm in harvesting the peat, the way children are being born, we will need that land to build home for them. |
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| I agree with jolj. As long as people have to have heat or transportation, there's no point in making any gestures toward protecting our natural world. And another good point he/she makes: Let's raze it all. We're going to need all the wilderness we have for condos. |
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- Posted by TheMasterGardener1 none (My Page) on Thu, Jun 9, 11 at 23:28
| I use peat based mixs for a long time and I am seeing what your saying. Not only is it being harvested but all the gas to bring it to get it packed and sold. Coir is good but expensive tht is why alot will use peat for a long time still. This is why hydroponics can be the best idea because there is no moving around growing meduim thus saving tons of gas. Not only that it saves up to 90% water and fertilizer. |
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| The vast majority of people in the USA are not even aware that peat moss is not an environmentally responsibel product or that the harvesting of it is unsustainable, as is the transportation of it. Coir is also unsustainable, here, because of the use on non renewable energy to get it here. Hydorponics may not be any better because that relies on using energy from non renewable resources also. |
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| It would seem that as a by product Coir would be sustainable until you fracture in the transportation cost to the environment. I have looked into the Hydroponics systems & some are going to great pains to be sustainable, with small soar panels for pumps & fans/lights. As wind & water power plant become smaller & less expense, they to can be added to a Hydroponics system. |
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| Many of our goods require some method of transportation. Dismissing coir as an alternative because of the transportation it requires is not a very good argument. My thought is that it's a better alternative until society has solved our energy problems. With that said, does anyone know of a source of coir that isn't overly expensive? We actually buy blocks of it for our tortoise enclosure, but to fill a 6x8 might require a substantial amount and I don't really want to drop a few Benjamins on it. |
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