to peat or not to peat?

[sammason]

Most of the gardeners I know in the British Isles avoid using peat. We don't doubt that it's a useful material in the garden and it's still available in garden centres. But many of us believe it to be environmentally damaging. The thing is, it's a non-renewable resource and its mining has driven our peat bogs and their associated plants and insects

Comments

[oxymoron02]

Most of the peat I've seen in stores is sourced from Canada. 'Nuff said.

[eanja]

I think that's pretty much it. A quick google tells me that the US currently has 110 billion tons of peat (although half of that is in Alaska), and 20 states produce it. But more importantly, Canada, is the second largest peat producer in the world. They have 335 billion tons of the stuff, which covers 12% of their total land area. Aside from their own use, I think a lot of the peat used in the US is coming from Canada.

So it's a very different situation over here- climatically, North America has lots of areas that produce that stuff, and we don't yet have hundreds of years of people using it up. (Give us a couple more centuries, though.)

[ktnzgtklws]

All of the peat I've ever seen sold (even in AZ) has big, huge, red maple leaf on it, since it's from Canada. :-) Not as densely populated, hasn't been harvested for as many centuries, and they have a ton of it.

[eqfe]

This!

[astrelsa]

Ditto!

[live_momma]

Actually, I've seen a couple of mentions of the environmental consequences of using Canadian Peat, too. However, this information seems slow to disseminate. A lot of old school gardeners still recommend its use, and new gardeners don't know any better. Add to that the fact that it's a "foreign" issue (Canada may be our neighbor, but they are their own country), and the level of awareness really is low.