SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT (PEAT BOGS).

6 comments

After reading an article on protecting Peat bogs on Saturday it gave me food for thought. The article states that Peat will be unavailable for use in our gardens before the end of this decade.
Peat has been a main part of compost for many years, the Bridgwater Flats was used as our main source of supply together with Irish Peat moss (here in the South), getting good loam from places unspoilt by modern cultivation, sharp sand from good sand pits, these made up the base for compost, working on the John Innes potting formula, 7 parts loam, 3 parts Peat, 2 parts sharp sand, inorganic and organic fertilisers added, being Bonemeal/Hoof and Horn, Superphosphate, Sulphate of Potash and chalk, leaving chalk out for Ericas. This gave us a good return when growing most of our plants without damage by disease. As with modern compost with no soil or sand, drainage becomes a problem, also it’s harder to compact for strong root growth.
Recycled vegitation must be heated to a high temperature to kill impurities, at the same time many nutriments are destroyed.
What we have to do is to make our own, all the leaves falling near us should be collected, dry if possible, put in plastic bags, watered and stored for leafmould, care must be taken when making a compost heap, destroy any diseased plants to avoid follow on. Any turf taken up should be stacked, soil from building work should be left in your garden, not put in the skip.
If we start now, we stand a good chance of keeping our gardens fertile before peat and farmyard manures are banned for our use.

• 20 Dec, 2010
• 3 likes

More blog posts by doctorbob1