Type of compost??

Either would be fine for bulbs etc - if you feel strongly about the use of peat in the garden, then there's your answer!

I know I'm going to be hung, drawn and quartered for this, but I'd choose the one with some peat in...

Why's that, is peat bad???

Where've you been, Blah?! Or maybe you're new to this gardening lark - there's been a controversy raging about peat use for more than 20 years - it's dug out of peat bogs that have been there for thousands of years just for us gardeners to use in our gardens, and lovely stuff it is too. Now you can't buy it for love nor money, the only people who get it in quantity are professional growers, and us punters have to make do without - too much destruction of the environment to allow peat use to continue.

Yes new to it all struggling but learning each day at a time. I should head down south ireland where i come from back to the family farm and head out to the bogs and get some. When i was a kid i used to go out out with my grandad and dig it up in bric size for the open fire at home. wadya think? :-))

Well I'm wrestling with my conscience - I know that acres have been stripped out in Ireland already

Don't worry im not gonna go do that but i am gonna take your advice and get the compost with some peat in it.

;-) Seems like a good idea, while you can...

Thank you Bamboo hope i havent annoyed with my silliness. :-)) just learning as i go along and im sure i will make a load of mistakes so thank god i found Goy and people like yourself to help me along :-)) Thank you

Why on earth would such a question be silly? We don't ever mind helping each other! :-)

To be honest, I have tried the non-peat composts for seed-sowing, and I don't get on with them at all. They are too coarse. They didn't give good results at all!

Thank you Spritz :-))

I've got one thing to say, Blah - never, never, never feel silly asking questions - it's the only way to learn and it is your right. I'm always asking my doctor questions - he looks at me like I'm bonkers - but I still ask.

Quite agree, Bamboo - we are all learning!

:-)))

Well, just for the sake of throwing a spanner in the works, I have been using peat-free products for yonks and have noticed no difference whatsoever. The problem with using peat is that not only does it destroy the fragile native vegatation in those areas where it is cut, it also causes damage to the local water tables, buy creating cuttings into which water drains, this causes the peat bogs to dry out, which then decay, which results in methane being released into the atmosphere, which is several times stronger than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. The areas involved are vast and tonnes and tonnes of methane gas is released into the atmosphere as a result of peat cutting. SO, if you use peat, you are contributing IN A BIG WAY to climate change, as well as destruction of habitat in areas where cutting takes place.

Blah this is not the same as cutting a few bricks for burning. The horticulture industry is HUGE. We are talking major industrial peat cutting - massive amounts involved.

It's a came of supply and demand, folks!

What's more, Blah, your bulbs will grow in anything - you could suspend them above water with just the roots dangling in and they would still flower. Any cheap peat-free compost will give you excellent results. If we must use peat, let it be for those projects where nothing else is possible - such as growing plants that actually ARE bog plants.

I should apoligise ,my local garden center will sell you all the moss peat you want, and haveing taken over soil with no humas in it at all but plenty of clay' I have been bying it by the bail and useing it,I don't think my plants would want me to apoligise so I will not.Bamboo im'e with you bo bo'

Peat is devoid of nutrients Cliffo. You would have been far better off adding well rotted manure to your clay soil.

Hi' Sid' once I get all the bulbs in it will be drest with well strawed horse manure, it was that dry when I broke it up with bruit forse it was tending to blow away, and that was nothing to do with not having no rain,I used a banjack to be able to get a spad in, I belive that these houses were built in the early fiftes ,and the subsoil was buldosed to one side and grassed, and that is how it stayed until a mad gardner arived on the sean, ( me ) but by the spring it will no longer be subsoil,

Oh dear....you have my sympathies!

matter of personal choice really. I have tried both peat and peatless composts,and had fairley good results from both . The only regret i have of peat is it dries up quickley in sunlight where as peatless has a more even distribution of water. I now use J arthur bowers multi compost for most plants now and doubt if i could be persuaded to change.