Lesson Fifty-Two: Peat Moss
What is commonly known as a garden saviour, is in reality, an ecological nightmare due to extreme harvesting practices.
Peat is used to help retain moisture but because it also still has great drainage - it’s a favourite among gardeners. You can usually find it as a topper on soil, or used on its own to help seeds sprout. Similarly, peat is often found mixed into mostly all brand-named garden and potting soils.
The problem with peat is that in order for it to be extracted, a big portion of its ecosystem is destroyed and it takes hundreds of years to grow back. Hope you enjoy this lesson on peat moss to learn more about the impacts and what you can do about it.
There’s a lot to cover, but we’ll break it down into these four questions:
What is peat moss?
Why is peat moss so popular in gardening?
Why is extracting peat moss bad for the planet?
What can you do?
WHAT IS PEAT MOSS?
Let’s start off with the basics.
Peat moss is dead fibrous material that forms when mosses and other living materials decompose in bogs*.
Peat can be formed from different materials, but a large percentage of the peat harvested is composed of sphagnum moss.
WHY IS IT SO POPULAR?
Peat moss is a common material when it comes to plant care because…
1️⃣ It retains moisture so it prevents plants from drying out
2️⃣ While it retains moisture, it promotes sufficient drainage
3️⃣ It is an easy material to sprout seeds in because of the moisture control and the fact that it’s lightweight (regular soil sometimes is too heavy for the plants to push through)
WHY IS EXTRACTING PEAT BAD?
In order to access peat, the top (living) surface of a bog needs to be completely removed.
According to the UN, peatlands/bogs contain almost 100 times more carbon than tropical forests.
When they are harvested, their carbon is released into the atmosphere - further driving climate change. x
Another issue is that peat grows at a sixteenth of an inch a year. So when it is extracted, it’s removing layers that literally took centuries to develop.
Canada has 25 percent of the globe’s peatlands and is a massive supplier for North American gardening materials.
This is a big loss for Canada’s ecosystems as bog plants and insects support a wide variety of organisms.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Try and avoid using peat moss. This will be hard though as most brand-name soils use peat, so try and reuse soil/self-fertilize, or make your own soil mix where possible.
As an alternative, coir is being used as an alternative to peat moss in soil-less potting mixes. Coir is a by-product of coconut fibre which means it’s renewable (big win)!
Usually you can find these as separate materials at nurseries but I’d recommend calling ahead to see if they have it. Then all you need to do is mix it with some compost and you’re all set!
Thanks everyone for going through this lesson! If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop a comment below or reach out directly!
