Peat-free Articles & Blogposts

Here’s Some Real Gardening News: Peat-free Composts – Fertile Fibre and SylvaGrow – Bag Two Out of Three Which? Gardening Best Buy 2017 Awards for Container Growing

The April 2017 issue of Which? Gardening magazine brings good news for gardeners, and for our natural world: two out of three of its Best Buy awards for container compost have gone to modern and reliable peat-free compost brands. Read more.

Gardening in England is Set to be Completely Peat-free by 2020 – Where is The Persuasive, Compelling & Inspiring Green-fingered Roadmap That’s Going to Get Us There?

Meeting the UK government target of turning gardening peat-free by 2020 will bring a dark, nature-damaging side of gardening to an end. But it will only be achieved with determined effort – including a campaign to educate all those non-gardening folk buying a ‘bag of dirt’. Read more.

How Gardeners and a Top Compost-maker are Teaming up to Bring Professional-quality SylvaGrow Peat-free Compost Into More Garden Centres, Plant Nurseries, Shops and Other Horticultural Suppliers

The makers of SylvaGrow professional-quality peat-free compost – which has bagged no less than three Which? Gardening Best Buy awards, and carries the endorsement of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) – have just dropped a very powerful and persuasive tool right into the trugs and wheelbarrows of gardeners up and down the land: an A4-size piece of paper. Read more.

Modern Peat-free Composts March on: RHS-Endorsed SylvaGrow Bags a Which? Gardening Best Buy Gong for Container Gardening – for the Second Year in a Row

Just when you thought modern and reliable peat-free composts couldn’t get any better – and there are a clutch of good ones out there – SylvaGrow, a professional grade (as used by professionals…) peat-free, environmentally sustainable, all-purpose compost, has has just been awarded another Best Buy for container compost from consumer watchdog Which? Gardening (April 2016). Read more.

Inclusive, Persuasive and Gently Powerful – How The #Peatfree Hashtag is Changing Gardening and Horticulture for Good.

One symbol, the hash sign (that’s one of these #) grafted onto the words ‘peat’ and ‘free’ (as in ‘#peatfree’) is giving all gardeners confidence in forgoing peat use – by slaying tired old myths about whether our garden plants can be grown without it. Read more.

SylvaGrow Peat-free All-purpose Compost Awarded Two Best Buys by Which? Gardening* – and it’s the First Peat-free Compost to be Endorsed by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS)

SylvaGrow peat-free compost was launched in spring 2014. It’s a 100% peat-free all-purpose compost made with sustainably sourced fine bark, wood fibre, and coir from a single, known source (it doesn’t contain any ‘green waste’ compost), plus plant nutrients sufficient for 4-6 weeks. SylvaGrow is based on the professional peat-free growing media devised and mixed in the UK by Melcourt, and used by an expanding number of commercial growers (check out the Melcourt website if you’re a grower wanting to make the switch away from peat-based growing media). Read more.

All Change for Some Modern Peat-free Composts This Spring

Two of the modern peat-free composts I’ve been sowing and growing in successfully for several years, are a-changing. It’s all down to rebranding, and to one business being taken over by another (after it went bust). Read more.

How to Succeed in Your Garden With Modern, Reliable and Nature-friendly Peat-free Compost

Gardeners have never had it so good when it comes to nature-friendly, peat-free composts for sowing seeds, potting up plants, filling pots and containers, or for simply improving our garden or allotment soil. Read more.

Sustainable sowing

Instead of giving any more time to the myths about sowing in peat-free composts, put them to the test. You’ll find they do the job as well as peat – without the ecological price-tag. Read more.

Snowball effect

Some of the drivers behind the peat-free roll-out are surprising and not all are admirable – but that doesn’t detract from the benefits to the gardener and the natural world. Read more.

Who Needs Peat?

Peat-free composts can grow plants just as well as peat-based, but with an added feel-good factor. Read more.

It’s Time to Have Your Peat-Free Say on ‘Towards Sustainable Growing Media’

The chair of the government’s Sustainable Growing Media Task Force (SGMTF), Dr Alan Knight, has now published his chair’s report and draft ‘road map’, Towards Sustainable Growing Media. Read more.

Farewell Peat

We should salute peat’s service to gardening, but we no longer need it to grow a beautiful, productive plot. Read more.

Peat-Free Compost: A Buyer’s Guide

Having testing more peat-free composts than I could shake a beanpole at, I recommend my top six peat-frees for the 2012 sowing and growing season. Read more.

Peat-Free Compost: A User’s Guide

I reflect on lessons learned from my 2011 gardening trial of some good, bad and ugly peat-free composts. Read more.

Gardeners Remain Sidelined by The Government’s Sustainable Growing Media Task Force on Ending Peat Use. Don’t We Count?

Isn’t it time the government’s Task Force on peat got down to the job of actually talking to the folk responsible for two thirds of UK peat use? Read more.

Choosing And Using Peat-Free Compost

Are you looking for a dependable peat-free compost that gives consistently good results?

Open Thread: Buying Peat-Free Compost – How Easy Are You Finding it?

With fine weather forecast for many areas, this weekend will see many of us out stocking up on earth-friendly peat-free seed, potting and ‘multipurpose’ compost. Read more.

Peat-Free Compost on Trial: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Inspired (if that’s the right word) by dodgy and persistent claims that all ‘peat-free compost is rubbish’, I’ve set out to find out for myself. Read more.

Considerate Cultivation: Running Your Garden on Truly Renewable Fuels

Going peat-free is all-important in an earth-friendly garden, but there’s more: the compost you use needs to be a truly renewable fuel. Read more.

The Peat ‘Debate’ Does Us All Harm 

The belief that by using peat compost we can benefit nature keeps us disconnected from the natural world. Read more.

Compost Crisis

Climate-friendly peat-free composts aren’t taking their place at the heart of more eco-savvy gardening because we’re not yet paying enough for them. Read more.

The Peat Delusion

As gardening spin urges us to keep buying peat compost, science is telling us that the safest place for peat is in the ground. Read more.