Peat free gardening is not a new topic of discussion. It is something that gardeners have been made aware of for several decades now. Some choose to ignore it, possibly pleading ignorance, others will give it their best efforts, and then at the other end of the scale are those who approach the subject with an almost maniacal zeal.
Whilst I applaud the standards of the latter group I'm afraid I probably fall into the middle one. I buy peat free compost, but this is something I have only recently started to make an effort with. I don't however have the time or the money to start demanding that all plants I buy be grown in a completely peat free environment. As far as I'm aware, my local nurseries and garden centres don't do this (I assume it would be advertised as a selling point if they did) and I do feel that supporting those local businesses is important. One of the main issues I've run into when starting to look at peat-free gardening is that a lot of the available compost is total crap. There seems to be a wide range of woody rubbish that's riddled with lumps of plastic, and in one case pieces of glass. Not pleasing. Many gardeners are unlikely to be totally converted until the alternatives are as good as their peat based counterparts. I have started making my own compost, but as I've been on with this gardening lark for less than a year I don't have any ready for use yet.
