I live in the USA this is kind of interesting… if not for the Indians i think we all would have starved to death in the new world.
i recently watched a great WW2 documentary. During WW2…Great Britain was faced with famine and the whole nation was told to dig up their yards and any and all soils and plant foodcrops. Parks, sidewalks…anything with dirt was used to grow food.
Since 1960 the Earths population has more than doubled… which likely means less land to farm… and more urbanization - So perhaps we do need potting soil to grow things since we are covering soil with concrete and steel and asphalt…
There was a YouTuber who mentioned this a few years ago when I first started getting into gardening again. Basically he said that peat and coir both have their negative sides. Coir is typically made in factories where the land around it gets polluted and is transported in. Pear holds carbon emissions which are brought back into the earth. He also mentioned that they restore the bogs in Canada. He mentioned the large percentage of unlined bogs too. Pick your poison. Neither are great. What I will say is peat moss allows you to grow in it yourself and it is cheap. You can buy a bale of it at Home Depot for 12 dollars and it will do the same as potting soil which a foot will cost that much.
Here are some links to articles and studies on Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss (if I can get the links posted)…and if I dont’ ‘google’ Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Association.
I agree, and for me coir is just not as good. The salt, even when removed, sometimes enough is still there to mess up seedlings. Great if you got coir to work for you. I have not had results I can accept. I promise not to burn it.
I recycle old potting soil and such into my raised beds. It’s fantastic! Mixed with a little DE which helps keeping the peat moist. All my potting mixes have DE the size of perlite. I love that resource too.
I also trust the Canadians will do the right thing. I live near the Canadian border (20 miles south of me). I have ton’s of Canadian friends who work here, great people for sure. Michigan is more like Canada then many other states. Detroit was founded 320 years ago. Long before our country formed. I’m 8 miles from 8 mile road, the start of the Detroit city limit. Our area has always had great respect for Canada.
I buy Pro mix and never had issues using out of the bag. It’s mostly peat so use it for seed starting etc, works great. Menards has decent prices. If I needed a lot I would buy regular peat. It is a touch expensive.
For my own personal experiment- I will try something next year that i havent before.
Soil conditioner. (sold at Lowes etc).
According to the maker - Yard trim, such as leaves and grass clippings are diverted from the landfill and instead brought to a composting facility, where the material is composted and converted into a valuable resource. Leafgro® is an outstanding example of recycling at its best!
Recommended usage- Planting of trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, and vegetables
Peat is also produced in the U.S. Maine produces some and recently had a 22 megawatt plant powered with peat located in Deblois, Maine. Now most all peat bog production appears to go to the horticultural industry. The U.S. production is likely less than one third of Canada. There are a lot of naturally occurring bogs near my home in Washington County, Maine.Great stuff and it is a wonder why it has to be imported at all.
I harvested two contractor garbage bags of it off the sides of a treatment pond at work this past summer. I’m using that material as a soil amendment for my newly planted blueberry bushes along with chipped spruce trees and native soil mixed in. I’ll be using hollytone this spring when things begin to warm up. Sphagnum moss is around Pennsylvania if you know where to look, but it’s likely harder to find where you can (legally) harvest it…
Good. Also Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, IA and probably others do harvest some in the USA. Markman bagged ‘topsoil’ is mostly peat fully decomposed into dirt…I like it better than anything L or HD has…especially at $1.79 a bag.
In business since 1940. Bagging plants in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and South Carolina (sand and marble).
So, headquartered in IA but no bagging going on there these days.
For the record, I don’t have stock in any of them…tho perhaps I should!
Markman is entirely a US company.
Lambert is in Quebec.
Fafard, Scotts, Black Gold are all part of the Sungro Horticulture conglomerate, from Canada but operate all over US and are the exclusive potting mix supplier for “Proven winners” branded plants.
@krismoriah all great points thank you for the correction and the not-so-new wisdom imparted. I will check the coir at the door.
Fortunately I do compost all things mentioned in addition to all food scraps, which really cuts down on the outgoing “trash”. I mulch with leaves, grass, and free arborist wood chips via ChipDrop. See this year’s free ChipDrop delivery
Im not saying coir has no use… there is a local hydroponics tomato grower that recently offered truckloads of spent coir for free… obviously it works for them to produce tons and tons and tons of tomatoes. Likely alot less labor and worries about growing in the field. If coir feeds people im all about it.
I do not however understand how i would deal with spent coir… that probably has bad tomato juju in it… so obviously they dont know what to do with it either. Maybe it would be good for worm bins or something.
Im still learning woodchips myself- the chips with leaves in it where they shred green living trees seems to have a better funk to it. It gets sticky and my plants thrive on it. Worms and other biome things make them disappear though. Woodchips from trees with no leaves seem to hang out longer… like they are not breaking down as fast. So if i get a batch with no leaves i add leaves…seems to be a good combination.
If using compost for starting seeds to prevent rotten egg smell or hydrogen sulfide
it is a good idea to screen out larger pieces of un decayed compost.
Go to a hardware store, and get wire screen (garden supply 5 or 10 bucks or 7 bucks)
2 feet x 5 feet (60 cm x 1.5 metre) (everbilt brand is what I have at home, and was about 7 bucks)
(picture was a pain to upload , and couldn’t find better ones that actually uploaded ,
but a larger one with bigger holes like 1 inch should be better.
Also I have to say to not store peat moss out in the rain
keep dry
I kept soil in the rain, and a year later it got the rotten egg smell
Hydrogen sulfide is anaerobic meaning it grows lacking oxygen
not good for starting seeds in a controlled environment
(but not bad in garden soil outdoors so do not throw in garbage if this happens)
If you think about it like this
if you put fresh soil in a bag WET it can ferment inside
like vegetables rot sealed in a plastic bag,
but not in a paper bag that can breath –
So just keep dry when peat moss is stored in the plastic bag.
Trust me on that one , with the peat
I’ve grown pawpaw seeds for over a decade
I had 2 buckets of seed, (i bought from Jerry Lehman)
and had to deal with that only got 500 trees ,
and a huge hassle, and back pain with dealing with the rest, and ended up losing them.
Disc4tw I do not need to tell you, but anyone else that may not know
If your sterilizing soil make sure it is good, and aerated after for starting seed
not to full of clay.
you already brought up perlite diatomaceous earth like drew uses for aeration
I do know better, but sometimes that can be over looked (which I’ve made the mistake myself)
I do sure like the pine bark though
thinking of also using Gum ball ( sweet gum)tree pieces for aeration (see picture)
as well as other stuff like burdock burs
but sticks breaking down, and decomposing can start a formation of hydrogen sulfide so screen out.
Paver sand can add some air pockets good for roots to send out feeder roots
(when they hit air like air pruning pots do)
(as a matter of fact just got some perlite outside today do not want my seeds to suffocate with no air
for my Black persimmon Black sapote (Diospyros nigra not Texas persimmon)
Anyways anyone know how to fix the hydrogen sulfide rotten egg smell IN SOIL.
I used copper in my wine to fix it
but not sure how much in soil it helped since I didn’t get any to grow from those batches._)
I added a 3 compost bin picture to rotate compost
not bad to have a barrel roller to turn it easier though, but patient is key with compost anyways,.
I’d personally not use compost for seed starting. Rather, for transplants or side or top dressing or tilling in. But not for small seed starting.
Not all ‘potting mix’ is for seed starting either. Most of my seed starting over the years has been direct seeding in the ground. But, more and more I use containers outdoors anymore…and comingle the best I have on hand at the moment and it’s usually good enough.
