Have your say: readers’ letters
The view from your side of the fence
HOT TOPIC Peat-free access
In response to the Chairman of the Garden Centre Association’s (GCA) letter on peat (Have Your
Say, December issue) I want to ask, why should peat-free compost make gardening less accessible to anyone?
New gardeners will buy what is available (much like the rest of us) and sadly what is available does not reflect what many gardeners want. I have used peat-free compost for years but sometimes find it difficult to source, resulting in me driving many more miles to acquire it. When a chain of garden centres took over my nearest centre they only sold their own (inferior) mixes of compost and none was peat-free.
What a relief to turn the page and read the article about Irish peat extraction being stopped. I also understand that as a result compost will increase in price, so maybe we could encourage those new gardeners to use a mix of compost with soil/garden compost, under a topping of good compost, to save money.
The industry has had more than enough time to sort this out and has missed targets instead of using their collective expertise to work towards a sustainable solution.
Wendy Tilston, by email
As manufacturers of a peat-free range, we were disappointed to see GCA Chairman Mike Burks’ comments about gardeners needing to be ‘weaned off’ peat-based mixes. Our SylvaGrow mix is multi-awarding winning and based on the peat-free composts that we have been very successfully selling to professional growers since 2001. We would urge any gardeners who are yet to try peat-free composts to give them a go and prepare to be pleasantly surprised. They work well, are easy to use and no weaning is required!
Catherine Dawson, Technical Director of Melcourt Industries Ltd