Burning peat in the stove

[Mac of Cygnet]

Oh dear! Most gardeners here make their own compost. Even though we have those "vast Scandinavian sources" Perhaps I should inform them, they have been doing in wrong for hundreds of years?

 

I make my own compost - based on peat. When I was an active nurseryman I bought in compost, based on peat (imported from Russia). I wouldn't touch with a bargepole (and I have one!) any compost based on other substances of unknown provenance.

 

Jerra said:

 

I am sorry but I think destroying wildlife habitat and biodiversity is (to use your words) sinful.

 

Vast deposits of peat in Scandinavia doesn't help Irish wildlife much,and digging it up doesn't do a lot for the wildlife trying to exist on it whether in Scandinavia or Ireland.

 

Again very parochial and short-term. I have already said that lowland raised peat bogs in England should no longer be exploited, because most have already been destroyed (but not for horticulture!). Ireland has a lot of bogs left, despite the majority having been taken over and drained for agriculture, so more control is needed there.

 

Most peatlands have been eliminated for agriculture. Are you saying we should stop ploughing, reverse the drainage, and let the land revert? Perhaps we should - I can assure you that the wildlife and biodiversity would be greater than ever it was in the original peatland.

[Caprifool]

Our gardeners use grass clippings, put tree cuttings through the chipper, weeds and everything ells organic fr.o.m. the garden in their compost. Stir in some manure and straw. Give it love and time and......taddaaa, compost. No need to dig up our own or anyone els's natural resources.

[Teadaemon]

I'd be the first to agree that the Norfolk Broads are a unique habitat, with plentiful wildlife, some of which is found virtually nowhere else in this country. Having said that, the peat digging that created them happened in the stone age, at least 7,000 years ago.

 

I don't have a solid fuel stove, so don't burn any sort of fuel (we've got a hearth in the living room, but don't use it as it's a horribly inefficient way to heat the room. If we change our minds, the previous tenants left half a greenhouse full of seasoned oak for us to work our way through). On the other hand, I do grow quite a lot of plants (tomatoes, peppers, chillis, etc), and by far the best results I've had have been with coir (coconut husk) based peat-free composts. Peat is the next best, and like Mac I won't touch cheap peat-free compost (which on the rare occasions when I bought it in the past seemed to be heavy, claggy, and full of twigs, plastic and other foreign bodies).

 

Edited to add:

 

Well rotted manure is an excellent fertiliser, but you'd have to be growing something particularly nutrient-hungry to tolerate using significant amounts of it. I normally add a couple of handfuls to a 10 litre pot. Having said that, I keep meaning to try making an old Victorian hot bed, which relies on rotting manure and leaf mold as a source of heat for growing plants out of season or which don't normally tolerate our climate.

Edited November 19, 2012 by Teadaemon

[Mac of Cygnet]

Our gardeners use grass clippings, put tree cuttings through the chipper, weeds and everything ells organic fr.o.m. the garden in their compost. Stir in some manure and straw. Give it love and time and......taddaaa, compost. No need to dig up our own or anyone els's natural resources.

 

There is a confusion here which usually arises when compost is discussed. The compost you describe is spread on and dug into the garden, right? I of course do that myself. It is very difficult, however, to get that compost into the sort of state where it can be used as potting compost, which is very different, and where peat and its alternatives are used. In fact it would be pointless and wasteful to spread peat on the garden, except for special plants. Many users of potting compost have no facilities for composting, anyway, even if they could use the result.

 

Coir is indeed one of the products that rivals peat in the production of potting compost (although there were at first serious issues with human and plant pathogens), but it has to be shipped all the way from (usually) Sri Lanka, and that's not very 'green', is it?

[anna167]

There is another method of creating compost, from my composting toilet, by keeping the solid matter dry (not mixing it with our liquid waste) all the good bugs in my system make the most wonderful compost... takes time but the result is all my own work!

[carlt]

I have already said that lowland raised peat bogs in England should no longer be exploited, because most have already been destroyed (but not for horticulture!).

The biggest lowland peat bog in Europe is owned by Fisons, though they have now been persuaded to stop cutting there (but only since Rhone-Poulenc took them over).

 

Now, let me think, what are Fisons famous for?...

 

Many users of potting compost have no facilities for composting, anyway, even if they could use the result.

It can be bought from most recycling facilities though...peat free.

[Mac of Cygnet]

The biggest lowland peat bog in Europe is owned by Fisons, though they have now been persuaded to stop cutting there (but only since Rhone-Poulenc took them over).

 

Now, let me think, what are Fisons famous for?...

 

 

It can be bought from most recycling facilities though...peat free.

 

That'll be Thorne and Hatfield moors. It represents about 1.6% of the original welands in the area, the rest having been drained and used for agriculture, along with a similar proportion of lowland bogs in the UK. So potting compost isn't where it went! Similarly in the Netherlands on an even larger scale. I've already said that lowland peatland exploitation in the UK should cease, but the reserves in Northern Europe (Baltic countries and Russia) are so huge that exploitation for horticulture would not dent them in a thousand years.

 

By which time we might have peat-free compost worth using, unlike that available from recycling facilitites, which I would not touch with the proverbial.

[carlt]

but the reserves in Northern Europe (Baltic countries and Russia) are so huge that exploitation for horticulture would not dent them in a thousand years.

Yes we've screwed the Western European peat bogs...Let's start on the rest!

 

As I said I have no wish to argue about it but there are those who are concerned about climate change and may be interested to know that the peat bogs are a bigger carbon sink than the Rain forests and, regardless of what they are cut for, they are still being destroyed at a faster rate than they can renew themselves.

 

The more peat bog that is cut, the more CO2 is released to the atmosphere and the less is absorbed.

 

Coal and oil does not remove CO2 from the atmosphere but peat bogs do.

 

The choice about whether you burn it is a personal one but it is worth knowing all the facts.

[Tony Brooks]

IN view of a number of problems I have had in recent years with low peat and peat free potting composts I have done some simple tests and find that such composts are not sterile, are rife with algae, moulds, and weed seeds. That and large chunks of uncompleted wood and shavings etc. One of the major retailer's composts also smells as if it has large quantities of human or animal waste in it.

 

It is clear to me that the large suppliers are not ensuring the product is sterilised.

 

It is also interesting that this year the commercial potato growers have been having a go at ordinary gardeners for infecting their crops with blight. My observations on the potting composts suggest to me that improperly sterilised domestic waste may well have brought blight into gardens.

 

And yes I do have two large compost bins for making garden compost but I could never use it for propagation unless I could sterilise it first.

 

Gardeners have been sold a guilt trip and very debatable products.

[Ange]

On balance I think we'll stick with burning the wood that we forage, and then coal when we run out.

 

Just a personal decision.

[Mac of Cygnet]

Yes we've screwed the Western European peat bogs...Let's start on the rest!

 

As I said I have no wish to argue about it but there are those who are concerned about climate change and may be interested to know that the peat bogs are a bigger carbon sink than the Rain forests and, regardless of what they are cut for, they are still being destroyed at a faster rate than they can renew themselves.

 

The more peat bog that is cut, the more CO2 is released to the atmosphere and the less is absorbed.

 

Coal and oil does not remove CO2 from the atmosphere but peat bogs do.

 

The choice about whether you burn it is a personal one but it is worth knowing all the facts.

 

I also have no wish to argue in the sense of acrimony, but informed discussion can only be good. I see the discussion has moved away from compost to fuel - fair enough, that's how it started.

 

Peat bogs are carbon sinks by virtue of their very slow rate of decomposition, not because they remove much carbon from the atmosphere - in fact their rate of carbon fixation is extremely low. If exploited peat bogs are allowed to revert to other types of wetland, then the rate of carbon fixation actually rises, and if the wetland is subsequently left undisturbed, there is actually a gain in carbon removed from the atmosphere. Of course the bioshere changes, but worldwide that's in a constant flux anyway.

 

Coal and oil have removed CO2 from the atmosphere in the past, but deposits have no chance of regeneration so are net CO2 producers, therefore from a global warming perspective

are the worst choice of fuel.

 

Managed woodland is carbon neutral - as much CO2 is produced as is fixed.

 

So all in all it is marginally better to burn peat than wood, and much better than coal or oil.

 

It is indeed worth knowing all the facts, and even better to know which ones are misleading.

[carlt]

 

So all in all it is marginally better to burn peat than wood, and much better than coal or oil.

 

It is indeed worth knowing all the facts, and even better to know which ones are misleading.

 

True and to suggest that cut peat bogs are being returned to natural wetlands is misleading.

 

We are in an age where peat bogs are no longer returned to natural wetlands so it would be misleading to use Mediaeval examples such as The Broads as an argument that peat cutting is good for the environment.

 

Cutting peat releases huge quantities of CO2 and Methane into the atmosphere, burning peat obviously produces CO2 but not only that, peat bogs become a source of CO2, after cutting has been abandoned, and that source persists for decades after abandonment.

[Ange]

True and to suggest that cut peat bogs are being returned to natural wetlands is misleading.

 

We are in an age where peat bogs are no longer returned to natural wetlands so it would be misleading to use Mediaeval examples such as The Broads as an argument that peat cutting is good for the environment.

 

Cutting peat releases huge quantities of CO2 and Methane into the atmosphere, burning peat obviously produces CO2 but not only that, peat bogs become a source of CO2, after cutting has been abandoned, and that source persists for decades after abandonment.

 

Sorry, still trying to get my head around this. What's the lesser of the two evils, coal or peat?

[carlt]

Sorry, still trying to get my head around this. What's the lesser of the two evils, coal or peat?

It depends on your priorities.

 

Personally I believe we should be deep mining coal and investing in research into clean burning technology.

 

The current methods of open cast mining by scraping huge swathes of land away to expose the coal is both detrimental to the environment and climate change, just like cutting peat.

 

Probably the best fuel to burn is wood from responsibly grown renewable sources.

 

Owning your own Hazel coppice, big enough for a 7 year rotation, would be ideal.

[Mac of Cygnet]

True and to suggest that cut peat bogs are being returned to natural wetlands is misleading.

 

We are in an age where peat bogs are no longer returned to natural wetlands so it would be misleading to use Mediaeval examples such as The Broads as an argument that peat cutting is good for the environment.

 

Cutting peat releases huge quantities of CO2 and Methane into the atmosphere, burning peat obviously produces CO2 but not only that, peat bogs become a source of CO2, after cutting has been abandoned, and that source persists for decades after abandonment.

 

Well since you mentioned it:

 

 

Former Fisons peat workings at Thorne Waste.

 

And you will find many other examples. What do you think happens to them - just left exposed as a vast black scar? In fact most are actively managed, often to return to semi-natural wetlands a damn sight faster than the Norfolk Broads did, or in some cases converted to agricultural use where it can be shown that this is viable. They are not 'abandoned'.

 

Similarly open-cast mines are almost always restored to farmland or woodland, with the net result the same as deep mining, not that I am endorsing the burning of fossil fuels.

 

At least we can agree that burning wood is probably the best option (which is what I do at home and on the boat), if only because it's cheaper than peat, unless you dig your own.

[luctor et emergo]

 

Snip***

 

Probably the best fuel to burn is wood from responsibly grown renewable sources.

 

Owning your own Hazel coppice, big enough for a 7 year rotation, would be ideal.

 

How big a coppice would a typical household need?

[DaveC]

One of the major retailer's composts also smells as if it has large quantities of human or animal waste in it.

 

 

 

The stuff at our local recycling centre smell of Laylandii hedge cuttings!

 

Dave

[carlt]

Well since you mentioned it:

 

 

Former Fisons peat workings at Thorne Waste.

 

And you will find many other examples. What do you think happens to them - just left exposed as a vast black scar? In fact most are actively managed, often to return to semi-natural wetlands a damn sight faster than the Norfolk Broads did, or in some cases converted to agricultural use where it can be shown that this is viable. They are not 'abandoned'.

As I have had an interest in the campaign to save Hatfield and Thorne Moors since the age of 10 I can assure you that getting them into their present state was no mean feat and a great rarity too.

 

Using the Yorkshire peat bogs to further your argument is misleading as it was objectors like me who prevented them from being stripped completely and left as you described, a vast black scar or converted into a barren food factory.

 

Hatfield and Thorne Moors are carefully managed Nature reserves unlike many of the abandoned cuttings in Eastern and Northern Europe stripped of any chance of recovery and all the stored greenhouse gases released.

[Machpoint005]

There's only one justifiable use for peat, in my view -- malting for the Scotch whisky industry. The amount used is minuscule.