EP316 Peat Free Alternatives For Sowing Seed Rethinking Peat In Seed Starting

Peat built our seed-starting habits because it made life easy: even moisture, airy structure, predictable results. But when carbon-rich bogs and vanishing habitats enter the frame, “easy” stops feeling right. We take a clear-eyed look at what peat-free really means for gardeners in Ireland, the UK, and the US—beyond labels, beyond trends—and ask how to balance strong germination with true environmental sense.

We start by mapping the policy shifts and market realities: Ireland still sells mostly peat-based compost; the UK’s retail ban has pushed rapid innovation; the US market offers a mature spread of growing media, from coir and wood fibre to biochar, vermicast, and tailored blends. Then we dig into performance. Peat-free mixes can be excellent but inconsistent, changing with feedstocks and age. Two bags from the same pallet may give different germination and salt levels. We explain why that happens, how peat-free holds water differently, and how to adjust watering and timing to avoid stalled seedlings or damping-off.

From there, we get practical. We’re trialling three seed-starting paths this season: a local vermicast blend opened with perlite and a touch of biochar for moisture balance; a highly regarded coir-forward seed mix known for uniform germination; and a very small reserve of peat-based compost used only for sowing. We also share DIY routes: hot-composting followed by a long cure to stabilise the material, blending with sharp sand or perlite, and using inert media like grit plus vermiculite for germination before an early prick-out into a proven mix. Along the way, we question coir’s “green” halo by tracing its journey across oceans and factories—great performance can still carry a heavy footprint if it travels farther than your holidays.

If you want reliable seedlings without greenwash, this conversation gives you a framework: use imports sparingly where they truly shine, switch to local bulk mixes for planters and potting on, learn the moisture cues of peat-free, and record what works in your climate. We’d love to hear your winning recipes and failures too. Subscribe, share this with a gardening friend, and leave a review with your go-to seed-starting mix so we can test it next.

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Transcript

Setting The Peat-Free Context

SPEAKER_00 0:11

How's it going everybody and welcome to episode 316 of Master My Garden Podcast? Now, this week's episode is I guess a response to a comment or a question that I got from someone who listened to the podcast a couple of weeks ago. The one where where I was chatting about getting set up for sowing seed. And the the comment was around peat-free and you know, peat-free sowing media and so on. And I suppose I just wanted to expand on it a little bit and give more context to it. Now, to I suppose set the tone a little bit, I covered an episode way, way back in January 2021 about at that time what was um an impending crisis, I guess, in the Irish horticultural industry. And that crisis at the time was where there was a ban on using peat in the horticultural sector, you know, nurseries, food producers, and so on. And but the ban was going to come into effect really, really quickly, and there definitely wouldn't have been enough time for industry to I suppose provide a viable alternative to it in that short space of time when the ban came in. That has changed slightly since, in that while a lot of growers are actively going peat-reduced and peat-free, um at the at that time, episode 52, which was as I said, January 2021, so time has passed since things have changed since, possibly improved since, and so on. But at that time the alternatives were were quite poor. But over the last five years, from knowing people in the industry, there has been a lot of there's been a lot of trial and error, a lot of crop fails, a lot of things that have worked well, you know, improvements certainly, and there has been a lot of problems off the back of moving certain crops away from certain crops or certain you know ranges of plants away from from peat-based composts. And as it stands today, peat-based composts are still allowed, you know, for and I'll get to it in a minute, but here in Ireland, the majority of the compost that's been sold is still peat-based. Um, so that decision was rolled back on. And the episode at the time, it's a little bit like you know a couple of years ago where we had this new acre scheme, and in the next planting window, there had to be, I forget the exact figure, but let's say it was three million native trees planted in the next planting window. But the total stock available of native stock available in the country was one million. So the scheme the scheme was ahead of the the market, and the market wasn't, you know, hadn't been prepared for a move of that sort. You know, had they known two or three years earlier they would have produced enough stock, and then you know, that would have been all synced up and everything would have made sense. And as I say, episode 52 was a little bit like that. Now five years have passed since, and in Ireland, you know, the a lot of the peat that's still being used across you know the ordinary gardeners, and even to a certain extent on the commercial side, is peat-based, while there is strives and effort being made to move away from that. So the other thing that has happened since then, the harvesting of peat has been banned on on certain size bogs, and what's happening is the peat is now coming in uh from other countries, and this is where my viewpoint stands on it. It's you don't want to be talking about things and and you know because at the moment everybody online is talking about you have to go peat-free, you have to go peat-free, and I 100% agree that viable peat alternatives should be found because peat lands bogs are you know they're a resource, they're a carbon capture, they're a habitat, they're they add so much to a country, and you know, a large percentage of Ireland is covered in peat bogs, and when you harvest and harvest steeply, it's basically irreversible. The damage that you do, the release of carbon from that harvesting process is irreversible. Now, again, so that's that's a hundred percent that isn't up for debate or up for you know discussion. Ideally, we should not be using peat. The the flip of that is that the alternatives that are being given as a hundred percent you know a better option, in my opinion, and I stand to be corrected, and you can you know message me and query it and debate it or whatever, the alternatives in many cases, in my opinion, are just not the you know, the environmental alternative, the environmental friendly alternative that many people say they are. Um and I know I've a lot of listeners in the UK and the US, and I'm gonna kind of contextualize it for each audience as well. So what is it that you know the alternatives that people everybody is pushing cocoa course now again it is a it is an alternative and we'll get to it in a minute. So here in Ireland, as I say, at the moment, a huge percentage of what the the you know the the gardeners you and I are buying is peat-based. There has been a rise in peat-free, but when it comes to sowing of seeds, they have been completely unpredictable. And you know, this is where the the listener was questioning, like saying that this is the best alternative in their opinion. So in the UK, you guys are slightly different, so you have a retail ban on peat on peat-based compost for the last number of years. And you know, I know a lot of a lot of you guys listening, and maybe if you're listening and you are doing something like this, let me know. You're using peat-free compost to varying degrees of success because I know I I've used peat-free compost, I've tried it. I I've mentioned before on the podcast I've got what was supposed to be a very good peat-free compost. I've bought two bags, they were picked off the same palette on the same day, they were used the same day, the seeds were sowed, the seed trays were put down side by side. One bag was okay, and it was no better than okay. We got germination, and then it was kind of stagnated. The other bag was like there was just almost no results from it. Um, you know, and other people have have these experiences as well. I I would say that the peat-free composts are improving, um, seem to be improving year on year. Um, but the challenge with a peat-free compost and having that consistency, if you take peat, for example, the peat has been formed so long ago, it's there, it's formed, and if the if somebody's harvesting peat, that peat is there. And the only real variation in it, you know, in terms of structure and in terms of you know, it's how it ends up in your bag that you take home from the garden centre. The only real difference is if you get a really wet summer, sometimes it's been harvested wetter than it would be in a dry summer, and so it might be a little bit wetter at the very end of the process in the bag, and that really is the only difference. So the thing is so consistent, peat is so consistent, and that's what makes it or has made it such a winner over the years for you know for all gardening and and horticulture. And you know, this is not just your hobby gardeners. Here in Ireland, a huge proportion of the food that's produced initially is started off in peat. So, you know, your all your vegetables are grown in in that are grown in plug trays or module trays starting off, that has been grown traditionally in a peat mix. I'm sure over the last five years there has definitely been a tradition away from it, uh, you know, a move away from that traditional peat sowing. But you know, that and that means that a huge proportion of of our food crops grown here are were dependent on peat. As I say, that that is changing. Um in the U In the US, you guys seem to have, and again, if any of you are listening, please shoot me a message and and fill me in on it, but you guys seem to have a lot more mature range of options in in terms of growing media. So you guys will refer to growing media as opposed to compost. So here and in the UK it's referred to as compost, and that encapsulates peat-free and um peat compost and all that. But in the US, you seem to have I don't know whether it's a mature um industry or whether it's more people or more demand, or there's a demand for consumers for more choice. I don't know what it is, but you seem to have a lot more mature offering. I think that's the best way of putting it the mature offering for people. So that includes everything from you know um coir, which is a good option, I think. If you're in the US, the the air miles is not so high on it. It's it's certainly less than it is here for us. Um, you have your obviously your green waste, composted waste. I know there's food waste being composted on a large scale over there and then put back into the horticultural industry. You have soil mixes, and there seems to be mixes for every stage and a very large offering, you know, including things like biochar and you know uh vermicast and worm castings, you know, all of that, it seems to be a very mature offer that you guys have. So here in Ireland, I think we definitely have we have had a limited choice. Whether that limitation is because of, you know, because of our reliance on PET, um, the fact that we can still get it, the fact that it is so good, or whether it's because you know there isn't enough market appetite for it or what it is, I don't know. But there seems to be a mature, a mature market with lots of options in the US, and those options can and do give you good peat-free options. In the UK, the peat the the retail market, as I say, has been peat-free for a number of years now, and as I mentioned, the products have been improving. The I suppose the the challenge around that is, and it's probably better in the UK now, in the the challenge is peat-free composts are basically made from things like wood chip, uh, forestry waste, green waste, you know, the municipal waste that's collected in your brown bins, uh, and it's compost it's in huge facilities and it turns out at the other end. And I guess you can have, you know, di and this is the reason for the variance, you can have large supplies of raw materials going into that system at times, and then at the other side of it, you can have a lot going out, as in going out into gardens and into retailers and so on. And then other times of the year, the inputs are lower, the outputs are lower, and there's fluctuations on both sides of it. But the thing with peat free compost is that it generally speaking needs to be used relatively quickly. So certainly it it because it's it's more live, it's more there's more microbes in it and so on. So it is continues to sort of break down over time. So ideally it needs to be used relatively early in the cycle, but if you have irregular inputs and irregular outputs on the other side, this is where the variances has come. And this is why, for example, when I pick two bags off of a pallet, I have two different aged products, simple as that. Uh, how that happened on a you know on a packing line, I don't know. Maybe there's several machines or several lines packing, and one line is taking you know bulk product from somewhere and the other is taking it from somewhere else. I don't know. But there was just such a huge variance in it. So that's kind of a context of the you know, that's kind of the context of the conversation. But let's look at the alternatives. And from my point of view, I'm actually collecting today some vermicast. There's a small vermicast producer. Um if you're on Instagram, he goes under Earth Buddy Ome, and I'm collecting some vermicast off him. So that's basically uh compost that has been or worm castings essentially, uh using coffee grounds and and various things as the as the food source or the for the worms. But I'm gonna get get that vermicast. Now, vermicast is a very, very good, as I said, the mature it's in the US market, it's mature. That's a standard thing that you can get off the shelf in you know in the US. Um here in Ireland, not so much. We do have Living Green, which is uh uh a vermicast compost, uh it's worm castings mixed with green waste or green waste that compost, uh a very, very good product. But for seed sowing, vermicast on its own will tend to be a bit heavy, a little bit stodgy, uh, will retain a little bit more too much moisture. It will have good levels of nutrients, very good levels of microbes and so on. So it as a component, it's a very, very good, um, a very, very good addition. So, what I'm gonna do with that vermicast, and this is option one, as a you know, if you can access some living green is available in a lot of of in a lot of garden centres and so on. So if you look up their stockers, you'll find it. So that's a very good product. So I'm getting the the worm castings, I'm mixing it with perlite. So perlite is a white grainy material that's used to aerate it. So, what's that gonna do? It's gonna open up that vermicast a little bit more, make it a little bit more flowy, which is something that peat is just naturally, and that's why peat is so good for seedlings. So I'm gonna mix it with the with the vermicast. So perlite and from perlite mix with vermicast, I'm gonna add some biochar. Um, again, the biochar, what that will do within the mix is it will soak a little bit of moisture. So where the vermicast will be inclined to retain and hold moisture, the biochar within that mix will draw the moisture. So hopefully that will give a little bit of balance. Also, the biochar will be a home for microbes and hopefully will create really, really resilient seedlings. So, this is the first time that I've tried that. Um, so that's that's a mix I'm trying. So Vermicast, Perlite, mixed with some biochar. And again, the likes of those options are off the shelf for people in the US. So that that's where they're all their options or alternatives to peat are a lot better. The next product that is mentioned, and everybody tells me, every time I do or mention peat-free, they tell me about class man uh peat-free compost, which I have never personally used, but I know people who use it on a regular basis, and they all say that the results are second to none. So it is definitely a good product. Now, as it ha happens for the interests of I suppose trial and not talking about things that I haven't actually used, I have a bag of it uh coming. So I am going to sow seeds in it. I suspect what I'm going to find is that it's going to be superb because everybody tells me it is. I know people who are using it, I know people that are using it on a regular basis for microgreens, for sowing seeds for nursery stock, for raising mature plants in nurseries, and so on and so on. So I have no doubt whatsoever that it's going to be a brilliant peat-free sewing compost. No, no, no, no doubt whatsoever. But because I haven't used it, I want to use it, and then I'll be able to say it definitively. So the tree, the tree that I've got to use is my own mix of the vermicast, perlite, and and biochar, the class man uh seed sowing compost as it's going to be delivered to me. Now, here is my sort of not counter-argument, but well, it is a counter-argument on Classman and its environmental credentials. So in terms of efficacy, I'm certain that it's going to be great, but I will know for 100% certainty because I'm going to use it in the coming weeks. When I look at the at the breakdown or the ingredients within this classman mix, it is 80% coir. So again, I'll mention it here in Ireland, we are so far away from where coir is produced. So Klassman compost is produced and bagged, mixed to blended in Germany. So you have cocoa coir coming from most likely South America or India or wherever it's coming from to Germany, which is a bit of a trip, let's be honest about it. It's a very, very bulky material. It has to come to Germany. In Germany, then it has to get blended with its other with the other ingredients, which include green waste, wood chip, uh, and so on. But the big percentage on you know in the seed sowing mix is 80% coir. So the majority of it is coir, let's put it that way. So it comes from its source, as I say, South America or wherever it is, I'm not sure if their exact source, but it has to be in some of those places, it's where coconuts are grown. Comes to Germany, it goes through a blending process, a bagging process, and then it ends up on a pallet. That pallet comes to Ireland. It goes to a limited number of this you know, resellers here in Ireland, you know, Fruit Hill Farms sell it. There's I think White's Agri up in up in Dublin might sell it, I think Quick Crops sell it. But generally speaking, it's not white spread, it's not found everywhere. And so you're not going to get it everywhere, but you will get it online. A bag of it costs somewhere between 15 and 20 euro. I am paying for my bag, by the way, I just can't remember what it was. Um, but about 15 or 20 euro for a 75-litre bag. So on in terms of expense versus others, it is on the more expensive side. That doesn't really matter in terms of seed sewing because you don't use a huge amount of a huge amount of compost in the seed sewing process. So it's not it's not that I'm going to be using pallets of pallets of that. And finally, the third one I'm going to be sticking with is peat-based compost. And again, I'm talking about one or maximum two 75 litre bags. That's it. I'm not talking about anymore. The reason I'm saying that and the small amounts when it comes to sowing seed is um when it comes to potting on bigger things, and again, if you've listened to the podcast, you will have heard me mention this before. When it comes to potting on bigger things, like for example, if you're getting two, you know, two pots at your front door that you want to put you know some some some form of a tree in it, or if you're putting 10 window boxes around your your house with summer bedding in it, then 100% you should not be using uh a peat-based compost in that because the volume that you're using is huge. The length of time that you're going to have, for example, with bedding plants, is short. So you should be looking at, and I've spoken regularly about mixing it one third uh topsoil, one third quality green manure compost. And one-third farm yard manure mixing in things like biochar and so on. And that's for anything long term, you should 100% be using peat-free alternatives that don't that you don't need coil for, you know, farm yard manure, um any of those things that you can get your hands on, anything that's going to be long-term in a pot, that's or potentially long-term in a pot, or that you're using large volumes of, filling, you know, for example, filling growing beds, filling you know, large planters, anything like that, anything that's using a large volume should definitely be 100% peat-free by mixing and getting a proper. And this is where, again, I'll say the US market seems to be very mature there, where you, you know, if you have big planters, they'll have a big planter mix, they'll even sell it loose in certain places, or they'll have ton bags. We have some options here with the likes of Enrich selling things like ProGrow and various things like that. And um can't just think of the other company offhand, but there is other companies like New Leaf Compost, for example, um up the north, and then there's others, you know, where you get you will get different mixes, but as I say, the US market seems to be very mature in that way, in that there's options, a lot of options there. So to take it back to the seed sowing, that they're the three options I'm sowing with this year. And I still debate the the class man being you know, being a very, very environmentally friendly option for use in Ireland when it has travelled from Germany or the choir, which takes up 80% of it, has travelled from South America. So to answer the question what is a good you know, a good peat-free alternative for sowing seed. I don't believe that there is a with the exception of the classman one, which to be proved very soon. I don't believe that there is another consistent one in the market. If there is, please tell me about it. Living green is definitely one, but on its own it could be a little bit heavy. So what you're looking at there is what I was saying, mixing a bit of perlite and then mixing a little bit of biochar through it. Um or the third alternative is using very, very small amounts of peat for that seed sowing process only. So yeah, I I totally get where the where the listener was coming from. Um but with all of these things, just because everybody says this is peat-free, that doesn't mean, in my opinion, that it is automatically environmentally friendly. Uh, and I'm not running down the classmat product at all, by all means it's a fantastic product. But from the point of view of you know being environmentally friendly, then it's very, very, you know, it's not always straightforward. That's peat-free, so it is it is environmentally friendly. It it just may not be the case. You have to look at all the elements of it in order to form a true opinion. Now there is of course ways of doing homemade um, but it can be tricky on a smaller scale. So potentially, if you were using something like a hot composter, you could compost up your materials. You'll produce your compost quite quickly in the hot composter. What'll come out of that will look like a compost, will you know, feel like a compost, it'll be crumbly and so on. And then that, but it's not mature is the first thing. So it's not ready. But if you can get that, seal it, so put it into something like so. Take it out of your hot composter, put it into something like a sealed compost unit or something like that, and allow it to mature for a further 12 months or so. Then take that. The reason I'm saying put it into a closed unit is if you just put it out, potentially you're on and leave it sitting, potentially you can get weed seedlings that will sit in that, and then when the conditions are right, um, as in when it comes out into the light and gets a bit of heat, they will germinate. So, what you want to do is kind of isolate it so that it doesn't is not able to pick up any weed seedlings or any other type of seedlings that are in the air, um, so that when you use it, so it'll be sterile, it'll be sterilized coming out of hot compost or from the point of view of weed uh weed seedlings or other seedlings. Then if you're able to isolate it and make sure that no seedlings get in or seeds get in there and sit in a bank until you know until you sow them or until you put it out and give it the conditions, then if you're able to isolate it, you will end up with something that won't have any potential seeds in that mix. Sort of waffling there a little bit. I'm trying to get my head around it. But basically, what you're looking to do is get that hot compost isolated, don't allow any seeds to land in there, to sit in there that would you know germinate once you give them the right conditions. Then you take that mature compost 12 months later, you mix it with something like perlite, something to loosen it, because again, a little bit like the vermicast, that is going to have that heavy moisture-retaining property, that's probably going to be too much for seedlings, too heavy for seedlings. So, what you want to do is loosen it a bit with something like perlite or gritty sand or horticultural grit or something like that. Uh, add a little bit of biochar as well, and now you're able to produce on at home on site. And I think that's kind of you know, if you want a fully green, um environmentally friendly process or way of sowing your seeds, then that is a very, very good way of doing it. The other thing that you can do is you can sow your seeds. So seeds don't need any nutrients in order to germinate and in order to push push to the first true leaf, they don't really need any, you know, any nutrients at all. So, with that in mind, you can use something like uh horticultural grit mixed with vermicolite or horticultural sand mixed with vermicolite, sow your seeds directly into that and then prick out the seedlings, but you'll have to do it really, really early, as in about you know, for something like lettuce or spinach or something like that, you'll be doing it very, very early days within kind of 10 days, because they will have a requirement for nutrients from that point on, and there would there just won't be anything in the the sand and and vermicolite, but it's very, very good to give you that initial germination, so you can do that and then prick out into a growing media, peat free going growing media at that stage. Again, it it will have to be one that you've kind of tested and tried that you know works because some of them can be inconsistent, the EC levels or the salt levels can be inconsistent, and so you could get prick out your seedlings and find that they just get burnt. You know, the roots can get burnt in them if the the compost has those wrong levels, and you just won't know. You pick up the bags, they'll look the same, but when it comes to to to sewing and to pricking out, you'll just get sporadic or odd results. So that's another alternative, is is just sewing your seed into into a sand or a grit. I don't use that method at all. Um so far I've used I've continued to use peat, I've tried the peat-free versions this year by sewing, which I'm starting today or tomorrow, I'll be trying those three options. So just to tell you again, class man, uh seed sowing compost, which looking forward to the try, and I know well it's going to be very, very good. I still question whether that is a you know a green alternative. Just because it says peat free, I don't think it it's uh it's a green alternative. Another one is local vermicompost mixed with perlite, mixed with biochar. I think that's has quite good credentials. Um obviously there's elements of it. The the production of perlite requires a lot of heat, so there's you know there's energy use there, but I think it's for the level of perlite that's going into this be very, very small. The biochar is the same. Uh so I think that's a a good a good alternative. And then finally, continuing with the tried and trusted for the very, very small amount of seed sowing that I'll be doing, uh a peat, a peat-based sowing media. And it's just it's just to have those options, and I suppose when I am talking about these alternatives, that you know, that I've hands-on experience of it. Um when you know, when I was saying earlier on that you look at the the US gardeners and the options and the array of options that they have for growing media, and you know, again, the the terminology they're using, they're using the term growing all uh growing media as opposed to compost. So they're they're talking about different options. Vermacast is common, biochar is common, you know, topsoil mixes, green waste mixes, they're all really, really common. Um so they have, I feel, and correct me if I'm wrong, any of the US listeners, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like they have a much better selection of products to choose for that allows them to be at that seed sowing stage more environmentally friendly than we have the options of here. The US, yeah, UK even is a little bit the same because, as I said, their peat they're they have a ban on retail peat for the last number of years. So I would assume that over that period of time, their peat-free alternatives and their options for you know for the various applications of growing media have improved as well over the last number of years, especially since that that ban on PET. Because prior to that, a little bit like what's happening here, because peat is available and because it is so good at what it does, it's ve and and it's also in terms of cost, it's a it's a low-cost product for people to buy. But because of that, there isn't you know, because we we we haven't been forced, there is this, you know, we we're happy with what we have. Um but for people searching for these green options, then we do need to look at at alternatives. And as I said at the very start, there is no question that the the use or well rather the abuse of peat and peat bogs is something that needs to stop. Um the very small levels that you would use at the seed sowing stage, you know, I don't know that that percentage of the overall harvest is going to cause any big, big problems. Um as far as I know, there's still some peat being burned here in Ireland for the production of electricity. If that if I'm right in that, which I think I am, like that's just crazy in this day and age, uh, with all the potential alternatives that are out there. So and that peat has not been harvested in Ireland, it's coming in from somewhere else. So again, it's it's a little bit of the smoke of mirrors that I'm talking about. So I suppose from my perspective, what I'm trying to do, and hopefully this kind of gives you a good grounding on on what makes sense and what doesn't. I think if if we're able to get one that we can produce ourselves and that will work consistently and be consistent, then that's a very, very good alternative. As I say, my total use of peat in a season might be like 75 litres, you know, 100 litres, something like that, really, really small. Um but this year I'll have three options and we'll see how they go. If if I have big success, particularly with the one with the vermicast and uh and the perlite, if I've big success with that, then I won't use peat at all next year. And I never use it on any bigger planters, it's always it's always green waste, it's um farm air manure, topsoil, you know, that mix that that I do for anything bigger. So yeah, I just wanted to kind of discuss it a little bit more because somebody messaged last week and just uh after that episode on preparing to sow seeds and was was just critical of the fact that I still mentioned a peat-based compost, and I wanted to put a bit of context on it. And the version that that they were given as the alternative is you know the classman product, and I just can't see how that how that should be sold as you know as a green alternative to peat when it has travelled the distance it has. And you know, even for that bag that I'm getting that has to be delivered here, it went from Germany to a depot, comes to me 80% of the product has come from South America in the in in its originality. So yeah, that journey, that journey doesn't sound very, very green to me. So um yeah, not to you know, not to argue the point, but to put a bit of context on it. It's like all of these things, you have to view it with full 360 vision of what it is that's that's going on in this situation. Um so hopefully, hopefully that does it, hopefully that explains it a little better better. Um, any of you guys listening in the US or the UK, and you have options that are working, that are good, that are bad, uh delighted to if you share them with me, that'd be that'd be great. It'd be nice to see a little bit of you know worldwide context on it. Um but from an Irish perspective, Pete is still the dominant seller within within the the horticultural industry here, uh, albeit that there is some change there and some movement there towards towards alternatives. Um I suppose I should also say that peat-free performs and grows plants very, very differently to what we're used to here in Ireland, as in a peat-based. So peat-based compost holds and distributes moisture within you know a planter or a pot or a cell of a seed tray very, very well. So it will have the same moisture level from top to bottom, generally speaking. I know on dry days the top dries anyway, but when when the tray has moisture in it and it is after being watered, it distributes the moisture very, very well within the pot. So it holds moisture a little bit longer, um, is very, very airy, is open, and yeah, holds nutrients as well. So it's a very good, it's a very good growing media by its nature. Just naturally, it's a very, very good uh growing media. Pea-free, which is typically, you know, the composts are made up of wood chip, forestry waste, coir, uh green waste, which is municipal waste, and so on. And they they are slightly different. So when they're they're going to be holding more moisture, they're also definitely from a soil life perspective, there's a lot more life in them. So you'll have a lot more microbes and so on in them. They will retain moisture, so they'll be they'll hold on to moisture longer. But they can be too much, they can't hold too much moisture. So again, they can look dry on the top and be holding a lot of moisture underneath. You can go and water, and then you're starting to overwater, and that's really important at seeding stage, which is sort of the you know the general context of the of this episode. Um, so the performance of peat free is very, very different. Also, if as you go as they move up through the pot, so if you pot something on to a bigger pot or you're doing something for more longer term using peat free, um it can continue to break down. So it'll be full to the top of the pot, and then over time it just breaks down and breaks down, and eventually you see that your you know your plant is sitting well down in the pot because the the microbes have been eaten away and actually drawn nutrients out initially as well. They will give it back, but they'll be drawn out nutrients at the start as well. So it performs differently. It'll need in you know, in that scenario, it'll need the pot would need to be topped up with more compost, probably on a yearly basis. And but it will be more live and it will be it will grow good plants, but just it does perform very, very different to peat. So if people are transitioning, you will have to be aware of that. So it performs, as I said, very, very differently. So hopefully, hopefully that puts a little bit of context on the conversation. Um, as I said at the start, it we we should be getting and moving away from using using peat. Um, we definitely shouldn't be using it on large scale things. We shouldn't be filling, as I mentioned, large planters with it. Uh at seed sowing, there's very, very good, it's a very, very good product for sowing seeds, but there is alternatives, and hopefully I'll give you firsthand experience of using those alternatives over the coming weeks and months. So a couple of other things then to just close off on. There, for anyone interested, are going to the grow your own food workshops. So the first one, which is the 21st of February, it's coming up in just a little over a week's time. That is there's almost sold out. There's only four slots left on that. So if anyone is interested in that, you want to be booking it. Um, so to recap again, it's basically full day from 10 until until 3 uh here in the polytunnel and garden, and we'll be going through everything about growing your own food and troubleshooting what's happening in your garden. So 21st of March or February is the first one that's almost sold out. 21st of March is about half sold out. So if you're thinking of that, again, there is places on that, but you would want to be booking it. It's a month away, but if you know you're going, get it booked as soon as possible because the places are filling up. A couple of people have messaged to say that they you know they can't travel the distance, although I do have people coming from Condamara and Far A field for those workshops. I have a couple of people that have messaged to say that just won't travel that distance to come to a workshop, but they would love to. So on the 27th, so Friday, the 27th of February, I'm doing a free webinar, uh Grow Your Own Food webinar, where I go through basically all the basics of growing your own food. It is a webinar, so we'll get through a good bit, but we won't be able to cover absolutely everything visually in that, but we'll get through a lot of stuff there in that. So if you're interested in a free webinar on growing your own food, you know, fruits, vegetables, herbs, come with your questions. It's on Friday the 27th, 7 o'clock. Uh, for anyone that attends live, there's uh an added bonus of you just enter your name and email address into the comments when we get going. And yeah, you'll be entered into a free draw, and somebody will win a one-to-one consultation with myself, which we can schedule afterwards. So, yeah, that's for anyone attending live. If you can't attend live, just sign up and you want to get the details, just sign up, and then afterwards we'll email you the you know the the copy of the webinar anyway. So, but it's on Friday the 27th at seven o'clock, probably go on for you know an hour, an hour and a half, and we'll go through all the grow anything that you'd need to know for growing your own food, and you can, as I said, bring your questions to that. So, link for that is in the show notes, or if you're on Instagram or any of those places, link will be in the bio of all those places, and yeah, lots going on, busy month. Looking forward to it. I've actually to do a couple of a couple of uh webinars for uh people as well, again on growing your own food. So looking forward to those as well. So lots lots happening in the month of February. Um and seed sowing is starting, as I say, today or tomorrow as well. So yeah, ramping up now and looking forward to seeing the first group here on the 21st of March. Again, if you're interested in that, get your tickets because it is it's down to the last four tickets on on that one. Um that's been this week's episode. There's a bit of rambling in it, I'm sure. Uh, pretty sure, but I was trying to get a little bit of balance on that conversation, and I hope it has done that. So there is alternatives, there should be alternatives. Uh we just wish here in Ireland we had better alternatives and more options for people. Uh, but hopefully that will come, will come fairly soon. So that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening, and I'll tell the next time.