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The one habit to try for a more ethical garden

'For a peat-free convert like me, it’s really curbed the impulse shop' -  Lydia Goldblatt
'For a peat-free convert like me, it’s really curbed the impulse shop' - Lydia Goldblatt

We’re increasingly aware of easy sustainable decisions to make around the home: recycling, bamboo loo roll, that enormous pile of tote bags. In the garden, though, things are a little less obvious. It seems difficult to believe that tending to flowers and making the world a little more beautiful should have a carbon footprint, and yet it does – and worse, it’s often more difficult to work out just what damage we might be doing.

I’ve been gardening organically ever since my first year on the balcony – refusing to use fertilisers or pesticides made from man-made chemicals for the best part of a decade. It was all vaguely smug-inducing until I realised quite how much of a blind eye I had turned to nursery plants grown in peat-based soil.

You might have heard the fuss about peat recently – Monty Don was on Radio 4 talking about it. In May the Government said it would outlaw the sales of peat compost by 2024. That’s four years later than the Government target originally set for amateur gardeners, but it’s nevertheless galvanised the industry. Environmentalists are keen to stop the use of peat because of the chronic state of the country’s peatlands, which store triple the amount of carbon as our forests. Worse, as they are ripped apart so we can pot up petunias, peatlands are actively releasing carbon – and deepening the climate crisis in the process. It needs to stop.

The trouble is, peat is so entwined with the horticultural industry that it isn’t always easy to avoid it. I’ve seen bags of compost labelled ‘organic’ that contain it. For swift reference, SylvaGrow, New Horizon, Fertile Fibre and Dalefoot are always peat-free, and B&Q does a cheaper peat-free potting soil, but if you’re at the garden centre and they’re not there, it’s worth checking out the ingredients on the back. For peat purists who need convincing, several horticulturalists, among them Jack Wallington, have undertaken their own peat-free trials to see how it impacts domestic growing, with convincing results.

You might be potting your own tubs, seedlings and houseplants up with peat-free compost, but if you’re buying from a nursery that doesn’t call itself peat-free, it’s unlikely to be.

For a peat-free convert like me, it’s really curbed the impulse shop. Instead, I buy online at peat-free nurseries such as Beth Chatto, Peat-Free Plants, Penlan Perennials. Jekka’s is great for herbs and Crûg for fantastically rare and unusual specimens. Websites such as dogwooddays.net keep regularly updated lists of where to shop. It’s worth knowing, too, that plant shops at the National Trust are peat-free, as are their gardens, which makes that tea-room jaunt all the more satisfying.

Why does it matter? For the same reason that you might get a veg box or switch your energy supplier: it’s a small but meaningful switch that can help to engender proper change.

Gardening is big business in the UK, and as customers, we can change the way things are done by choosing where we spend our money.

5 things to get you going

5 gardening items to get you going
5 gardening items to get you going
  1. A great way to go plastic-free. Soil-block maker. £23.99, Suttons

  2. I sow all my seedlings in this. Compost, from £18, Fertile Fibre

  3. My go-to for hefting dirt about, ideal for the shorter among us. Spade, £34, Niwaki

  4. Perfect for small gardens and homes. Worm farm, from £134,99, Gardening Naturally

  5. Keep your manicure manure-free. Gardening gloves, £29, My Little Belleville

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