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Re: Organic replacements

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

Am I missing something here?  I agree that vermiculite, being heated rock,
is not organic.  But isn't peat moss a naturally occurring plant that is
dug up out of the ground?  I assume that when Colin writes "organic", he
means "organically grown", that is, without the addition of artificial
fertilizers or pesticides.  A plant would have to be cultivated for someone
to use artificial fertilizer or pesticide on it, but I have always thought
that peat moss was "wild".  I have this mental image of huge "peat bogs" up
in Canada where people (large corporations these days) go to dig the stuff
up.  While large machinery may be used to harvest peat, certainly no one
ever grows the stuff in the sense of planting and cultivating it.  Is this
essentially correct, or have I somehow invented a fairy tale for myself?

(The peat we get here in New Mexico says "product of Canada".  I always
assumed this was the same stuff that peasants in Scotland burned in place
of coal in the last century.  I distinctly remember that the Scottish peat
came out of bogs.  Maybe the Canadian peat is different?)

Andy
who feels like he is in Canada given the cold snap of the last couple days


At 2:01 PM -0700 12/9/98, Colin Shaw wrote:
>
>I am looking for organic replacements for Mel's 'soil' mix. What
>could be substituted for moss peat and vermiculite? How about coir
>as a replacement for moss?
>


Andy Arkusinski
a.e.arkusinski@ieee.org


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