How gardeners can adapt to the peat compost ban - Yorkshire Post Letters

Many gardeners are upset that peat is being banned from proprietary or branded compost which they have bought for years to propagate plants from seed and cuttings.

The alternative products using coir material and garden compost, some containing straw, which has been used commercially for years for growing 'cup' mushrooms, haven't met the needs of water and nutrients retention which is essential for healthy plant growth.

Gardeners are having to adapt by mixing their own compost using sterilised topsoil, which can be bought in bags from garden centres and DIY warehouses, which have an outdoor plant centre.

I have been an advocate of leaf mould for decades.

When I was an area foreman at Blackpool Parks and Recreation department in1981, I convinced the director of parks, Fred Matthews, and his assistant director of operations, Peter Stybelski that the parks should stop burning leaves and sending them to landfill, and we should build a compost bay in the service yard in each large park in Blackpool.

Each spring the bays were emptied of compost and transported to either Leys Farm tree and shrub nursery or the central nursery in Stanley Park.

Initially I had opposition from gardeners in the parks I supervised and the three fellow area foremen who said that the leaf mould was contaminated with litter such as plastic crisp and sweet packaging.

Removing small quantities of litter is a small cost to pay as the first job each weekday morning was a litter pick of the park.

For several years the large crisp manufacturers have promised to sell their products in bio-degradable bags but these have not hit the market, probably partially due to the increased cost of this product compared to plastic which takes hundreds of years to break down.

I agree that food manufacturers need to be competitive but there is an environmental duty of care. Millions of bags of crisp are manufactured and consumed by customers each week so freshness of the product is not an issue?

Leaf mould is nature's 'natural material' which holds moisture and has naturally produced nutrients.

The final ingredient is sharp sand (a word of caution as naturally excavated sharp sand quarried in East Yorkshire contains high levels of lime) or use horticultural grit to provide drainage to keep pore spaces for excessive water to filter through.

I suggest that one of Yorkshire's councils who have a plant production nursery, such as Leeds City Council or Harrogate Town Council should conduct a trial on compost production using leaves from parks and from avenues which have street trees.