Using Peat

Hi everyone, firstly I do try not to use peat but last year my neighbour gave me a large bag of Irish peat and I'm unsure of the best way to use it up, most of my plants are in containers and I currently use a mix of 1-1-1 JIno3-grit-mpc which seems to work well, could I add it to that mix proportionally or swap it for one if the others or is it best used in other ways.
Thanks.

 

Its a good point and this is something we looked into when seaching for a low PH product for our Blueberries.

If its 100% IMP with nothing added, then as pure peat it will have a very low PH, possibly even lower than Ericaceous.

However it may well have been mixed with some addative to help increase the PH for garden /greenhouse use, but they do not seem to clearily state that on the bags or their websites.

Most MPC , if peat based, seem to be a balanced mix of peat and other organics and addatives to provide a ph of around 6.5 and a reasonable amount of plant food.

If you are happy with your current potting mix, which sound fine to us, we would not upset our method for the sake of one bag of peat.

Suggest you just use that peat as a general soil improver in the garden boarders and veg plot, mixing it up when you add your ferilizers like Growmore or FBB.

 

I can remember many years ago just using it as a soil improver, bit of a waste really these days.

You could add it to composts, but it's very acidic, so unless you want an ericaceous mix it will need lime.
It also contains almost no nutrient.

Not sure if you can still get it but at one time you could buy a base ingredient to add to a bale of peat, it contained lime and fertilisers.

 

It was Chempak base fertiliser I think

 

@ricky101 and @pete Thanks very helpful I thought it would be a daft question. So I could use it for an azalea and crinodendron hookerianum that I have?

 

You can, but not on its own, best mixed with maybe a JI compost at 50:50 if your pot growing.

The JI would have fertiliser and probably some lime, but by adding the peat you will lower the PH.

 

Brilliant thanks @pete