In this episode I’ll talk about spending the morning judging an elementary school science fair, then a little about Whole Food markets, a cool new website for vegetable growers and then I’ll ramble on about the controversy around using peat moss in your garden. Then at the end I’ll catch you up on how the house hunting, and ultimately the garden building is going.
So last Saturday I woke up at 5:30am and drove an hour to a western suburb of Chicago to be one of the many judges at a district science fair. When I had told my wife I had volunteered for this duty she laughed and asked if I thought one of the kids was going to do the tried and true experiment of which laundry detergent works the best. Well, I’m happy to say that not only where there at least two of these experiments, I was assigned to judge one of them. Figures. The young 5th grade scientist did an excellent job and I spent 5 or 10 minutes asking her about her project.
Surprisingly I actually learned something from her project. She was able to conclude that ketchup can be removed by the premium detergent, the generic detergent, and here’s the surprise…just water!
That’s right. He plain water control was able to remove the ketchup just as well as the detergents.
While I was there I saw a booth setup by the Whole Foods Market. It looked like a child’s science project. I went over and two friendly women asked me if I’d like to take part in an experiment. They had cut up some apples and had laid out two bowls. One of the bowls had organic apple slices in it and the other did not. My job was to try them and figure out which were organic and which twere not organic. This was something I had never thought of doing and it was brilliant! I know the reason I prefer to choose organic ingredients, and it has never involved flavor. But if you stop to think about it…shouldn’t organic food taste better? I tried the granny smith apples and it was immediately obvious to me which one was organic. One tasted like what a granny smith apple is suppose to taste like. It was tart and juicy and made my mouth pucker. The other granny smith apple was juicy but it tasted bland. My comment to the ladies at the table was that one of them tasted "flat". When I pronounced which of the apples was organic they smiled and said I was right.
Now…regardless if you think Whole Foods is the Walmart of organic grocery stores or if it truly has good intentions…you have to admit they did a wonderful thing for those families that day. They provided more education about organic food than any number of books and TV programs could do. They made organic mean something to the individual person. It tastes better. You may have noticed that I’ve only mentioned Whole Foods at the science fair. That’s because they were the only ones there. That’s right. Nobody else in the community felt it was worth coming out and being a part.
That alone moves Whole Foods up on my list.
And before we get into something controversial, let me mention that I found a cool new website, at least for me. Thanks to Tracy over on her blog for posting about it. Cornell University Cooperative Extension is running a website designed to allow gardeners to rank and discuss various vegetable varieties. I’ve only poked around a bit but it looks like a wonderful resource. The link to the website is on the MyChicagoGarden website in the ‘Learn More’ section.
Now, I’m not one to shy away from a good discussion on any topic but this next one may cause you to feel like sending me hate email or unsubscribing from the podcast. Just remember that rarely is anything an absolute, and using or not using peat moss is one of those things. Recently I got into a fairly cordial discussion, in internet flame war terms, on an organic gardening mailing list about the use of peat moss.The reason it came up was innocuous enough, a new gardener asked about using the square foot gardening method that calls for building your own soil using peat moss, vermiculite and compost. The immediate response from a few list members was to swear off peat moss because of the environmental damage being done by the harvesting of the material in the peat bogs. This of course had nothing to do with the original post, but that’s not uncommon on the internet. Now being the centrist that I usually am I tried to argue that using or not using peat moss is not the real issue, the real issue is what product is the best for a particular situation. Needless to say, I don’t think I convinced anyone. I don’t know why I’m surprised of course, rarely do discussions on the internet actually cause a change in mind. I have no problem with someone who wishes to not use peat moss for whatever reason they want, even if I believe their reasoning is flawed. What I do have an issue with is using illogical comparisons and either incomplete and completely false information as the defence for that position.Let me give a few examples…Peat moss is undeniably one of the best products for retaining moisture and releasing it slowly. This is a scientific fact.
You can do your own experiment yourself if you don’t believe me. Take a handful of peat moss, and a handful of good quality compost and put them in separate buckets. Fill each bucket with water and let it sit for a few minutes.Then pour off the water into something you can measure and see which one has retained more water. Like I said…it’s a scientific fact.I do not argue that there are alternatives, such as the compost I mentioned earlier, but they do not work as effectively for this particular issues. Compost, and other alternatives provide more nutrients or other benefits. This is not an apple to apple comparison. If you have water retention, then peat moss is one of your best alternatives.
Now for the environmental issue, which is probably the biggest argument you hear for not using peat moss in your garden. Once again, the assertion that the harvesting of peat moss damages the environment is in fact true. That’s right, it’s true. In fact in the UK and northern europe it’s down right devastating. But then again, you can say the same thing about harvesting trees, or commercial fishing or any of a number of environmentally invasive functions necessary for life on this planet. If you reject my reality of life on this planet, I can fully understand your position, but we might as well not discuss this specific topic, because our basic definition of environmental impact is not the same. We need to take a step back and address the measurement of damage, or agree to not agree. If you are willing to accept that damage to the environment is a gradient scale and not a simple black or white argument, let’s move on to see how much damage is actually being done by harvesting peat.
Here are a few undisputed facts about peat from the United States Geological Survey…As of 2002 the U.S. peat resources had been estimated at more than 110 billion tons, with more than 50 percent of that located in undisturbed areas of Alaska. 760,000 tons were produced domestically, with 95 percent of that going to the horticultural industry. Typically the U.S. harvested product is of low quality and not usually what you see in a raw form at your local plant store. It’s primarily used in soil blends. 99 percent of all imported peat used in the US comes from Canada.
So by this information we now understand that the peat we will be using will be coming from Canada. So our information about environmental damage needs to be focused on Canada.
But before we travel up to Canada let me quickly go back to my comment early about the extensive damage to the peat bogs in the UK and northern Europe. The bogs are harvested primarily for heating, not horticultural use. And there are no strict governmental regulations as far as I can find. So if you lived in Europe or the UK, I would whole heartedly be in the camp of the no peat in your garden group. Also, if you believe that you not purchasing Canadian peat moss will some how impact the economics of the UK peat market, then please don’t use peat in your garden. But be honest about why you are doing it when you give advice to new gardeners…by the way…I’d love to be a part of that discussion, so let me know when you post somewhere about your economic theory. But since I don’t live in northern Europe, let’s look at the situation for MyChicagoGarden.
A few more undisputed facts from the International Peat Society. Canada harvests roughly 17,000 hectares of it’s 113 million hectare peat lands. Given the known growth rate of peat, Canada is growing 70 times more peat than it is harvesting. The Canadian government also monitors and has strict regulations on the industry.
So by my logic, the environmental impact from the harvesting of peat in Canada is negligible. I know, I know, I already said it damages the environment. I simply argue that the damage is not great enough to cause concern. If you want to use peat in your garden, you should feel free to do so without the guilt others put on you for damaging the environment. If you want to do something good for the environment, there are more beneficial things to put your energy into.
But now that you’ve decided to go ahead and use peat, don’t forget to keep an open mind. There are many alternatives available, and more are being tested and brought to market. Make sure you are using peat for a reason that is specific to peat. It should not be the first thing you add to your garden. That honor should be reserved for your compost.
Now that I’ve probably infuriated you….I’m sure you want to know the status of the MyChicagoGarden…garden? Well I’m happy to say that we’ve made an offer on a house in Wheaton (a western suburb of chicago for those not familiar with the area), and it was accepted by the current owner. The house is in need of some extensive repairs, but my wife and I are looking forward to taking on the challenge. Assuming nothing extraordinarily bad happens we’ll be taking ownership on March 12th. What this all means for the garden is that I’ll be getting a late start on seed starting and I’ll be scrambling to get a basic garden started before too much of the growing season has passed. It also means that there maybe a week or two that a podcast will not be posted because I’ve been too busy fixing the house. Let me apologize ahead of time. But rest assured there will be a garden. Over the next few podcasts I’ll be pulling all the previous episodes together to flesh out what the garden will be like for this first year. I’m encouraged to look back at the advice I gave in the previous episodes and realize I’ll be forced to follow that advice. The garden is going to be in the front yard, since the backyard is basically non-existent. In addition, the garden will be small, simply because I don’t have the time and resources to go big while trying to repair the house.
