9 Peat-Free Compost Brands To Feed Plants, Not Climate Change

With climate change disrupting every part of the planet, there is more focus now on reducing GHGs than ever before, and peatlands, which are valuable ecosystems, flood inhibitors, and major carbon sinks, are severely depleted due to their use in compost.

That’s why the UK has banned the sale of peat-based compost, beginning in 2030. While US regulation isn’t yet grounded by these concerns, nothing peats ditching your peat-based compost, regardless of where you live (more on the benefits at the end of the article).

Price Range: $30 / 1 cu. ft.

Wake up your garden with Wakefield’s Premium Compost, produced from sustainable forestry certified (FSC) wood scraps. This compost reduces plant disease and retains soil moisture, allowing your garden to flourish. It’s made in the USA and OMRI-certified organic.

To use, blend into the top six inches of soil, which creates healthy growing conditions for flower beds, vegetable gardens, trees, plants, shrubs, fresh lawn seeding and raised garden beds.

Wakefield is a minority and family-owned business from Georgia state, inspired by their Venezuelan immigrant father, who was a chemistry professor and horticulturist. They’re passionate about providing education about biochar and ecological gardening.

Price Range: $22 / 0.31 cu. ft.

R&M Organics’ mix harnesses the udder-ly divine power of cow manure, so much that it’s the exclusive ingredient in this OMRI-certified. Dairy cow manure is cured for a few weeks, which removes odors or bad bacteria and leaves us with the ideal all-purpose compost fertilizer good for moisture and nutrient retention

California’s family owned and operated, the company is passionate about improving high yield crop production for farmers. For every bag sold, a tree is planted by R&M organics, whose peat alternatives work great when mixed into potting soil or as a garden bed additive.

Price Range: $25 / 10 lbs.

Charlie’s Compost believes the best compost for a vegetable garden can have zero odor, zero filler, and zero additives.

That’s why their peat-free in-ground potting mix is a fertile blend of vegetarian & antibiotic-free chicken manure, biochar, organic grasses, and organic remnants of crop production. Praised for jumpstarting bioactivity and nutrient content of even the most depleted soils, this concentrated formula allows a small amount to fertilize big for beautiful, healthy, vibrant plants or vegetables.

Charlie’s is OMRI-certified organic by Kentucky state and a proud member of the US Composting Council.

Price Range: $24–$42 / 12–30 lbs.

Go down the wormhole with Wiggle Worm’s OMRI-certified “pure and powerful worm castings”. Worm castings (which can be used to brew worm tea liquid fertilizer) are odorless soil digested and excreted by large groups of worms, which some don’t have the stomach for… but your garden sure does!

For more than 40 years, their creepy crawly concoctions are renowned for improving soil structure & aeration, adding significant beneficial microbial and bacterial activity, and their high availability of nutrients.

Rich in healthy enzymes and nutrients for plants, you’ll only need a tiny amount of WW mixed into existing soil to burst your garden with lush vitality. That’s because it allows plants to easily and expediently absorb all trace elements and essential nutrients.

Price Range: £7–£13 / 40L

For more than sixty years, Miracle Gro has been a leader in fertilizers worldwide. While they still have a long way to go in this regard, Scotts Miracle-Gro is digging new trenches towards sustainability, with a “Nourish and Protect” range of more sustainable products, although their peat-free alternatives aren’t included.

However, they do still sell Miracle Gro peat-free compost, but also offer a number that contains peat (and non-organic ingredients) so read the bags carefully.

Price Range: £18–£48 / 30L–80L

Westland’s New Horizon provides just that for a wilting garden thanks to their organic peat-free multipurpose compost for all types of plants and gardens.

The magic is delivered via Westland’s trademarked BIO3 compost engineering that gives a home full of plants the ability to “Thrive, Boost, Sustain”. Sounds high-tech, but this fertilizer is back to roots (literally) with its rave reviewed mix for seedlings, containers, fruit and veg and herbs, but it’s not suitable for ericaceous plants.

UK-based Westland, who own the New Horizon brand, say “We want to make people’s gardens and gardening dreams come true.” Westland recently introduced BIO3, a natural and sustainable material that facilitates peat reduction levels without compromising performance.

They have a conscious sustainability strategy and regularly looks for ways to make products more green, reduce plastic use, reduce pesticide use, and continue their zero waste corporate offices.

Price Range: £32.97 / 30L

Certified B Corp and carbon-neutral certified Carbon Gold is on a mission to turn carbon into gold by sequestering carbon while improving plant health. As the world’s leading biochar company, this gardening brand is committed to improving human health and the planet’s health through organic and nutritious soil health.

Carbon Gold’s Biochar All Purpose Compost is a 100% organic peat-free mix rich with nutrients from organic coir, mycorrhizal fungi, worm castings, charred plant matter, seaweed, and a vegetable-based nutrient blend that foster lush, healthy root growth.

The Grochar-rich soil mix helps lock away carbon, which makes it as healthy for the environment as it is for your flowers. Suitable for use anywhere in your garden, raised beds, potted plants, hanging baskets, window boxes, or flower and vegetable beds.

All of their products are 100% free from peat or synthetic chemicals, are Soil Association-approved for organic growing, and are FSC-certified.

Price Range: £5–£34 / 3L–69L

For Peat’s Sake’ is passionate about preserving our peat bogs, which can soak up a ton of CO2 per hectare per year. Coir, or coconut husk fiber, is the heart of their easy, clean, green, beneficial, and lightweight non-peat compost. However, it’s not meant to be used alone, and should be combined with additional plant food.

Long a planting mainstay in India and Southeast Asia, coir has a low carbon and shipping footprint due to its lightweight nature, which FPS offsets through conservation of tropical forests. Their supplier is ISO9001 and ISO14001 certified, recycles water used during manufacturing, uses biodegradable packaging, supports LEAF, and are members of the Sedex manufacturing certification agency.

Instead of plastic bags, it comes in a compostable box.

Price Range: £22–£44 / 60L–120L

Kick some organic asparag-ass with Lake District-located Dalefoot. They found a solution to all the excess sustainable sheep’s wool and bracken in the area: healthy, locally sourced, and organic peat-free compost.

Perfect for vegetables, salad and fruit in an allotment, raised beds, containers, windowboxes, or other planters in your backyard homestead. Their wool peat alternative mix is packed with nutrients and high levels of potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen to ensure healthy plant growth, bigger tastier crops, and larger flowers.

Soil Association approved, it reduces watering by up to 50% and feeds throughout the growing season.

Price Range: Varies

It’s not a dirty trick—peat compost needs to be replaced and making your own potting mixes is easy and worth experimenting with. Besides being free of endangered peat moss, the following are the most common organic matter used for homemade mix.

Generally speaking, you’ll want to start by experimenting one equal part of each and adjust based on your local climate and growing needs.

• Garden compost: You need locally sourced leafy nitrogen-rich greens balanced by carbon-rich browns like woody stems.
• Leaf mold: A good soil conditioner; make yourself with a leaf mold bin or plastic bags.
• Perlite or Vermiculite: Perlite are the white flecks in soil that are a necessary horticultural mineral for drainage, while the vermiculite mineral is added instead to help retain water.
• Coir: Made from coconut husks, coir is compressed in blocks that expand with water. A great grown medium for sowing seeds and young plants.
• Sieved loam: Garden soil or quality garden center topsoil.

Note that DIY potting composts aren’t for seed sowing, as they can contain fungi that harm seedlings or cause damping-off disease. We suggest mixing your DIY peat-free potting soil early in the spring, store it in a sealed container, and use year-round.

Why use peat-free potting mix?

For decades, harvesting peat and peat use in more than 180 countries was commonplace, leading to immense environmental consequences. Peat sequesters 42% of all land carbon, which is crucial for mitigating climate change effects. Peatlands also provide more than 70% of drinking water in the UK, create natural habitats for wildlife, and help reduce flooding.

Meanwhile, more than 80% of all peatlands are now severely damaged in the UK from overharvest for peat products. The bogs dry out and release their carbon sink into the atmosphere, which further accelerates climate change.

In one year peat grows just one millimeter. Meaning extraction can destroy 500+ years of delicate growth and carbon sequestering. Harvesting practices destroy ecosystems, release dangerous levels of carbon into the atmosphere, and leave peat bogs dry and prone to wildfires.

While peat-based compost undeniably enhances your soil, retains moisture and nutrients, and has a low PH for acid-loving plants, we suggest a peat alternative that suits the type of plants you will be growing in it, such as long-term container plants versus seedlings.