11 Peat-Free Compost Brands For Feeding Plants Without Fueling Climate Change
Sustainable gardening, it grows on you (pun fully intended).
And we don’t want our luscious gardens dirtying the planet with more carbon emissions—which is why we’re burying ourselves (and our veggies) in the best peat-free compost available in the US and UK.
Now, you might be asking: why is peat no longer used in compost?
With climate change disrupting every part of the planet, the focus is to reduce GHGs, and peatlands, which are valuable ecosystems, flood inhibitors, and carbon sinks, are severely depleted due to its use.
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.
Everything we recommend to you on Sustainable Jungle is independently researched and we ask all brands to confirm their claims. To avoid waste, we test products on an as needed basis. This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our links, we may earn a small commission. Learn more about why we do this here.
Peat-Free Soil Brands That Are (Compost) Gold
So what is peat-free compost?
There’s no one “right” recipe, but Wiggle Worm keeps their compost peat-free with pure and powerful worm castings that will make your garden squirm with delight.
Wakefield’s will wake up your field of flowers thanks to their premium, FSC-certified peat-free potting compost.
UK gardeners are going coco for Sri Lankan coir which is used in For Peat’s Sake’s sustainable coconut peat alternative.
Dig to the bottom to learn the dirt on how we answered, “What is the best potting soil without peat moss?”
The Full List Of Peat-Free Potting Soil & Compost Suppliers
Peat-Free Composts USA
Peat-Free Composts UK
Where To Buy Peat-Free Compost USA
1. Wakefield
Wakefield Peat-Free Potting Soil
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.
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.
Plus, it’s made in the USA and OMRI-certified organic.
About Wakefield
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.
2. R&M Organics
R&M Organics All-Purpose Peat-Free Potting Soil
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
About R&M Organics
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.
California’s family owned and operated, the company is passionate about improving high yield crop production for farmers.
3. Charlie’s Compost
Charlie’s Peat-Free Potting Mix
Price Range: $25 / 10 lbs.
Charlie’s Compost 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.
About Charlie’s Compost
Charlie’s compost believes the best compost for a vegetable garden can have zero odor, zero filler, and zero additives.
Charlie’s is OMRI-certified organic by Kentucky state and a proud member of the US Composting Council.
4. Wiggle Worm
Wiggle Worm Organic Peat-Free Composts
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!
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.
About Wiggle Worm
For more than 40 years, Wiggle Worm has provided the highest quality vermicomposting product for growing plants in the USA.
Their creepy crawly concoctions are renowned for improving soil structure & aeration, adding significant beneficial microbial and bacterial activity, and their high availability of nutrients.
Where To Buy Peat-Free Compost UK
5. Carbon Gold
Carbon Gold Organic Peat-Free Compost
Price Range: £32.97 / 30L
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.
And kale, yes, it’s Soil Association-approved for organic growing and FSC-certified.
About Carbon Gold
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.
All of their products are 100% free from peat or synthetic chemicals.
6. New Horizon
New Horizon’s Peat-Free Compost
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” without peat-based compost.
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.
About New Horizon
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.
Westland has a conscious sustainability strategy and regularly looks for ways to make products more green, reduce plastic use, and they’re zero waste at corporate offices.
Some products contain pesticides, with reduction strategies in place.
7. Miracle Gro
Miracle Gro Peat-Free Compost
Price Range: £7–£13 / 40L
For more than sixty years, Miracle Gro has been a leader in fertilizers worldwide. And while they undeniably love nature, their products aren’t natural—but is Miracle-Gro soil peat-free?”
While they do sell Miracle Gro peat-free composts, we leave the choice to our readers.
They offer both peat-free organic blends and those made with synthetic ingredients, so look for the white bags to keep it organic.
About Miracle Gro
Scotts Miracle-Gro is digging new trenches towards sustainability, with a “Nourish and Protect” range of more sustainable products, although their peat alternatives aren’t included.
They’ve also upped their organic game with organic plant food.
8. Homebase
About Homebase’s Peat Moss-Free Potting Soil
Price Range: £7 / 50L
You’ve hit a home run with Homebase’s peat-free multipurpose compost, which is a blend of West+, bark, coconut coir, and fertilizer.
The popular UK home and garden experts’ in-house mix is perfect for all-around garden use for flowers or vegetables.
It also recently won the Which? Best Buy Award for best garden compost, so you can be confident it’s already a garden favorite.
About Homebase
Keep calm and carrot on with Homebase’s extensive garden department for all your home gardening needs.
With over 150 stores and almost 6,000 team members across the UK and Ireland, Homebase is there to make your home and garden radish-ing.
Homebase partners with Macmillan Cancer Support to provide home comforts for those living with cancer.
9. Melcourt Sylvagrow
Melcourt Peat-Free Compost
Price Range: £21 / 45L
Melcourt brand’s Sylvagrow John Innes Peat-Free No.3 Mature Plants Compost is a mouthful as much as it is a miraculous mix of fine bark and sustainable wood fiber, fine grit, and sterilized loam.
While too potent to use as peat-feed see compost, it’s ideal for established shrubs, plants, trees, climbers, fruit bushes, and vines that won’t be repotted any time soon.
It’s an off-shoot (get it?) of the peat-free compost supplier’s prestigious John Innes Compost, which was originally developed at the John Innes Horticultural Institute in the 1930s.
Endorsed by the RHS it’s vegan and contains no green waste.
If you need ericaceous peat-free compost for acid-loving plants, look for SylvaGrow Ericaceous.
About Melcourt
British gardening giants Melcourt know all the dirt, per se, on the best peat-free compost, thanks to decades and decades of trials and tests, in-house research, and extensive development.
The brand operates in accordance with strict environmental policies.
Melcourt are also active members of many associations, such as FSC, Renewable Energy Association (REA), and Soil Association.
10. For Peat’s Sake
For Peat’s Sake Peat Alternatives
Price Range: £5–£34 / 3L–69L
Coir, or coconut husk fiber, is the heart of For Peat’s Sake’s 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, the benefits of the all-natural coir tend to outweigh the shipping footprint.
Instead of plastic bags, it comes in a compostable box.
About For Peat’s Sake
For Peat’s Sake is passionate about preserving our peat bogs, which can soak up a tonne of CO2 per hectare per year.
Their solution of Sri Lankan coir meets globally recognized environmental and ethical certifications for manufacturing.
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.
Coir naturally has a low carbon footprint, which FPS offsets through conservation of tropical forests.
11. Dalefoot
Dalefoot Wool Peat Alternative
Price Range: £22–£44 / 60L–120L
Kick some organic asparag-ass with Dalefoot Wool Compost range of organic peat-free compost.
Perfect for organic vegetables, salad and fruit in an allotment, raised beds, containers, windowboxes, or other planters in your apartment garden or your backyard homestead.
Their 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.
About Dalefoot
Lake District-located Dalefoot found a solution to all the excess sustainable sheep’s wool and bracken in the area: healthy, locally sourced compost.
In their own words:
“Using old gardening recipes they have worked to develop a range of wholesome composts that are farm-made and do what they promise.”
Dalefoot is as passionate about saving the peat bogs as they are harnessing the plant power of excess regional bracken.
12. DIY Peat-Free Composts
Price Range: $130-$140
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. Our composting inspiration is here.
- 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.
Did you know we Have a Newsletter?
We cover the latest in sustainable living, fashion, zero waste, beauty, travel, finance and more…
Why Use Peat-Free Compost?
Why use peat-free potting mix? Is peat-free compost better?
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.
That said, there are peat-free compost pros and cons worth reviewing.
On one hand, harvesting practices destroy ecosystems, release dangerous levels of carbon into the atmosphere, and leave peat bogs dry and prone to wildfires.
On the other, 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.
How We Chose The Best Peat Alternatives
For peat’s sake, we know finding perfectly balanced gardening soil is an art and science.
Most peat-free composts blend various organic materials – like coir, composted bark, and green compost – with materials like grit, sharp sand, and perlite.
There are five main materials for the best peat-free potting soil:
Coir:
Made from coconut husks (a natural byproduct of the coconut industry), just add water and be wowed by its open structure, biodegradability, and lightness. Ideal for young seedlings and root cuttings.
While coir loses an eco point for its shipping, it repurposes waste products to balance it as a sustainable alternative to peat.
Wool:
Ethical wool that is a byproduct of the wool industry ticks the natural, biodegradable, and renewable boxes, plus it locks in moisture and provides a slow release of nitrogen fertilizer. Wool also contains useful trace elements like potassium, sodium, iron, and phosphorus.
Wood:
Branch out with composted bark, sawdust, wood, or paper waste. They’re good in the garden because they have a low PH and drain well. Wood chips make good mulch and are oftentimes free from forestry management.
Biochar:
The world’s latest carbon storing savior, biochar is a form of charcoal perfect for climate conscious gardeners as it stimulates plant growth effectively and works as a carbon sink.
Home compost:
Lettuce celebrate the many benefits to composting.
Dabble in soil DIY by striking a balance between wet greens and dry browns, and you’ll keep food waste out of landfills while feeding your beautiful garden for free.
- Certifications: Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Soil Association, International Organization for Standardization (ISO 9001), ISO 14001
Final Thoughts On Peat Compost Vs. Peat-Free Compost Brands
There’a s a real garden variety of peat alternatives out there, meaning our harvests and the environment can stay green without peat based compost.
No one wants their dirt to dirty the planet further by spewing carbon emissions, which is why the switch to peat-less soil is so important.
Learn more about how to not soil your garden and the planet thanks to eco-friendly landscaping and gardening.
Now grow your forest of friends using peat alternatives by passing this article along.
Pin these:
