Call for a ban on peat in garden compost

Judging by the backlash Monty Don received from the horticulture industry for his recent comments on peat, I don't see it disappearing any time soon. The main issues with peat free are the price, availability and quality. Unfortunately peat free has a bad reputation from when it was mostly low quality green waste compost, like when New Horizon used to be full of of uncomposted wood. In my opinion the updated New Horizon formula is much better and seems similar in composition to Melcourt (coir, wood fibre, composted bark) but I've seen on social media a lot of people are still unhappy with it. Most gardeners will be used to very fine, fluffy peat based composts and they may need to be shown that you can get excellent results with peat free.

I don't have a problem with using green waste compost as long as it is fully composted and quality tested. Aldi's peat free in 2018 was thick, sludgy and contained bits of plastic which I imagine deterred a lot of people (including me) from buying it again. Melcourt I would like to try but have never seen it in a shop and Dalefoot is way too expensive. Home made compost can be fantastic stuff but it takes time, effort and a lot of people won't have the space or raw materials to make enough.

We've been (mostly) peat free for years. We use as much home made compost as possible and make up the deficit with New Horizon, which is usually the only peat free brand available in our local garden centres. The only peat I've used recently was in the planting holes for some blueberry bushes, I don't intend on ever buying any more. Having read how some blueberry farms in the US grow quite successfully in pine bark, I'm going to try making some ericaceous compost out of composted bark and bark chips for a blueberry which needs repotting.

Here's a list of peat free nurseries and composts - https://dogwooddays.net/2020/04/30/updat...ries-list/