Brand name for Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss

Hi,

What's brand name for Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss do you use to buy for your carnivorous plants?

Connie

There are two brands I purchase.

Canadian Gold which appears to be offered by gardening centers and... (you owe me for the next one because I had to walk outside and unearth the bag from snow to read the label) Premier. The Premier I get at Home Depot.

Just a little hint. When buying any of it, take your finger nail and poke a hole somewhere in the bag and smell it. Take a real good whiff. If it smells like manure don't buy it. I got a bad bag last year and used it. Not good.

It didn't occur to you that you might not want to use a bag o'peat that smelled like manure? OH Lauren, if it weren't for you I might never laugh.

I had never gotten a bad bag before so it never had occurred to me to check bags. When I added that bale to my 175 gallon rubbermaid stock tank where I mix everything, I couldn't smell it- too plugged up. All joking aside, I have allergies to molds, mildews, grasses, pollen, straw, hay, grain, and all kinds of perfumes and fragrances. I think I live the entire gardening season plugged up and sneezing and blowing my nose. I live on sinus and allergy meds. Long story short, I was clueless until long after I filled a small 30 gallon in ground bog as well as quite a few pots with the inferior sphagnum peat mix AND planted in them. Somebody mentioned to me that they had received a few bad bags and I though nooooooo, not me. I forgot about those comments until I noticed plants in certain pots and in that new little bog weren't doing as well as what I would have expected and then comments of others flooded back to me since we all shop at the same Home Depot. I had my husband sniff the small 30 gallon bog and some pots I knew had sphagnum from that batch in them and then I had April take a few good whiffs and both of them said it smelled like manure. Great, just great.

So, in answer to your question... it never occurred to me that I might not want to use a bag o'peat that smelled like manure. When one is dumb or lazy... one pays and I most certainly will pay for not having the foresight to have somebody sniffing every bag I bought. Now I stick my finger in the bag and make somebody smell it for me before I buy it and double check it when I get it home by subjecting my family to even more sniff tests here!

What's about Scotts and Schultz?

Connie

Three times the price for the same quantity and their product is not consistent and often times it is not Canadian Sphagnum Peat. You are better off getting a bale for $6 even though it looks like more than you will need, you'll go through it fast ;)

Lauren is right, I went through 2 bales just this last summer. Haha ok I understand Lauren, just thought I would poke a little bit fun. I think the large bin to mix stuff in is a great idea though. Any info on how to find one?

Fleet and Farm carries a stock tank brand that is comparable to Rubbermaid's stock tank only half the price. The one I am using to mix in was actually used for horses. I bought a new 300 gallon stock tank for the horses and hauled this one home. I think... not positive... that the 175 gallon AgriMaster would be around $125. Rubbermaid would be at least twice that price and they don't last any longer than the AgriMaster brand. You don't need to have one that is brand new. Check around in your newspaper because I see them selling for $20-$50 or so every once in a while. Needless to say I didn't find any for sale in the papers until after I bought the new one and hauled the other one home. The other thing you might want to do is take note of any farmers who are retiring. Once they sell off their livestock, they have no use for stock tanks any longer and people have hauled them off for free. You don't have to have one so time is on your side. Just don't get a metal stock tank. People use old bathtubs for all kinds of things around here so that's a possibility too. We've got an old white ball and claw bathtub on the side of our garage that we stick ice in to keep pop cold for barbecues and I had been mixing in that for a while. It works. Please tell your future wife to forgive me for suggesting that in advance. My husband to this day is not thrilled that we have a big old bathtub on the back side of our garage. He claims it looks bad- who cares what it looks like because it is practical.

Something else that comes to mind is that you can make in ground bogs out of these stock tanks. If you ever run across a big old stock tank for cheap, you might want to pick it up and sink it in the ground to expand your grow area.

Another "toy" you might want to be on the lookout for is a mortar mixer. That's what I use to get in there and mix it all together these days. Mine is about 20 years old and was used but it works just fine. The other thing that might work would be one of those power tools that painters attach mixers to when they mix 5 gallon buckets of paint. I must admit that I would go without a stock tank but I would never go without my mortar mixer.

Don't rush into paying big money to get this stuff. You'll stumble across it sooner or later. Let people know you want it and tell everybody to be on the lookout. It may take a year or two but you'll get "toys" cheap if you just wait it out.

Oh oh oh, there's this online service I heard of called Freeserve. I wonder if you couldn't post that you were looking for stock tanks that weren't metal that you would haul off for free? People rave about all the goodies they get from FreeServe.

I will have to look into Freeserve, never heard of it.

Yes a larger container to mix in would be much nicer, right now I mix in 5-7gallon buckets by hand. I do have a handheld mortar mixer but never thought to use it to mix peat and sand with. Will have to try that this spring, I am not looking forward to repotting all my sarrs, not at all so these ideas if found before then will make it easier. Sinking one into the ground would be a great idea I would love to have a bog garden, but the wind here is tremendous and w/o protection my pitchers get snapped in half. Plus what kind of work does it require of you to protect for winter?

Thanks for the info Lauren.

Wolf

I'm in a suburb of Chicago. I know all too well why we are referred to as the Windy City.

Full sun and a heavy layer of mulch and that's it that's all there is to it. I do cut the pitchers down to anywhere from 4-6" to reduce the risk of the wind grabbing them and uprooting them just as I do to my iris. This year I am experimenting with thermal fleece instead of mulch and whenever we run the snow blower we direct the flow onto the bogs. Snow is a great insulator.

The single greatest causes of concern for the inground bogs are the squirrels and the English House Sparrows. If they find your stash, you may have to surround your bogs with chicken wire and toss fruit tree netting over the top.

I love the mortar mixer. No more loss of the hair on my arms as well as the top layer of my skin. Sand is extremely abrasive.