Bringing in the Peat - 21 March 2008

In addition to the raised bed compost mixture we put in the gardens recently, Bill also got some peat moss to work in as well.  Problem with peat moss is that it's dry and compact, so he wanted to soak it well first.

Our kids' sandbox has been more like a sand pond through the winter because the lid was left off months ago and it filled with rain or melting snow.  But at least Bill found a use for it.  He set the peat on the water and hoped.

 

The next day it was still sort of floating there.  The very edge of it - the part touching the water - had absorbed a bit of moisture, but the rest stubbornly refused to.

So he needed to get creative.

First he tried turning the peat moss over, but that didn't seem like it was going to do much.

See?  You can see a little streak of the part that's soaked up water, and the rest is still dry as dust.

So here's what he ultimately did.

First he removed some of the peat moss and put it in a big old trash can we use for stacking firewood.

And then he put a cinder block on top of the peat moss to keep it weighted down.

And then he loaded it up with water.  You can see the water bubbling up in the back corner where the cinder block meets the edge of the trash can.

 

He did the same sort of thing with the peat moss in the sand box.

So we'll see how that works.