Gardens: Peat is organic, but extraction is so damaging to the environment

When I do my shopping it has become second nature to avoid food containing unwelcome ingredients such as transfats and e-numbers. If the product label boasts it is organic I buy with confidence.

So it came as a bit of a surprise that potting compost labelled "organic" in a garden centre does not necessarily bring with it the same desirable credentials as organic food in a supermarket.

I only buy a small quantity of potting compost. Most seeds take their chance being sown directly into the ground on the allotment. But our climate being what it is, I do start off a few of the less hardy vegetables such as courgettes and tomatoes in pots on the window sill.

Feeling slightly overwhelmed by the choice of potting compost on sale, I spotted one which was labelled organic. I turned it over to look at the ingredients. Far from being made of any of the sustainable recycled products I expected, such as green waste or composted bark, it was actually 80 per cent peat which is certainly organic, but whose extraction is so damaging to the environment. Organic gardening should be about doing what is best for the planet but using peat is the very opposite. How easy to be misled by labels.

Peat bogs are precious habitats and stores of carbon which have taken thousands of years to evolve. But peat is still beloved of some gardeners and even more beloved by the manufacturers. The great advantage to the producer is that it is easy to turn it from the raw material into something saleable. It is more difficult, and therefore more expensive, to produce a growing medium which performs as consistently as peat, from other materials. Improvements are being made all the time. If we leave the peat-based products languishing in the shops, I hope the manufacturers will redouble their efforts to fill the sacks with satisfactory peat-free alternatives.

Labels on pesticides can also be misleading. It's fashionable to describe them as being made from natural products, but the effects on wildlife will be just as devastating. It is better by far to encourage a variety of fauna on to the allotment in the hope that they will take care of the occasional infestation of aphids and caterpillars. If the odd slug manages to make it to the kitchen, I hope you will explain to the diners that this can happen when ingredients have been organically sourced.

• This article was first published in The Scotsman on March 26, 2011