FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I bought a bale of Sunshine brand peat moss earlier this year to repot my plants and for dividing them, problem is although I have been growing for five years now I have never had a peat that refuses to drain and looks more like mud than peat, it also tested before a first wash at 452 on my TDS meter, had anyone else had a problem with this peat and if so then what did you try, how did you fix the problem?

I had sunshine got my first batch all ready and soaking for first round and I decided to trash it. I didn't like how many sticks and other debris were in it. I didn't even get to the point of draining. If it's possible may want to switch to something else. For me Home Depot had Sunshine and Lowe's had Premier which was much better.

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I think the bale I just bought was Sunshine...I really hope it's better quality than what you guys are experiencing. Peat quality does tend to vary by region even within the same brand so it's hard to say.

Yeah it does definitely vary by region. I just ended up using it for regular plants. It's possible the sticks would have been fine for carnivorous plants as well, just was hesitant to try it on almost my entire collection that needed repotting.

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Well I just tested a sample from my new bale of Sunshine and I'm reading 75. Sounds good to me.

As for sticks and other debris, it's easy enough to pick that stuff out while rinsing. Some people would even recommend leaving it in since peat isn't going to be 100% consistent in the wild. Every bale will have some, and some higher quality nursery-grade peat I can buy locally actually has far more wood debris than the regular consumer brands.

Still a bit new to this so I hope this isn't an absolute dumb question but how do you test the TDS of peat?

Hungry Plants wrote:Still a bit new to this so I hope this isn't an absolute dumb question but how do you test the TDS of peat?

Soak a sample in water (I'd say no more than 2x the volume of the peat to avoid diluting it) and check it regularly with a TDS meter until the number stops rising. I generally find that it doesn't take more than 30 seconds unless the peat is too dry to absorb water readily.

Well I finally opened up my Sunshine bag today and started using it. When doing a proper rinse, my TDS on the first soak read 225 (I guess I tested my sample wrong?) but it was down to 35 (my tap water reading) by the third rinse. With my previous (not Sunshine) bale it took me 5 rinses to get from 150 down to 35.

Now that I've gotten a good look at the peat, it really does have a lot of wood in it. I actually pulled a 4 inch long piece out...