Today we organized a Barbecue down at the lake for dinner. To get there we walked through the peat bog that belongs to Ridgedale Farm. All farms in the village have a part of the local peat bog which has not been used for at least 50 years.
It looked like a swampy forest with birch and other trees in between but actually had lots of moss as ground cover. And when Richard took a piece out of the ground with a spade it was all peat moss. Pure carbon nice and fluffy that has great water holding capabilities. Basically what commercial compost consists of, peat moss, chicken manure and cow manure.

The piece of swamp that belonged to the farm was about 15×40-50 meters I would guess. Richard said they dug down two meters before and it was still pure peat moss and that he would suspect it to go down to even eight meters. This could last the farm practically indefinitely as cow bedding for the winter which could then be used to make compost for the garden beds.

A lot of people argue that peat moss is an unsustainable resource but compared to straw which relies on plowed grain crop monocultures, it is a quite sustainable resource which is readily available for the farm.

The barbecue was a nice way to relax a bit and have amazing food.