When coconut’s are harvested the juice inside is coconut ‘milk’ and the stuff you eat is the white inside. The ‘waste product’ brown husks today are used to create Coir brick "peat" as a bi-product. It's mostly organic matter so it is a good additive, As with any organic matter it will aerating clay soils or hold moisture in sandy soils. Coir brick "peat"can be used alone to grow your plants or as a way to amend soil. Coir brick "peat" is consistent and uniform in texture (homogenous). It has a pH of 5.7 to 6.5, plus a high cation exchange capacity meaning that coir will hold and release nutrients in solution over extended periods. Moreover, having a slow degradation rate, it conditions the soil and promotes the development of a consistent pH level.
As far as being green, Coir brick "peat" is a natural alternative to mined peat moss. Using coir products means you help slow down peat extraction from environmentally sensitive bogs world wide and provide a demand for a former waste product, often from a less developed nation. As with any resource, it can be overharvested, but it seems to be a green way to grow. I have grown plants using just coir and used it as a soil additive, I like it better as an additive, there seems to be a need for Mg and Ca when you use it alone. An easy problem to fix with many fertilizers but a problem nonetheless.
I have also written and grown with a coir-soil mixture, please click here to read that post next.
Good Growing,
Dr. E.R.Myers
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