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Peat Mounds (Photograph by Kelly)
Walking across the hebridean moors in spring you are likely to stumble upon the mounds shown above. The mounds are made from the slices of peat that were cut from the peat bog a few weeks previous and allowed to dry naturally. The drying of peat is a slow process and immediately following the cut it is rather difficult to handle. Therefore the peat is placed flat on the gound where the sun and wind begin to remove the moisture.
When the peat is sufficiently dry to handle it is gathered up and placed into mounds with as much space between each slice that is possible. This allows the wind to pass through easily thus drying the peat still further. The simple shape created affords the peat a surprisingly good level of protection from the rain.
Winthin a couple of weeks of good, warm and windy, weather will see the "peats" dry through. My first attempt at cutting peat brought varying levels of success. Some of my peat were perfect for the garden as they were still rather wet due to the high content of moss. Some of the really black peat just crumbled to nothing in my hands whereas, luckily, the vast majority of peats dried into solid blocks which were perfect for the fire.
Back to : - Peat Cutting - Hebridean Fuel
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