question about peat washing

[Ras]

will someone explain the bold part

7.Now fill the pail with the ringed-out peat up to the 1/2 or 3/4 mark (depending on how much you recovered) with rainwater, distilled or RO water. . To speed things up, you will rinse twice more (or 3 times to be extra safe) with rainwater or purified water.
8.Repeat the ringing process. Your hands and arms may start to ache after a while. it's good exercise .
source: http://www.growsundews.com/rinsing_peat_and_sand_for_carnivorous_plants.html

for the life of me I cannot figure this out.
so I fill the bucket with the wet peat soaked in tap water, then add the distilled water, wring out the peat then I do what? refill the bucket with distilled and do it over three times or is he saying to take the peat out of the distilled water, wring it, put it back(into the same water) and wring it again?

 

[CorneliusSchrute]

I have heard of this advice many times and have never adhered to it. Either I am exceptionally lucky in my choice of WalMart peat moss or it is unnecessary. Dionaea, Sarracenia, Drosera, Cephalotus, Darlingtonia.... none have been affected by unwashed peat. I do not wash perlite either.

I have washed sand before. That in itself was to much hassle for me; I switched back to using perlite.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

 

[Keith]

I have gotten bails of some yucky peat that needed some rinsing to be CP friendly. If you have a TDS meter you can measure how clean your rinse water is for an idea of peat quality. Not very specific, but gives you an idea anyway. I like to check trays and runoff from pots with the meter too. I get surprisingly different results from different peat sources.

 

[CorneliusSchrute]

Interesting, Shortbus. I have a TDS meter -- a CPers Must have IMO -- and I have never seen a number higher than 80 PPM or so in the water trays. After a rain storm or two the number drops quite low, 18ish. I attribute the higher preliminary number to just peat dust and the like.

I could totally see various sources having differing PPM, though.

 

[pappydew]

I used to wash peat, sand, etc...but laziness has gotten the best of me and I no longer do it immediately. I don't see very high TDS when I flush my current batch so I guess I may have lucked out now and in the recent past.

 

[Monkey]

I wash and sterilize my peat for germinating seed. I used to have some pretty bad problems with algae/moss/whathaveyou choking out my seedlings. Washing and sterilizing media in small batches has made that problem disappear.

 

[fredg]

.........To speed things up, you will rinse twice more (or 3 times to be extra safe) with rainwater or purified water.
8.Repeat the ringing process.

You wring out the peat and put it in some other container, when you've wrung out all the peat return the peat to the bucket and repeat the whole process 2 or 3 times more ie

1. Peat in bucket add RO/rain/distilled water, squeeze out and save the peat in separate container, when you've squeezed the water out of all the peat
2. Peat in bucket add RO/rain/distilled water, squeeze out and save the peat in separate container, when you've squeezed the water out of all the peat
3. Peat in bucket add RO/rain/distilled water, squeeze out and save the peat in separate container, when you've squeezed the water out of all the peat
4( optional) Peat in bucket add RO/rain/distilled water, squeeze out and save the peat in separate container, when you've squeezed the water out of all the peat.
5 Audition for a part as Popeye.

 

[Millipede]

I rinse my peat mainly for sowing seeds so the moss doesnt outcompete them. Ive found that leaving the peat soaking for a while (like a month or so..) then rinsing it has better results than just rinse/repeat method