Yates Hauraki Gold Peat

To anyone in NZ who's putting together an SFG bed currently: be aware that Yates Hauraki Gold bales may not contain the quantity of peat that they claim to.  I bought a 100 litre bale in recent weeks and was very confused on opening it to find that fluffing it was waaaay easier than I'd read about here and elsewhere.  I was able to take handfuls of it perfectly easily, and just crumble them up.  Any lumps were small and usually easy to break up.

Fast forward to this week, when I was coming to the bottom of the bale, still having not really had any problems getting it into a crumbled state, but only having 60 litres crumbled and about another 20 litres' worth in the bottom of the bag.  Despite the statement on the outside that it would decompress to twice the volume, this obviously was not going to happen.  My concern, naturally, was what I should do to ensure my MM had the right quantity of peat!  I decided I needed advice -- clearly I was doing something wrong.

So, I rang Yates.  They were incredibly helpful and I ended up visiting their Auckland warehouse the following day with the remainder of my bale and one of my buckets of crumbled peat.  It turns out that my bale was not actually compressed at all, and it seems there may be a bad batch in channels currently.

I was told that a bag of Hauraki Gold should automatically "puff up" as soon as the bag is opened and then we should be able to act as I have been, just taking handfuls and crumbling it up.

Did they give you a second bag? You really did your homework.

Oops, I got called away and then posted without re-reading!  Yes, they did