Watch Out for Killer Compost!

That is the title of a report by Cheryl Long and Barbara Pleasant in the new bookazine, Mother Earth News - Guide to Growing Your Own Food.

I just bought this gem a few days ago and I love it. It is filled with great articles about how to garden better. Many great topics like organic pest control, seed starting basics, preserving your harvest and container gardening are covered. I enjoyed them all but this one little half page article jumped out at me most of all.

It documents Dow chemical's marketing of the herbicide Aminopyralid as a control of perennial weeds in horse and cattle pastures. It also spells out how the U.S. EPA has approved it even after a previous Dow chemical herbicide, clopyralied (Confront) was found to be the contaminant in compost that killed garden and nursery plants in Washington, Pennsylvania and New Zealand.

The major problem with Aminopyralied is that Dow's own research showed that Aminopyralid is expected to remain in manure for over a year! Many times there is enough herbicide residue even in the composted manure to kill tomatoes and other vegetable crops. This is a real concern for organic gardeners like me who rely heavily on compost and often acquire manure from elsewhere.

Dow's Aminopyralid was associated with the loss of thousands of home gardens in Great Britain last year! If you are always searching for compost ingredients like me, be careful where you get your manure. The Authors of this piece warn us to ask questions about safety before buying manure or compost that contains manure.

They end the article with these words about this problem: "Alert your friends and local composting facilities - gardeners work too hard to lose their food to corporate greed and government loopholes." I agree! That is why I am doing what they advise by telling all of you - my gardening friends.

Pick up a copy of Mother Earth News - Guide to Growing Your Own Food for more details. The article I'm referencing will make you angry, but the rest of the bookazine will cause you to get excited for the promise of the new season ahead. Just watch out for killer compost!

Thanks Cheryl and Barbara for this warning.

Organic Gardening and Great Big Plants!

My garden is an organic garden. I don't use any kind of chemical fertilizer or pesticides. I don't consider myself an environmentalist though and I don't try to make other gardeners feel guilty if they use chemicals. I simply think my flowers and especially my vegetables are far better by not using chemicals.

So what do I use for fertilizer? Lots of compost. I believe in feeding the soil instead of feeding the plants. A properly fed soil WILL feed the plants. I do have a bit of a problem however. I have expanded my vegetable, fruit and decoration gardens quite a bit this year and I don't have a sufficient amount of compost right now. Time for some 10-10-10 right? No way!

I am going to turn to a new product to help me out. It is an organic liquid compost enriched concentrate called Great Big Plants.

I have never tried it before but it sounds very promising. The company that makes it calls it "The Energy Drink for Plants". Here is a little of what they have to say about their Great Big Plants:

What's The Big Deal?
Great Big Plants is a concentrated organic liquid compost mixture that invigorates soil, producing maximum plant growth with minimum effort. The Big deal is bigger, brighter blooms; deeper, more emerald greens and plump, tastier fruits and vegetables.

I hope all of that is true. You can find much more information about the product at greatbigplants.com. In addition to using this liquid compost on my garden in general, just for fun I plan to grow a side-by-side comparison. I will use Great Big Plants on one side of a bed and not on the other. I will document and photograph the difference, and share the results in a future post.

I can't wait to get those early tomatoes that are in the picture's background planted outside. I will give them a boost with Great Big Plants so I can brag about them and many other plants on future Green Thumb Sunday posts. Happy Green Thumb Sunday! Be sure to visit other Green Thumb Sunday participants!

You can join too!