"Organic" fertilizers

Posted on 24 Mar, 2008 2 comments

It’s the old Buyer Beware caveat…In trying to be good stewards of our earth we may fall into a trap of good intentions with regard to what we use in our gardens for compost, mulch or fertilizer. If it says its organic waste you should give further consideration. By-products…or waste materials are often used to produce agricultural crops…the material may well be organic but contain by products of some processes or uses that you would not at first recognize as questionable or unhealthy,.. For instances: Leather meal or tannery byproducts, cottonseed meal; mushroom compost, pulp residue, and sewage sludge. Each of these ‘organic’ materials are subject to processes…the tannery byproducts contain chromium and about ten percent nitrogen…if you’re growing carrots or potatoes you should give that one a bye..in fact…any foodstuff should not be grown in leathermeal compost. Cotton is subject to a lot of spraying in the field…Feed grade cottonseed meal should be safe because it is monitored, so some care is needed here. Mushroom compost should be fully composted in your own bins before using it as there are pesticides used on mushrooms that may find its way into the compost. Do you even want to THINK about sewage sludge??...I know I don’t. And Pulp and paper residue…dioxins!... I live in a town whose primary industrial employer was a paper company, they used to sell and destribute to their employees an ‘organic’ soil amendment fertilizer!
So gardeners be careful… read that label…and do some research before you accept any “organic” soil amendments as safe.
Healthy gardening all!

Comments

Grenville

24 Mar, 2008

Thanks Lori for this very helpful and informative Blog.
Local authority Councils are also offering compost for sale. Often this has been made from food and bio-degradable waste from their regular household collections. The points to remember are that often the compost has been made extremely quickly, and buyers are not aware of what it contains.
Although we have a small garden, we are seriously considering setting up our own 'wormery' so that we can make our own compost and we will know exactly what the raw ingredients are.

Lori

24 Mar, 2008

Hello Grenville, Thanks for your positive response... keeping abreast of new varieties of vegs and ornamentals is almost impossible these days...things change so fast...as do some practices and in a time when everyone is suddenly aware of the risks involved in eating it's enough to make you want to run and hide! lol.
But your willingness to do it yourself is a very good thing. We have gotten so far from the old ways and practices that very few of us remember them so that we can pass them along. It is so much easier just to abdicate the choice to some 'higher authority" who passes down the information to their "customers". I suppose I sound like a Henny Penny. but just getting the word out can go a long way to changing things if enough people agree to look out for their own interests, and if they see something they don't like, have the courage to go public. Seems there are statistics and studies to prove anything these days. Helps to cultivate some good old common sense.

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"Organic" fertilizers

"Organic" fertilizers

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