When composting goes bad, ORGANIC FARMIN goes out the window

Here you go.. an article on manure... when composting goes bad. Ever wonder why germination on some composted or manured gardens was bad.. its not what this article says its more!

Its not just herbicides that cause compost to be bad, its the stuff that also goes in the big commercial compost farms that wreaks too! These giant places take in yardwaste that has everything in it from soup to nuts, garbage and heavy metal and more.
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To view this article online: http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/news/stories/news5203.html

Grass hay and straw producer insight needed

Author: Jennifer Shike

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Personally unless you know who is making your compost you never know what goes into it.

And personally, if you are using your own animal manure, you need to ask your hay and straw producers as well because if that crappy stuff is in it, there goes your organic certifications.

Boy, is this another good reason why some places dont allow you to take your horses in a forest preserve.. and here we thought it was just because the manure had weed seed! The herbicide residual can kill whats growing there to...

So what are you doing about it?

Just in case I needed another reason not to use composted manure anymore. Man.

Wanna buy a horse?! Make your own, course, you need hay.. so if your making your own hay, then you'd pretty much be ok. Long as you read the label for the herbicides if you use any.

Some plants can take the impurities out of soil.

Ferns can take lead out for instance.. If you ever see old houses with ostrich ferns groing like crazy, chances are the house was at one time or still is painted in a lead based plant.

I just bought a few bags of "garden Soil" cause I needed to finish filling a raised bed.. I am just sick for mixing that with my soil/compost that I worked so hard on.

When we opened the bags, the "soil" was black and stunk like a landfill.. a few days later I find glass, plastic, wire, rocks, etc. like garbage went through a shredder! I am sick over it..

Thought I'd post a pic, just in case anyone ever thought of using any.

Geez. You should show that to the managers at the store where you bought it and send a pic to the company as well. I love how they are trying to greenwash it with "natural."

That's just awful, ZZs!

We used to use horse manure from our friends' farm, and aside from the weeds we were importing, it occurred to me that their horses are probably on a regular worming schedule. So now we stick with our own homegrown chicken and goose manure, composted with our own weeds or whatever. We use salt hay for mulch. We do spread woodchips on the garden paths and I have no idea where they come from originally, but I'm not really going for organic certification; I just want what we grow to be as clean as possible.

I agree with Paracelsus; I'd take a photo of it along with the bag and the lot number and send it to as many places as I could think of.

The manager of the store has nothing to do with the manufacturer of that crap you got in the bag... But thats what Im talking about. YEP.. bagged landfill waste... soil test it and I bectcha dollars to donuts its got witches brew in it.

Nothing but landpollution those big dumps are. Its the dang makers of that that pass it off as organic and its soooo wrong. They take in yardwaste and they DO put it through a shredder, but some of thise places literally take in garbage and there is no telling whats in those bags. household waste swill... nothing but a witches brew of household chemicals that go into it. Seen places and it is unbeleivable and would not use their crap for anything. They overrate themselves.

You are soo right too, you need to ask the horse owners about what they are putting in their horses. I would not think a little wormer would be a big detriment, but possibly those day to day feed throughs and rabon blocks would be. Those are chronic elements where a paste periodically would not do much harm I would not think... but then I am no rocket scientist on that and I do worm my horses. Weeds are a huge issue in using horse manure. But if the hay is certified and the hay is good then you should be only getting the grass but weeds do come in and no field is perfect. Weeding is a fact of life with organic gardening.

What gets sticky are the guys that compost their dead animals.. if the animals were euthanized.. then you got a big problem.

Nothing wrong with composted them if done right, but you cannot bury or compost a eutnahized horse or other animal. THAT IS WRONG. AND YOU CANNOT COMPOST THEM. They have to be rendered.

I always handle gardening without gloves, cant wear them, to bulky for me even in the thinest pair... scary the stuff in prefabricated soils though.

A while back I read an article about cemetaries and how the soil around a cemetary is polluted with heavy metal and stuff from the caskets and of course the corpses in some cemetaries caused land pollution by leaching... Ga-ross! But they said the lead from then caskets would leach into the soil and also the chemicals from the morgue process.

ICK!

As for some of the organic growers that are wanting to be certified, I would be amazed to learn how they get their certificates if they are using stuff like "green" in that bag.. Jeez! Lot number of the bags.. Lot number of the manufacturer and it traces back to the maker..

Many moons ago, I purchased some bags of Scott's perlite that contained some rocks. The store gave me my money back, no questiones asked. I would suggest taking them back.

I have tried MIracle gro brand with disasterous results... Somedays though I wonder if its not the combination of the water. Our well can run gritty sometimes and the calcium and lime, holy cows.

But Jeez to have all that debris in the bag? Thats terrible.

Its been known for years that persistant herbicides are in straw and manure. This is not anything knew. What the article fails to mention is that these herbicides are persistant in compost because the organisms that break it down are only present in the soil. These herbicides have a 6 month to 2 year half life in compost but only a 1-4 month half life in soil.

I would think too that depended on the weather conditions and the particular herbicide.

So the answer is to dump the nasty compost onto bare soil and let the microbes & the weather go to work?

Work it into the soil is best. Healthy, warm, moist and well aerated soil breaks it down the fastest. Working in contaminated compost a few weeks prior to planting eliminates most problems.

This message was edited Jun 27, 2010 11:55 AM

Depends to on what its tainted with.. heavy metals are not going away, but someplants like ferns get off on lead! Go figure! YOu can always tell an old house if it had lead paint, usually ostrich ferns thrive there! Just one example!

I mean herbicide contamination. They will breakdown.

Yes, never buy anything with the Earthgrow label! I found this out the hard way as I used to buy their manure...it says it is composted manure, but it smelled worse than you could imagine, oh never again. Even chicken manure is better than that. I was thinking they might have used dug out latrines or something along those lines....At least I did not put it in my veggie garden, but the bulbs were killed by it! Now that tells me something. I had a collection of expensive bulbs that came up, year after year...I was wondering why they did not come up this year, and instead huge grass and other weeds.....

I am behind this year, cleaning up all the beds, as we had cold weather and snow until late May! And then it was warm for two weeks, then hot! So I am trying to work in the shade to get things done...maybe by fall...LOL!! ☺

Right now I do not have time to devote to those areas, so they will just have to look unkempt until I can get to them, as I have been working on new veggie areas within our fenced garden...for "deerly" reasons...HO, HUM....

These are the weeds within the fenced area...

Your garden and mine are twins... Im so fed up with grass and weeds. Im gettign anymore we may as well convert back to pasture. What a waste.

Earth Gro is now sold at Wal mart. I just bought some.I thought maybe they had come up with their own brand and that was it.. I bought the humus manure bag. I did not think it stunk but it was full of big sticks and pieces of wood.I only used part of a bag will not use anymore.

I will not use miricale gro products. Never had luck with them for some reason.

We make our own unadulterated compost... pure horsemanure ammended with our sand and own green matter.. NO CHEMICALS, NO YARD WASTE NO COUCH SPRINGS OR BIO CRAP FROM GARBAGE SORTING OPERATIONS THAT DO NOT GET THE HAZARDOUS WASTES OUT.

Some places we know that process mega compost.. they take in GARBAGE from the cities and holy moly, the household waste that should not be in compost.. but for them, you name it its in it...

Makes me sick to know how commercial compost gets processed on a mega scale and if you want stink? Go visit one and see. Prepare yourself to wear a snorkle and bug spray. Nothing but septic swill as far as I am concerned.

I've been trying to research what chemicals go into growing cotton. My roses love cotton burr compost. The bags say "Certified Organic" but there isn't a mention of USDA. I'm not really getting very far with this at other sites. Do any of you know what goes into that bag of cotton burr compost besides the burrs? I suppose it they use something I would use on my roses anyway that would be OK, but I would just like to know......'ya know?

Non-organic cotton is supposed to be loaded with pesticides, which is why one is advised not to use cottonseed oil for cooking.

Yeah, I'm with greenhouse gal. Re the "certified organic," contact the company that produces the cotton burr compost and tell them you would like to see the certification. They should be able to mail you a copy. Be careful if they do mail you something. I have had the experience of asking for documents verifying organic certification from an herb supplier and receiving documents certifying that they STORE them in an organic manner (no synthetic fumigants), not that the herbs themselves were organic. Pretty tricksy.

Also, keep in mind that European organic certification is way more lax than USDA.

This is cotton country, so I can't image the composted cotton burr being imported from Europe. Good advice about calling them and I will check to see if there are any numbers to call on the bags. I don't use this in the veg garden. Just on the roses as they love it (it is a bit expensive and I do have other sources for free compost right here at home). I just would like to know what excatly this burr has come into contact with. Some of it might just be OK just for the roses. But I would just like to know.....

Call the manufacturer of the product then have them back it up in writing. Even that might not guaratee the "truth", but the truth is out there. Sometime sit takes a tour of a facility to leand the whole story. Who has time for that?

My personal opinion of EPA is an environment polluted area.

I know where every item that goes in my compost comes from and it's all certified organic but last year I didn't have enough of my own compost because I was adding new sections to the garden. I went to Earthwise organic (certified) compost operation. There were pressure treated timbers and railroad ties waiting to be ground up. I asked to see the different grades of compost and he took me around to the piles. Most of them felt "greasy" when I ran my hands thru the compost and all of them smelled weird. I didn't buy any but a friend did. He said he got weeds he'd never had before and most of his little seedlings died. He bought a dump truck load and spent about $700 for junk.
I wonder how he keeps his certification? He sells truckloads to organic farming operations, not little truck loads, but tractor trailer loads.

Certification is at the state level (some don't have any regulations) and vary greatly between each state. TX maybe more lax than WA or CA. (I believe WA has the most comprehensive certification program.)

You should look into it, though. They may not be following all the rules. Did your friend file a complaint?

Not sure if he filed a complaint with the state, I do know he complained to the owner of the company. TX is lax on some things, overly strict on others and getting good information is time consuming.
When I'm buying chemicals I know if they're approved by WA, they're definitely okay.

OMG! Pressure treated RR ties? Maybe someone should explain how that process works. RR ties have been known to be treated with creosote, or arsenic as are other treated lumbers.

Mega composters are famous for getting in unorganic materials and grinding it up and adding it to compost. Its nothing but a glorified garbage pile.

True good compost has a good earthy humus smell. It does not smell septic, nor is it greasy.

Even pure horse manure compost can go septic from improper handling. Some seeds in horsemanure will not kill in a compost pile until they actually germinate and then die through the stirring process. I beleive it is impossible to kill them all. Weeds however are organic. The pile has to heat, be stirred and added to to be done right.

We raise horses. When we get hay, we get it from a farmer that grows a particular kind and does not introduce "new" weeds to our farm. He uses certified seed for certain grasses and if there is any weed in it.. its minimal. We walk our pastures and try to keep any weeds in check. Mow mow amd mow. That alone keeps some weeds at a minimum. The mowing promotes new tender growth of the good grasses in the pasture and little weed. Mowing and timing of the mowing is everything. You cannot expect to contol weeds in your pastures by mowing them after they head out. If you do you only perpetuate your own weed problem.

I see lots of horseman that think oh the horses will graze it down, they do noit have to mow and nothing can be further form the truth and their pastures and the animals look like hell and undernurished.

We cannot stop windblown seeds and these government setaside grounds have gotten out of control with weeds and polluted neighboring farms with weeds that never were there and there is a problem when these guys set aside land, get paid for not farming it, but cause this issue to neighbors. But ist is your problem to take care of your own no matter what the program.