5 organic essential tools...

http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf001313.tip.html

great & simple, short reading. good info.

tamarafaye

Thanks for that but I'm a bit concerned about the Milk section so I thought I'd add the following.

Milk is a strong pollutant of water and there is no mention of this in that section, nor is it mentioned that it's effect against Mildew is reduced to the point of causing other fungal problems when reaching 3 parts milk to 10 parts water.

Baa, what in the milk makes it a contaminant? Is it "treated" milk from medicated cows that's the problem, or just the chemical makeup and decomposition process of all milk? thanks.

It's the bacteria that aids the decomposition of milk that causes the main problems in waterways. As the milk degrades the bacteria uses up a huge amount of oxygen, 1 litre of decomposing milk will use up all the oxygen in as much as 10,000 litres of water. Milk can also enable greater growths of fungus and algae too and generally cause problems with the water course ecology.

We just recently had an incident in the local river, a local business tipped all their out of date milk into the drains which come straight out into the river just a few hundred yards from here. The Environment Agency (government group) was straight down testing the water and I suspect the company will face rather large fines (I know they do that for farmers who let even minute amounts escape into the water courses). Even though it's a tidal river (we're near the Solent which has a unique double tide) it took several days for the 'bloom' and smell to disappear.

oh, thanks Baa!

Good link, TamaraFaye.

Baa, good to know about the potential problem of milk solution. I'll be sure to dilute it to the right strength and use sparingly.

I'm learning so much at DG. Thank you, thank you.

Thank you for the link! I just took a graduate-level class on pesticides. I was never inclined to use pesticides in my lawn/garden even before, but that class was sure an eye-opener. It's amazing how little testing has been done on the chemcials that were disigned as poisons to be distributed into the environment!! Even as more concerns are surfacing, testing still is not being done and products are still on store shelves. Thanks for spreading the word and sharing alternatives to pesticide use.

if you want to reduce the use of pesticides in the world, consider using only organically grown seeds...

good reading!

Tamara--I've been using the newspaper bit for quite a while. You know how determined these Texas weeds can be!

I had hip replacement surgery in Dec 2004 and it took longer than expected to recover (probably because--although I am 48--that's considered rather young for total hip replacement). Of course I pushed the issue alot and ended up pulling muscles right and left.

Last Oct when it cooled down to a moderate boil temp wise down here, I started making a concerted effort to reclaim my garden. One hint I would say is make sure the newspaper is soaking wet before you apply it (at least down here in TX). Now I stole every bag of grass clippings, pine needles, and leaves I could find (I was always into over heavy mulch anyway--have always used this method prior to newspapers) and put on top. I have ecellent soil in the places I've used the heavy mulch for the last 3-10 yrs. I swear by the heavy mulch in TX. I'll sometimes put a very thin layer of bagged hardwood mulch to hold a layer of leaves in place (if we had grass clippings this time of year for top layer that would not be necessary).

Now I've got my 17 year old daughter out "leaf bag thieving" for me. She's gotta pay for that gas in her car some way, huh? lol

I just sheet compost now--have given up on piles--they always turn into giant brush pile for me.

Debbie

lol, yes i won't do a compost stack either, tough i do have this big "hole" in the ground ;-)