Safe government Compost

Our local government sells a compost they make from collected residential yard waste. I have wondered how the residue of homeowner applied pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers in the collected yard waste will impact my soil. Do the residues "age" out of properly made compost? What about the breakdown products of the chemicals? Are there any? Guess I will call the company that does the composting, and ask, but given my high level of trust in our government services..... thought I would ask here.

Unless your town has a ban on lawn chemicals - use with caution. Ask the compost company how long they compost it before they make it available to the public. I read somewhere that if the compost is 18 months to 2 years old, the lawn chemicals will have broken down. Not sure I believe it though. Our municipal compost is turned around in a matter of months. It looks great, smells great and maims or kills just about every broadleaf plant it comes in contact with. We started a new community garden this year. The garden administrators were telling everyone to use the free city compost. You can tell who used it - yellow, stunted or dead plants.

If you're trying to garden organically I wouldn't use it--chemical residues are still going to be present, the composting process may break down some chemicals (possibly into something different that you still don't want in your garden!) but there are many that won't get broken down probably for at least several years so I would not definitely not consider using it for an organic garden, and if garden_mermaid's experience is typical, it probably shouldn't be used on any garden at all!

Not only is there the question of chemical residues, but lawns next to busy streets collect the heavy metals from vehicle exhaust.....cadmium, nickel, zinc, etc. It is estimated that the exhausts will leave deposits as far in as 25 feet from the curb. Our street is not heavily traveled, but my yardman just uses a mulching mower on my lawn. I grow grass because the HOA requires it, but it is not very practical from my point of view.

Editing to include an Dartmouth artcle:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~rpsmith/Heavy_Metals.htmlhttp://www.dartmouth.edu/~rpsmith/Heavy_Metals.html
This message was edited Aug 21, 2006 8:19 AM

This message was edited Aug 21, 2006 8:58 AM

Yuska, your link to the Dartmouth article isn't working correctly. It brings us to a Dartmouth home page ("looking for something at Dartmouth?") Is there a name of a particular article that one should search on?

I used to get the county's "collected residential yard waste" compost but gave up on it mainly due to the amount of weeds that came in with it. This told me that (at that time) it wasn't really heated up to very high temps (thereby killing weed seeds) plus it was a bit to raw. Note: the symptoms that Gardenmermaid described above (yellow, stunted or dead plants) would also be indicative of unfinished compost but not necessarily compost that is permeated with herbicides/pesticides, etc. The unfinished compost would still be in the decaying mode and "stealing" nutrition from surrounding soils as it breaks down.

However, the point that she(he?) makes is very valid....if your plants are suffering after applying it then "sumpin' ain't right here"! :>)

It's a great idea that if you get the city/county "commercial" compost to let it sit and observe it first hand. If you witness life in it (bugs/worms/etc) that is an excellent sign that it is fine to use. According to Rodale Institute (many years ago when I followed these topics much much closer) Life in the compost pile tends to tell us that it is a good sign.(After all, if you see NO bug life that might be a sign that something is in there that is detrimental to Life. Too scary for all of us, eh?)

ecrane, I'm like you, I'm cautious of using something like County compost in a food garden. Would rather "grow my own"!

I'm very fortunate that when the local tree trimmers are in the neighborhood they dump their shredded trimmings off here. I love it! I just let it sit there until I decide to either use it for above-ground mulch or let it break down further and use it as compost ingredients (or as is).

Shoe.

Shoe, even when mixed with blood meal, chicken manure, guano or other high nitrogen materials, our city compost will kill off a broad leaf plant. It does well with grasses and pines, which are monocotyledons. This is what makes me think the lawn chemicals are in there. Another reason I'm suspicous is that my husband took the "Master Composter" course offered by the county. The goal of this course is to minimize the amount of yard waste the city needs to handle, not to produce quality compost. They were directing the class members to compost things laden with chemicals like treated lumber (heavy on the arsenic). We've used organic gardening techniques for decades. The 'master composter' course had us running for the hills.

What a terrible composter program that was, eh? I hope someone finally spoke up about the negative aspects of composting treated lumber, etc.

Fortunately here in my area there are separate bins at the dump sites for treated lumber, non-treated, tree trimmings, metal products, furniture, etc and the dump operators have eyes like a hawk and really watch where people put things!

Shoe, my DH did speak up but the county program coordinators did not care. They openly ridiculed organic gardening and vegetable gardens. The mission was clearly and only to reduce the amount of yard waste the county needed to process.

DH wanted to quit the "free" program and then discovered that the program is only free if you complete the course. If you quite before finishing, the county hits you for $300.

I know the feeling of being ridiculed because of being an 'organic grower'. When I first started this farm in '85 I was the only organic person for miles/counties around. Local farmers had a great time talking about me! Over time things have changed though and many of them have become not only good friends but have enjoyed learning "my ways".

I can only hope your county ag folks will also allow more open-mindedness and learn to incorporate more environmentally safe methods. I'm sure some of them will but perhaps they'll need a boost and some backing up, eh?

Sure sounds like a mighty expensive course (if you quit). What a rip-off!

Hey, hmmm...maybe you and hubby and offer your own course one day, eh!!?

Shoe.

Hubby and I offer informal "courses" anytime our garden neighbors request assistance. We just need to keep a lookout to be sure the Master Gardener's aren't around when we help the neighbors out. The MG's would give classes in the community garden and walk folks around to our garden bed pointing out all our "errors" and proclaiming that our garden would fail. Well, we have the lushest, most productive garden in the community garden. I'm harvesting a mix of vegetables several times a week. Our 50 sq ft of growing area is providing half our meals now. My husband and I are both vegetarian. We eat a lot of vegetables. The proof is in the pudding. The MG demonstration beds and the personal plots of the MGs have sick, infested or dying plants. I don't think our local MGs know how to garden without chemicals.

We're shopping up and down the west coast looking for a small farm or ~5 acre parcel that we can afford. Once we find it, we'll go back to farming.

I'm sure you're familiar with the Rural Property Bulletin, or www.landandfarm.com, then. There are sometimes wonderful prices, and organic farms for sale are so noted.

Thanks Zeppy! I didn't know the rural bulletin was still around. We'll check it out.

I would check out listings in Shasta and Lassen counties--it seems much more affordable there than many other places in CA. I'm thinking of buying a few acres up there at some point to build myself a little cabin in the middle of nowhere. I'm not sure how the area is for farming, but I do run across farms for sale when I'm looking at the listings so there must be some things at least that you can grow up there (I just use realtor.com for my searches).

Bottom line... if they use "safe" and "government" in the same sentence... be suspicious.

(Hey, just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get me.)