Food for thought

Composting is a subject near and dear to me. I don't have a compost bin because my yard is sooo small and shady but I make a habit of burying some of our vege scraps under the mulch and I use our grass clippings as mulch around some of my plants. We try to be as organic as possible in the garden with very, very limited use of pesticides and herbicides and organic fertilizers where necessary.
Our city periodically gives away compost which has been produced at the local dump from yard clippings and I've always made sure to get some. I use it in the planting holes and as a mulch. It always looks nice and black and crumbly. Sometimes it's still cooking and is a little whiffy, but hey! it's still compost, it's free and it's not going in the landfill. Initially I would just throw it on the garden, but now I let it sit for a while until it no longer smells. A fellow gardener roundly criticised the city compost because of all the "unknowns" that go into it which made me rethink using it and then this article turned up in the San Francisco Chronicle the other day.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/05/HOGD3PJOUT1.DTL&hw=compost&sn=001&sc=1000

I'm now hesitant to use any city compost in my garden, especially the vege garden, and yet I need more than I can produce. I have purchased compost from the local garden centre but that would appear to be questionable as well, not to mention horrendously expensive. What to do, what to do?

This message was edited May 10, 2007 10:06 AM

can you, or your local newspaper, try to find out what they use in the compost you've been getting?
Our area collects yard waste , so I 'assume' its fairly clean, at least for metals, but probably has yard chems in it.

anything harmful that may be in the compost would be so diluted, it wouldn't be a problem.and the city would surely notice, say, 30% lead or pharacuticals or whatever.
and where does the heavy metals come from? the ground of course. trees and forbs do grow on and around lead mines.pharmacuticals? doesn't digitalis come from fox gloves?
pesticides? wow, don't we usually pay more for that!
it sounds more like a good story than any thing else. purely sensationalistic I would say.
hazardous mat'ls, biohazards etc. are highly regulated by local, state and the federal governments, and the penalties are severe enough that it isn't worth anyone or any company to purposefully violate. I would be more worried about what my neighbor dumps either wittingly or unwittingly into the ground, air water or sewers! now that would be an interesting story.

wgnkiwi, we stopped using the free municipal compost. It killed our shrubs twice and we don't want to risk getting another bad batch for our vegetable garden. Some of our garden neighbors do use it, but we won't take it anymore. I think part of the problem is that the municipal compost isn't aged long enough for the lawn chemicals to break down.

You may want check with the local stables and wineries. They often have composted horse manure available if you are willing to pick it up. Another option is to grow a green manure, or cover crop to build up your soil.

There is probably an element of sensationalism to the story but it does bear thinking about, particularly when some of the compost is turned around so quickly. I will call our city and try to discover what their process is.

The first time we used the city compost we noticed a lot of yellowing and stunting around the base of our shrubs and we figured that it hadn't finished breaking down properly, which is another reason we let it sit for a while.

garden_mermaid - thanks for the info on the stables. Will a cover crop grow in shade?

if somebody finds my car keys in their county mulch let me know.......

I have a friend who just moved from Millersville, Md...I'll ask her...

This message was edited May 11, 2007 2:46 PM

LOL

Thanks for the very interesting article. I do not know exactly where my feeling stand on such issues. I do have a higher standard for organic matter that I add to my veggie garden (well when I had a veggie garden). I am also getting more and more hesitant to swipe grass clipping from curb-side because of the potential herbicides and pesticides.

- Brent

wow, Gymgirl, small world...

And shrinking fast!