My Garden’s Been Poisoned!

No joke, my garden has been poisoned. And as far as I can tell, I have Dow Chemical to ultimately blame.

I live in Florida and our ground is just sand. I have to amend and create my own garden soil. So I compost, add fish emollient, and pick up loads of horse manure from a local farm.

A couple of months ago, my neighbors and I got a load of manure from the horse farm to use in our spring beds. We have been doing this for years with great success. We pick up a trailer load of partially composted horse manure, bring it home, finish composting it, and then use it as the soil in our garden beds. Well, the manure has been composted, and we began filling our beds with it.

I used the new compost in a bed that currently is half full of greens. I spread the compost in the empty half of the bed and direct sowed Wando Peas, broccoli, and carrots. The peas came up first and looked a little weak, but it’s been cold and dry, so I chalked it up to that. The broccoli came up and looked good. The carrots never even sprouted. As the peas grew, it became obvious that something more than dry weather was the problem.

At that same time, my Feb/March issue of Mother Earth News arrived. In it was an article called, “Killer Compost Update: Herbicide Damage Still a Major Problem.” The picture that was displayed with the article caught my attention because it looked just like my peas.

The article explains that two Dow AgroSciences herbicides (picloram and clopyralid) are being found in composts and animal feeds. My heart sank. I had the terrible suspicion that my new compost was contaminated.

I called my neighbor to see if she had used the new compost yet, and if so, what her results were. She walked me over to her bed of English Peas. They were all dead or burned and wilted. We had become the victims of Killer Compost.

The horse farm does not use herbicides themselves, so they were introduced either through the hay or through the Purina horse feed. Either way, our ton of compost is toxic and we have no way of knowing if any alternative sources of manure will be herbicide-free. If the herbicide was introduced through the Purina feed (as Mother Earth explains is a very good possibility) we will have to find an organic farm that feeds only organic grains, grasses, and hays.

There is no remediation for picloram or clopyralid once it has been introduced. It will remain active in the soil for years. My neighbor and I have to dig up our beds and remove all of the toxic compost. What we do with it then is up for debate. It survives digestion and hot composting, so there doesn’t’ seem to be any way to break it down. We will either spread it on walkways or burn it.

Mother Earth is calling for these persistent herbicides to be outlawed entirely before it becomes impossible to grow organically. Please join their fight with me. Write to Richard Keigwin, director of the EPA’s Special Review and Reregistration Division at keigwin.richard@epa.gov to let him know about your concerns.

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Time to start seeds?

I took up gardening on a small scale last year. I had many failures, but I also learned a lot from the experience. One of the things I decided to do differently this year is to start the seeds sooner. Here, in Florida, we have a very long growing season, and I missed out on growing some of the cooler-weather vegetable varieties because I didn't start the seeds soon enough. Not so in 2012, I vowed.

So despite the temperature dropping at a steeper rate than it has all season, I decided to get a jump on a few of the cool-seasons veggies. Last year I used the Burpee seed-starting trays to start the seeds. The trays worked very well, but I found that it became difficult to find the trays after the first month of Spring. Instead of being dependent on Burpee this year, I purchased a paper seed pot making tool.

http://www.reuseit.com/store/doityourself-plant-potmaker-from-newspaper-p-3092.html

Yesterday afternoon, as the cold, windy weather was starting to blow in, I made 18 paper pots out of some newsprint junk mail. Not only is the pot-maker made of wood, and therefore completely recyclable, but it also helps the home gardener recycle some of the paper in her home. It's a win-win! I have also read that these paper pots are better for the growth of the seedling, since it doesn't restrict the roots the way the seed starter mesh soil pods can do.

The act of planting seeds on the coldest day of the year seems like an act of extreme hope. It's hard to believe that those tiny, dry seeds will open and grow into plants that can feed us all season. Therefore, I think it's a perfect way to bless the new year.

My Seed Pots

I sowed seeds for leeks, Nero di Toscana cabbage, Coer De Boeuf Des Vertus cabbage, Black Giant Tomatoes, Rapini Broccoli, and Natal Plums. The Natal Plums are a total experiment. I discovered this plant on an urban foraging class of Green Deane's (www.eattheweeds.com). It is a thorny bush type of plant that produces wonderfully scented white blossoms and delicious, sweet/tart flavored, fig-sized "plums" all year long. I picked a dried fruit off of the plant during the class and brought it home with me to harvest the seeds. My fingers are crossed that I can get a couple of these going in my yard. Visions of Natal Plum preserves and dried plums have captured my imagination.

Natal Plum

Everything except the tomatoes and Natal plums are cold-tolerant, so I'm hoping to have them producing before the afternoons get warm. The tomatoes I will keep indoors for as long as possible. I just want to get a few of them started early so that I can get the most out of them all spring and summer long.

If anyone from the South has any advice or recommendations for a newbie just starting to garden in Florida, I would welcome it in the comments of this blog. I scour the internet for helpful tidbits, but most gardening advice doesn't pertain to the extreme South. Thanks for the help, and I'll post an update soon.