Home Composters and Herbicide Carryover

This article out of N. Carolina addresses the issue of herbicide carryover, an important topic for all home composters in my humble opinion. For most of us I think this article will expand our knowledge of herbicide carryover. Hope you learn something I sure did...
Also see page 3 - How to Test for the Presence of Herbicides.

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/fletcher/programs/ncorganic/special-pubs/herbicide_carryover.pdf

Thanks for the link. A few decades ago I make a huge mistake buy dumping my grass clipping on my garden in the late fall. Seemed like a good idea but the grass was chemically treated and the following years I found my plants suffered.

Learn the hard way sometimes.

Yeah that stinks. I have three pallet bins cooking and wish I knew more about some of the contents..... well at least we keep learning and going in the right direction.

llama momma wrote:Yeah that stinks. I have three pallet bins cooking and wish I knew more about some of the contents..... well at least we keep learning and going in the right direction.

Since you compost my question is, as I will build mine next weekend, will a 3x3x3 bin produce enough compost for two 4x8 gardens?

I'm no expert, but your contents generally break down to about 1/2 of the original pile. I would be more comfortable with a second bin or more if I were you. You are going to become the expert on your own compost pile because the differences of the contents. In addition, if you are a one season or 3 or 4 season gardener, replenishing all the squares after each harvest will make a difference in how much compost will be used up. I'm curious to what others have to say about this too.

That is a very good bit of info. I have just purchased a load of compost, think I'll plant some bean seeds in it, before I use in the garden. Jo

There were issues a few years ago with people buying "killer mulch" that had these same issues. They would spread it around their ornamental shrubs and trees (think rhododendrons, azaleas, Japanese maples) and within a couple of months, the plants would be dead or dying.

The main thing that goes into our compost heap here are what comes from our land, since that is really the only place I have control over. The manure we've used in that pile is from people that also do not use pesticides or herbicides on their pastures or feed their animals as organically as possible. I know there is always a bit of risk involved, but hopefully this minimizes it. What we DON'T do is get compost from the county facility, as we have NO idea just what is in it.

I have found at least two composts made by the same company here that are labeled as organic (one vegetarian/vegan and the other with animal manure in it), but again... there is always a level of risk.

I like the idea of doing the field assay test, and might include that in our preparations when buying bagged compost.

Thank you for the link... lots of interesting (and disturbing) information there.

curio wrote:I like the idea of doing the field assay test, and might include that in our preparations when buying bagged compost.

Thank you for the link... lots of interesting (and disturbing) information there.

I know and I'm sorry about it too. It seemed too important to keep the information to myself. We grow hay and we buy some hay and straw, now I'll be asking the farmers some questions...

Gotta love the chemical companies.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/killer-compost-zmgz11zrog.aspx

Seems like the problem of diminishing bees and frogs is finally being figgered out. We are slowing poisoning ourselves. And even when you try to avoid the chemicals yourself, they show up further down the food chain.

Kay