Are bee-killing pesticides hiding in your garden?

"Bee-friendly" plants may carry hidden dangers. Photo: Andrea_44

by Lynne Walter, Associate Director

I love gardens because they give us a chance to grow beautiful flowers, plants, fruits, and vegetables. Besides providing a relaxing oasis for me, the gardens I love also provide a haven for butterflies and bees.

Unfortunately, new research shows that bee-killing pesticides may be lurking in our gardens - without our knowledge!

Toxic Free NC participated in a recent study of garden plants marked as "bee-attractive" that are sold at top retailers.  We purchased several "bee-attractive" plants from Lowe's and Home Depot stores in Raleigh, NC, to be tested. Colleagues in 17 other cities across the U.S. and Canada did the same.

The report, Gardeners Beware 2014 from our colleagues at Friends of the Earth, shows there is a good chance bee-killing pesticides are lurking in our gardens and backyards.  The report reveals that more than half of the garden plants we tested contain neonic pesticides. Neonics are highly toxic to bees - they can kill bees outright, and also make them more vulnerable to diseases and other stressors.

And these "bee-attractive" plants carry no warning labels for us, the consumers.

So, what can we do?

• Sign the Petition: Ask garden retailers to stop selling neonicotinoid-treated plants and products that contain neonicotinoids.  

• Raise Your Voice Locally:  Let your local nursery know you will only purchase neonic-free plants and ask the nursery to communicate your request to their corporate headquarters and supplies who grow the plants they sell.  You can find a sample letter here for U.S. companies.  
• Grow Bee-Safe: Avoid buying neonicotinoid-treated seeds and seedlings.  Purchase organic plant starts or grow your own plants from untreated seeds in organic potting soil for your home vegetable and flowers gardens.
• Practice Bee-Safe Pest Control: Avoid using bee-toxic pesticides in your garden and use alternative methods of pest control, such as providing a habitat for beneficial insects that prey on garden pests.  You can find more information at Toxic Free NC's Organic Gardening resource pages.
• Don't Buy Products that Contain Neonicotinoids: Read the label and avoid using off-the-shelf neonicotinoid pesticides in your garden.  Look for active ingredients like acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, and dinotefuran.  You can see the appendix at the end of Gardeners Beware 2014 for a list of common products that contain neonicotinoids.
• Do a Clean Sweep: Check if you have neonic pesticide products at home, and dispose of them as municipal hazardous waste or take them back to the store where you bought them.

Thank you for taking action to help protect these critical pollinators, and please spread the word!

Bees, bees everywhere!

by Lynne Walter, Associate Director

It was an early morning in May, and I found myself traveling through the mountains of western North Carolina.  I drove further and further northwest in Madison County, passing through Mars Hill and beyond.  Finally, I arrived.  And there they were: Bees.  Lots and lots of bees.  Behind the electric fence, their hives stretched across a cool, green mountain field, and their low, resonant droning could be heard over the bubbling of the creek and the twittering birdsong.

Jon Christie and assistant, of Wild Mountain Bees, with their bees.

You may be asking yourself, is this the picturesque beginning to the new fictional novel I am writing?  Nope.  Just another day at Toxic Free NC, helping protect pollinators and supporting community gardens!

Back in October 2013, we held our annual Beehive Giveaway, and the winner was Briggs Avenue Community Garden!  But, the bees they won weren't going to be ready until the spring.  The nucleus colony of bees came from the fantastic people at Wild Mountain Bees, whose shop is in Asheville and whose apiary is in northwest North Carolina.

But wait, you may be saying, Toxic Free NC is in Raleigh and Briggs Avenue Community Garden is in Durham.  How did the bees get from one end of the state to the other?

*Enter brave and intrepid Toxic Free staff member*

I was already going to be in western NC, and after many coordinating phone calls and emails by my coworker Ileana, everything was set for the Great Bee Transport of 2014!

Everyone buckled in?  The bees in their transport box.

This involved driving into far northwestern North Carolina to get the bees; running the AC on full blast the entire drive to Durham so the bees wouldn't overheat, get angry, and die; wearing a hoodie sweatshirt as I drove; wearing the hood of the hoodie sweatshirt up on my head as I drove; getting weird looks from the other drivers for wearing my hood up; saying nice and soothing things to the bees during the trip; and turning off the raging AC every now and then to listen for angry buzzing.  Which, luckily, I never heard once.

You know, just buzzing out by the ventilation opening.

And you may be wondering, why would Toxic Free NC embark on this wild road trip adventure?  The answer is: because we care.

We care about protecting our pollinators.  We care about supporting local community gardens.  We care about helping ensure that everyone has access to healthy, pesticide-free food.  And, most of all, we care about keeping all North Carolinians safe from exposures to toxic chemicals and pesticides!

And sometimes that means you drive 4 hours down the highway with 25,000 buzzing passengers in your backseat.

The Bees at their new home!

See what the buzz about Toxic Free NC is all about!

Toxic Free NC's "Save a Bee Campaign" is made possible with support from The Burt's Bees Greater Good Foundation.  Want to bee a supporter, too?  Find out how you can help us keep the buzz going for protecting pollinators and organic gardening: http://bit.ly/tfncbuzz

Join us for a Twitter chat on Organic Gardening

by Fawn Pattison, Senior Advocate

I hope you can join us for our first-ever Twitter chat - it's all about Organic Gardening!

We are so excited to be teaming up with our friends at MomsRising for an evening chat all about our favorite activity. Best of all, the featured guest will be Tom Philpott, writer, farmer and food & ag correspondent at Mother Jones magazine. Tom is the cofounder of Maverick Farms, a center for sustainable food education in Valle Crucis, North Carolina.

When: Tuesday April 29
Time: 9 PM EST
Where: On Twitter! Use the hashtag #EcoTipTue to follow the conversation

Whether you're just getting started with gardening, or you're a master gardener, please join us! We'll be talking about:

• tips for getting started with an organic garden
• how to fight pests naturally
• how to make sure your soil and beds are safe
• how to make and use compost in the garden
• ways to get kids involved in your garden

And of course we'll be taking your questions and ogling each other's garden pictures. I hope you can join us. Leave a comment to let us know you're coming!

Let’s make Seed Bombs: A fun-filled flower planting activity for all ages

by Lynne Walter, Associate Director

Spring has officially arrived!  And there is no better time than now to get outside with your friends and family to do some gardening and planting.  A simple and easy activity you can do together is to make and plant seed bombs!  This is also a great take-home activity for kids ages 3 and up--ready-made for classrooms, birthday parties, and festivals.

Photo by NCDOT via flckr

Seed bombs are made of clay, organic compost, and flower seeds.  They were inspired by guerrilla gardeners, who plant beautiful things in less-then-beautiful places.  Seed bombs are designed to be easy to plant and to automatically fertilize the beautiful flowers that grow from them, attracting pollinators like butterflies, honeybees, and even hummingbirds.

How Do We Do This
First, you will need to gather your supplies:

• Clay (you can use potters clay or clay dug right from your backyard)
• Organic compost (worm castings are a great choice)
• Flower seeds (a wildflower mix with native flowers from the Southeast will work well)
• Medium-sized waterproof container (for mixing)
• Big wooden or plastic spoon
• Water (in a watering can or water bottle)
• Flat tray or cookie sheet
• Sandwich bags
• Paper towels
• Hand wipes
• Tablecloth that can get dirty or some newspaper

Once you have all your supplies, head out into the beautiful spring weather to make your seed bombs.  Set up the supplies on a table covered by the tablecloth or newspaper:

• Mix together the clay, organic compost, and flower seeds in the medium-sized waterproof container:
• 5 parts clay
• 1 part organic compost
• 1 part flower seeds

• Add enough water to the mix so that is gets muddy, but not soupy
• Make seed bomb mud balls (about 2 inches in diameter)
• Put the seed bombs on the tray to dry for a few minutes
• Put the seed bombs in the sandwich bags and place them in a cool, dry place for 24 - 48 hours
• Once you're ready to use your seed bombs, simply take them out of the bag and throw them where you want to plant them.
• You can also crush them up by hand and plant them this way, too.
• Give them a little water and watch them grow!

Volunteer Shannon making seed bombs at a Toxic Free NC event

Have other questions about organic gardening?  Check out Toxic Free NC for more information, helpful hints, and workshops.

More Fresh, Local, and Organic Food on Your Child Care's Menu: Here's How

by Toxic Free NC Staff and Jennifer Li, Children’s Environmental Health Writing Intern

Many families are making local and organic produce a priority these days, and almost everyone needs to increase the fresh foods in their diet. Locally grown produce is the freshest, so it contains more nutrients and it supports local farmers. Why organic? Organic foods are grown without synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, do not contain genetically modified ingredients, synthetic food additives or processing agents, and are environmentally friendly. Research shows that kids who eat a mostly organic diet have much lower levels of potentially harmful pesticides in their bodies.

We interviewed Jan of Country Sunshine Children’s Center, and Shawna of Bright Horizons at Raleigh Corporate Center, both in Raleigh. Their commitment to children’s health is truly inspiring, and the methods they share are feasible and effective. From co-op programs with parents to growing fruits and vegetables in gardens, we hope other childcare centers can use these creative and helpful tips from the pros!

So, how can you get more fresh, local, and organic food onto your child care menu?

Here are 5 tips to get you started:

1. Purchase fresh, local, and organic foods from the Farmers' Market, grocery stores, and food distributors, especially when the vegetables and fruits are in season.

“Anytime we can, we get away from frozen or canned foods and incorporate fresh fruits and vegetables into our menu.” —Jan, Country Sunshine Children’s Center

2. Child care centers can obtain reimbursements for nutritious meals from the Federal Food program.

3. Start a Co-op Program. Country Sunshine uses a “Partnership with Parents” to bring in more fresh foods without driving up costs.

How does it work? 

• 3 times a week, children at the Country Sunshine Children’s Center are provided with fresh, healthy fruit and vegetable snacks from parents. 
• Parents are asked to provide fresh produce for one classroom (about 10-20 kids/class) only once per month.
• Each classroom’s parents are designated a specified amount of a particular fruit or veggie snack for every month. For example, parents may be asked to bring watermelon, apples, lettuce or carrots for the class.

4. Plant a garden at your childcare center.  Children enjoy growing their own fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers to have fun and learn, grow their own snacks, and provide treats for their families to taste.

How does it work?

Seeds are both provided by parents and bought from stores. Children can determine the types of seeds they want to plant.

How can we start doing this?

• Children can start growing seeds from containers to study them and observe how they grow. Some centers choose to hire a landscaper to build the garden space. This can also be done by parent volunteers if there is a plan for the garden. 
• Use plants that are easy to grow from seeds: Sunflowers, basil, cherry tomatoes, pumpkins, carrots, and lettuce.
• More examples of what they have grown: Lemon Cucumbers, Green Beans, Peas, Bell Peppers, Jalapeños, Tomatoes, Watermelons, Basil, Marigolds. 

The garden is a “learning experience, where children learn to take care of living things and have buy-in to the food they eat.” —Shawna, Bright Horizons at the Raleigh Corporate Center.

5. Educate staff, teachers, and parents about your work to provide healthy, organic food to their kids! Both Bright Horizons and Country Sunshine use a regular email newsletter to keep parents updated about menus, volunteer opportunities, and gardening (along with all the other important news from their centers).

You can publish announcements and seek parent support through your child care center newsletter, at parent meetings, etc.

Share information about organic food with parents so they get involved with what you are doing. Eat Local, Eat Pesticide Free! and Organic on a Budget are two great starter fact sheets from Toxic Free NC that can help.

Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Shawna of Bright Horizons at the Raleigh Corporate Center and Jan of Country Sunshine Children’s Center for allowing us to share the great information they provided for this article!

Jennifer Li is passionate about advocating for improved health in communities. After interning at the Museum of Life and Science last summer to promote healthy living, she was excited to build on her experience to make a difference in improving environmental health with Toxic Free NC.

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Did you find this article helpful? Approximately once a month, Toxic Free NC volunteers or staff write a newsletter-ready article, focusing on children's environmental health, that we send to child care centers across North Carolina.



These articles contain helpful tips on ways child care centers, staff, and the children's parents can reduce kids' exposures to toxic chemicals and pesticides...we also think they're great for using in your home, too!  We hope you find the article useful and feel free to share.



If you would like any of the past articles, please email Lynne Walter for copies or to be added to our Child Care News list.  Examples of past articles include:
    •    Having Fun in the Sun: Avoiding Sunburn, Skin Cancer, and Toxic Chemicals, too
    •    Toxic-Free Gardening with Kids: 5 Tips for Gardeners at Home, School, & Child Care on Getting Rid of Bugs Safely
    •    Round Up Your Weeds Without Toxic Chemicals!
    •    Get Pesticides Out of Your Kids' Classrooms: It's Easier than You Think!
    •    Mosquito Management in Child Care

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Text and Photo, Copyright 2013 by Toxic Free NC.  NC Child Care centers have permission to use text and photo for educational purposes with their parents and staff, provided full credit is given to Toxic Free NC.

Friendship Gardens Provides Fresh, Local Food to the Charlotte Community

by Elizabeth Chatfield Vernier, Office Management Intern

It all started with a void in fresh produce. The local meals-on-wheels program in Charlotte, Friendship Trays, had always relied in part on farmers donating fresh produce, but it wasn't enough. Friendship Gardens was created to fill the void by connecting local backyard gardeners with Friendship Trays.

Kathy Metzo, Friendship Gardens' Development Director, explained that Friendship Trays used to rely on "donations from grocery stores, frozen vegetables, and fresh vegetables from out of state".

The small garden they started out with did not come close to providing 750 meals a day, so they branched out and began adopting community gardens. "Our goal was 16 gardens, but we had 36 gardens in 2 years, and now we have at least 55 gardens," Kathy said. Some adopted gardens were already in existence, and some were assisted by Friendship Gardens from the ground up.

Friendship Gardens supports volunteers in their backyard gardening program every step of the way. From providing free seeds, food safety and garden training to providing a space for friendship and sharing information, participating gardeners have the tools to succeed.

The large garden network enables support and resource sharing among gardens. Potluck meals allow volunteers and gardeners to connect with each other in an informal setting. According to Kathy Metzo, structured workshops give novices a baseline, and those who garden by trial and error learn the science behind gardening.

Even though Friendship Gardens is based on giving, its success is likely due in part to recognizing that gardeners must enjoy their own harvest. Their Homegrown program improves food access for residents of Habitat for Humanity homes by setting up small residential gardens. They use hearty plants for the new gardeners. This way, participants quickly see the fruits of their labor so they will continue gardening.

The same principle is applied to the backyard gardeners. Friendship Gardens encourages garden volunteers to keep some of the harvest themselves in addition to donating a portion of it to Friendship Trays.

As Kathy Metzo puts it, "Last summer I sautéed some vegetables [from her own garden] in a pan: tomato, okra, and zucchini, with a little olive oil, and sprinkled on some mozzarella. It's simple. You feel like no matter what you grow, how awful a gardener you are, no matter how awful your harvest is, you're still feeding yourself. Even if you just have two okras, one tomato and a zucchini half eaten by worms, you can put half of the zucchini in the compost and eat the other half."

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Friendship Gardens was a nominee in Toxic Free NC's 1st annual Save a Bee Beehive Giveaway in 2012. With support from The Burt's Bees Greater Good Foundation, we award a beehive and organic gardening support to a NC community garden working on food access issues in our state.

By encouraging organic gardening and promoting pollinator protection we hope to make it possible for community gardens in NC to grow even more healthy, pesticide-free food for their communities.

Find out more about Toxic Free NC's Save a Bee Beehive Giveaway and how you can help protect pollinators and support community gardens near you.

Growing gardens and relationships with farmworkers

By Anna Jensen, Community Organizer

I've been thinking a lot this summer about how change is made, and I keep coming back, in various ways, to the centrality of  relationship building.

This year, we made a conscious choice to narrow the scope of our farmworker outreach in order to focus on building deeper, more meaningful relationships with farmworkers. Instead of presenting information about pesticide protections to as many workers as possible, we decided to return to the same three camps at least twice a month during May through August, with the goal of having repeated conversations with workers about their experiences, needs, and ideas for the future. We wanted to support workers not only in their quest for better protections from pesticides at work, but also in other aspects of their lives so that they felt they had what they needed to advocate for themselves.

As we have done in previous years, we brought seedlings and supported farmworkers in organic gardening. We arranged for someone to cook dinner for the largest camp three times over the course of the season, and we sat down and ate dinner with 25 farmworkers, and we listened. By listening, we learned more about workers' food traditions, their knowledge and work backgrounds, and what motivated them to fight for safer work places, or what prevented them from protecting themselves or speaking up.

We distributed over 80 tomato, cucumber and pepper seedlings to 3 camps, increasing access to pesticide-free food for more than 50 farmworkers during the agricultural season this year. The chile peppers in the largest camp did especially well, and one farmworker there said that "one of them is worth ten of the ones we buy at the store." We also conducted hands-on gardening workshops in each camp several times during the season, identifying problem bugs and what to do about each one without using pesticides, as well as finding good bugs to leave alone. Each of those workshops facilitated deeper conversations about the harms that pesticides can cause and the importance of protecting themselves and fighting for alternatives. The workers ended the season with knowledge they can use next year, and pass on to other farmworkers if they don't come back to our area again. Most of the farmworkers we talked to, however, plan to be back in the same place next season, and we ended the season with stronger relationships with those farmworkers that Toxic Free NC can build on next year. We are building a network of farmworkers ready to engage in advocacy, or serve as resources to their friends and coworkers about their work rights and about organic gardening.

Some of these workers will participate in focus groups on pesticides and reproductive health with us before they leave, providing us with information we can use to educate more workers next year. And we will rely on the relationships we have built this year to help spread the word, educate others, refine our work, and involve more farmworkers next year. As the harvest season ends here, I am grateful to all of the farmworkers who welcomed our visits, took time to talk with us, and gave us feedback to improve our work after completing their own long, difficult workdays.

April is Organic Gardening Month!

Hooray, spring is finally here! Every April, Toxic Free NC celebrates the return of warm weather and garden fun with Organic Gardening Month. We're here to help you improve your backyard or community garden, protect pollinators, and enjoy more delicious, organic foods with your family.

All month long we'll be promoting our hands-on resources, including in-depth fact sheets on organic garden pest control for common NC pests, educational gardening videos and additional garden tips and seed giveaways throughout the month.

Pesticides can be dangerous for gardeners, children and animals, and can also kill off the "good bugs" like bees and butterflies that we all want to find in our gardens. But many gardeners think they’re a necessary evil. We’re putting out this info at the start of the season to give gardeners the tools they need to reduce their use of pesticides, or stop using them altogether.

In 2012, Toxic Free NC published ten brand new, in-depth fact sheets on organic pest control for several common pests found in gardens in NC. The fact sheets include safer pest control advice for:  aphids, cabbage loopers, cabbage worms, Colorado potato beetles, cutworms, Harlequin bugs, Japanese beetles, June bugs, slugs, snails, squash bugs, squash vine borers and tomato hornworms.

Through the month of April, Toxic Free NC will share organic gardening tips, post educational videos and give away seeds on its Facebook and YouTube pages and via Twitter here:  @Fawn_ToxicFree, @ToxicFreeNC.

Want to learn more about organic gardening strategies? Toxic Free NC is available to provide hands-on workshops for community gardens! Please contact Lynne Walter at 919-833-1123 or lynne@toxicfreenc.org to schedule a workshop.

Organic Gardening from Scratch

by Fawn Pattison

It's almost spring in North Carolina, and garden catalogs are filling up the mailbox. Are you thinking of starting a new garden? Or perhaps expanding the one you've got? 

A lot of folks are also looking for ways to cut costs these days, and what better way to save money and enjoy the weather than by starting your own garden! Growing your own food means that you are eating the freshest, most local produce possible. Plus, you get the satisfaction of knowing exactly what chemicals aren’t in your food!

Here are a few tips for starting a new garden from Toxic Free NC and Tom Mekus, owner of Native Elements Landscaping in Raleigh.

Agrarian Road Trip with the Presbyterian Hunger Program

Guest post by Toxic Free NC Intern Laura Valencia.

After interning with Toxic Free NC in the summer of 2009, working specifically on farm worker advocacy, I was left with the nagging sensation that the global food system was seriously ill. I learned first-hand about the symptoms of the sickness through sharing stories with farm workers who provide much of the labor that keep the food system chugging along. Pesticide exposure, poor housing, and unsafe working conditions were just a few aspects of the status quo that I not only heard about, but saw with my own two eyes. It wasn’t hard to come out of the summer with the idea that the food system is an unbridled beast, a problem that neither law nor economy would be able to fix.

Then, in the spring of 2010 I heard about the Presbyterian Hunger Program’s Agrarian Road Trip to the US Social Forum. Although the name is a total mouthful, the idea is quite simple: get together 15 people from across the country to road trip through eight states and visit just and sustainable agricultural projects. Or, in other words, my dream vacation. This trip gave me the opportunity to see the local agriculture movement as up close and personal as I saw the problems with conventional agriculture, and learn about much needed local solutions to national and global problems!

We toured from Louisville, KY to Detroit, MI by way of Berea KY, Maryville TN, Asheville NC, Wytheville VA, Mullens WV, and Youngstown & Cleveland OH (map). I’d like to report on the NC projects that our group visited and commend your state on a fantastic variety of agrarian projects!

The Veteran’s Restoration Quarters and Transitional Housing in Asheville, NC is a converted Motel 8 with over 150 rooms. According to Director Michael Reich, the facility is in the top 5 of 600 similar facilities in the United States, evidence that they run a tight ship! One project, the Victory Garden, was started by two current residents who asked for a garden when they moved in. They now work a large piece of land sunrise to sunset every day of the week. This victory garden not only provides food to the men’s quarters, but also to the women’s quarters in the city. The two men also run a weekly tailgate market to support their project! Produce also goes to the culinary classes where other veterans work to develop skills. The Victory Garden serves the community: it is not divided into plots for different people, it is a garden that is completely communal. While giving us a tour, the men mentioned their composting initiatives and also their use of IPM. In the photo to the left, Ed, a resident of the Veteran’s Restoration Quarters talks with Talitha, a Road Tripper from California. If you look closely, you can see a patriotic scarecrow in the background!

The Free Store at Warren Wilson College was started in 1999 as a part of Warren Wilson College’s super progressive recycling program. As a college student, I was blown away by WWC’s initiatives across campus: local food advocacy in the cafeteria, sustainable ag practices taught in the classroom, and an eco-dorm for leisure activities! As a college student, I am also sensitive to big-budget college spending vs. small-budget college student saving. The project that I saw that really appeared to not only be cutting-edge environmentally but also progressive socially was the Warren Wilson Free Store. The Free Store is an initiative to divert waste from the landfill – the message on their website is clear: “If you have some stuff you want to get rid of, no matter what it is, and you think that someone else might still be able to use / salvage it, bring it down.” Shelves upon shelves are filled with half-used shampoos, old cell phone chargers, dirty shoes, and suitcases. Just about everything a college student would throw away is found there, and more! I even picked up a “Warren Wilson Admissions” polo shirt. This project is part of WWC’s awesome recycling program, which you can check out here.

Our group spent the night at Warren Wilson College and had the pleasure of making Marc Williams’, local ethnobotanist, acquaintance. Marc led us through a meal that used over 30 ingredients, the vast majority local and harvested just that day. The menu included: herbal tea of monarda, spearmeint, sassafras leaves; pesto of lamb’s quarter and basil; garden salad with more lamb’s quarter and lettus, garnished with day lilies and monarda (left); and for dessert, juneberry-blackberry cobbler. Marc Williams, our favorite genius, is an ethnobotanist, teacher, chef, and farmer who went to Warren Wilson College and Appalachian State University. He is leading an online course that is donation based and based on the book Botany in a Day. Check it out!

One last story I’d like to tell is about a lunch our group shared in Brevard, NC at Fred and Elizabeth Bahnson’s homestead. Because our trip was sponsored by the Presbyterian Hunger Program, we often spent time with theologians and learned specifically about faith-based organizing around the local foods movement. The Bahnson couple, who are building an eco-house just up the hill from their gravity-fed edible forest and permaculture garden (idyllic, no?) are both theologians who met at Duke Divinity. My fellow roadtripper Bethel (her blog here) describes the Bahnson’s projects with detail:

Where the Bahnsons live is actually a microclimate in the midst of the mountains – a tropical rainforest, receiving nearly 80 inches of rain each year – as much as Seattle. As they build their new house, the Bahnsons have planned to harvest the rainwater, situating their catchment system on top of a hill – to gravity-feed to their biointesive growing beds. In addition to rainwater catchment, Fred has designed swales on the contour of the land to irrigate native fruit trees and prevent erosion on the steep slope on which their farm is southerly-facing. Other highlights of their farm-to-be are living mulches that fix nitrogen (lupine) and accumulate other deep nutrients (comfrey), as well as growing their own grains (Hopi blue corn for grinding). Elizabeth is currently dreaming of a goat dairy.

If you are interested in the connection between food and faith, check out an article Fred Bahnson co-wrote for the organization he founded, the Anathoth Community Garden. He points out, as many agrarian theologians do, that human and humus are not so far apart, a fact often supported by the Bible’s stories. The Bahnson’s are a living example of a desire to serve the soil rather than dominate it.

gardeners' tool: what's in your fertilizer??

On Saturday my husband came home from the garden store with a little bag of fertilizer labeled "For Organic Gardening!" I was skeptical. Fertilizer is notorious for being full of other contaminants besides the potassium, nitrogen and phosphorous you want out of it.

The bag directed me to the company's regulatory website to read about the ingredients. That website directed me to this one: The Washington State Fertilizer Product Database. Hot dog!!

I looked up the "for organic gardening" fertilizer and discovered that it contained 37.9 ppm arsenic. Arsenic! Just to put that number in perspective, the EPA's arsenic limit for drinking water is 0.010 ppm. That makes the fertilizer levels more than 3,000 times higher than the EPA's limits for drinking water. It was also full of mercury, cadmium, lead, and plenty of other stuff that doesn't belong in my vegetables. And I want to put this stuff on my garden.... really?

Luckily we have a nice big compost pile in our backyard full of rich organic matter for the garden. We returned the bag of fertilizer (and told the store why we were returning it - they were a bit taken aback).

The good news is that you don't need to buy fertilizer additives for your garden - compost is easy to make at home. The bad news is that fertilizer is full of virtually unregulated contaminants. The Washington State database lets you find out what's there - but only after you've bought the stuff. The USDA should crack down on fertilizer makers. The rest of us can learn about organic gardening and make our fertilizer the do-it-yourself way.

How an herbicide in "organic" compost is destroying organic soils - A cautionary tale.

Guest post by Bruce Olive, hobby gardener, Olive Farms in Orange County, NC.

On February 9, 2009, Dow Chemical registered the website URL www.BanAminopyralid.com. They haven’t developed a website yet, just purchased the domain and squatted on it. Kind of strange for the company who actually makes a product called Aminopyralid. For those of you who are not farmers or gardeners, the word Aminopyralid most likely has no meaning. But for UK gardeners last year, and for many US gardeners this year, this hormonal herbicide used to kill weeds in hay and straw fields has become a nightmare.

Early signs of aminopyralid poisoning include leaf cupping, fernlike growth, and twisted vines. Photo by Bruce Olive.

Here’s the deal. In the tightly knit coven of commercial chemical and seed producers (often one and the same), agricultural extension services and growers/producers, “programs” is how the work of the farm gets done. A “program” consists of soil amendments, herbicides, pesticides and seed stock genetically modified to flourish in this chemical bath. You plant the right seed, you spray the right chemicals, and everything comes up roses. But unintended consequences have a strange way of showing up where you least expect them. Take the case of Aminopyralid for example. You get a great yield of hay and straw with the “program”, using Dow herbicide products such as Grazon and Forefront. You sell the beautiful, thistle-free, weed-free straw and hay to local horse and cattle farms, who are totally pleased with the thistle-free product. The horses and cows eat the hay, and bed on the straw. You compost their manure and the straw bedding, let it cook for a year or so, and then sell it to compost packagers and vegetable gardeners as “organic” compost, just the way you always have. But you don’t have any idea the compost contains a toxic herbicide with a 533 day half-life. Then the local extension service begins to get calls about twisted tomato vines with curly leaves, wilting eggplant, and droopy potato plants. Strawberry producers loose a season’s crop. Suburban gardeners report wilting zinnias.

And then you suddenly realize that the herbicide was in the manure, passed on through the animals, and has now contaminated the soil. And may continue to contaminate the soil for years to come. Recently pulled by Dow from the UK market due to its devastating impact on vegetable and flower gardeners, the true impact of Aminopyralid is only just now being felt in the US. While there were some reports of impact last year, it seems to be in the application of aged compost this year that is being felt on a growing basis. We appear to be running a year behind the UK in our cycle, but the spring of 2009 will be remembered by many local farmers and market gardeners as the “Spring of Aminopyralid”, and the cascade of unintended consequences that followed its use. Soil remediation is possible but can take several years. For certified organic farms this contamination will be treated as “an act of God,” so they will not lose their certification but will lose the infected land until it can be remediated.

So when Dow registered www.BanAminopyralid.com back in February of this year, they were undoubtedly expecting someone else to want to register it shortly after. Or perhaps they were simply being good corporate citizens, preempting the public outcry. Where this will go is anybody’s business. Being America, the likelihood of a class action lawsuit is probably greater than the likelihood of a ban on the chemical. In the meantime, beware of putting any manure-based compost on your garden, whether from a big box store in a plastic bag or from a local farmer in the back of a truck. Not to place any blame, but to understand that folks may not even know their compost is toxic. Test all compost and manure with small plantings BEFORE you apply to your garden. Unlike herbicides such as Roundup, the hormonal herbicide lets the plant grow for quite a while before destroying it. What looks like a curly leaf virus or aphid problems may not be what you think it is.

Our own garden is ruined for this year, with hundreds of greenhouse raised seedlings destroyed. We are currently remediating this land following directions from the Rodale Institute. Not to be defeated, we have in the meantime plowed up another patch and put it behind some electric fence.


The first step in remediation is don’t give up – plant a new garden with a deer fence!

By all means, continue to buy local, but buyer beware….the Dow slogan "bringing good things to life" is not necessarily referring to the life of the things in your deer protected patch of Piedmont heaven.