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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "Andeanfx" <andeanfx@midrivers.com>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] soil testing
  • Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:11:57 -0600

When I posed the original question I was thinking in the context of testing it for deficiencies not contaminates. Dean


Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. - Oscar Wilde


----- Original Message ----- From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2010 10:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] soil testing



Sorry, not to my knowledge. Unless you have a small fortune to shell out for special testing for particular chemicals. And literally nobody can afford to test for hundreds of potential contaminants. And generally organic standards don't require soil testing OR produce testing. Surprise!

We live in a chemical soup; that's our so called civilization. People think if a chemical is being sold it must be approved as safe by the government. Forget it. Some thousands iof chemicals were grandfathered in years ago, untested, when EPA took effect as GRAS - "generally regarded as safe". For food chemicals start with http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/228741/Generally-Recognized-As-Safe . Thousands of others never tested are approved for industrial, agricultural and household uses.

At least where we live, there's never been any industry and to our knowledge this spot was never farmed in modern times if ever due to historical climate.

In the end, we can get to a point of obsessing over contamination and go far past a point of diminishing returns, to a point where most of our toxins come not from our food but from the water we drink and air we breathe in a pristine wilderness. Let's think about that.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 3/22/2010 at 8:44 PM Tommy Tolson wrote:

Doesn't a soil test indicate if your soil has toxic chemicals in it, so
it won't pass organic standards for several years, at least? By now,
most soil in the US has been polluted, hasn't it?

Smiles.
Tommy

On 3/22/10 7:46 PM, Ken Hargesheimer wrote:
Grow it: green manure/cover crops. Ken H

--- On *Mon, 3/22/10, Andeanfx /<andeanfx@midrivers.com>/* wrote:


From: Andeanfx <andeanfx@midrivers.com>
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] soil testing
To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing"
<livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Monday, March 22, 2010, 1:05 PM

Well, I'm not sure which of the three suggestions to work with.
Probably
add organic matter. :-)

We do not have our own compost and are renting with the hope of
moving so
setting up here is not really an option. Last year we put some
aged horse
manure on it and there seemed to be no gain. I am wondering if we
were not
a victim of the weed free hay.

I am a bit gun shy so it seems at this point the best options are
to try to
find some 'useable compost or aged manure or leave it as is and
take what we
get from it?????? Dean


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