Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Tommy Tolson <healinghawk@earthlink.net>]

Wow, that's amazing.  In CA, the certifying body did those tests, so it 
took a couple of years to get organic certification, but I think USDA 
organic standards (if you can call them that) trumped all other 
certifying bodies in the US.

That chemical soup causes a hundred thousand new cancer diagnoses in 
Texas each year, but "economic growth" is, "they" say, dependent upon 
the polluters continuing to pollute.  Are we growing to extinction?

Smiles.
Tommy

On 3/22/10 11:07 PM, Tradingpost wrote:
> 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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