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rainbowgardener
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Location: TN/GA 7b

well it seems like this thread that you just posted on is a pretty thorough discussion of that question. Go back and read Helpful Gardener's post a few up from here.

We are surrounded by bacteria including Ecoli all the time, around us and inside us. One of the things that is done in water treatment plants is to run sewage through wetlands/ bog gardens for the plants and water and micro-organisms etc to break down all the bad stuff. At the other end of it they come out with purified water. That's essentially what you are doing with the septic drain field.

As noted people have farmed over septic fields forever. It's rich fertile ground. I say go for it...

a0c8c
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Location: Austin, TX

The Helpful Gardener wrote:We should stop feeding cattle grain and start feeding grass and a lot of good things would happen
Like bankrupting the cattle industry? If everyone could afford to raise grass feed cattle, they sure as heck would. You get better cattle worht more money, only you have to spend a FORTUNE on keeping grass alive. The cattle industry is supported by alot of small ranchers, who couldn't even consider going completely grass fed. Especially places like Texas. You'd spend three times as much on watering grass as you would buying, raising, and sellling the cattle.


As far as eating food from septic tank fed soil, go for it. As long as you know whats in theire. As far as a new property with already growing produce, I'd be weary since you have no clue what chemicals havd been used or spilled around there. Get soil test before eating anything.

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SP8
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Location: Nagoya: Japan

We’ve been eating things grown in ‘nightsoil’ for thousands of years. Just about everything produced in China (carrots, garlic, eels, shrimp, fish etc.) makes use of nightsoil.

I certainly wouldn’t be plucking one straight off your plant and eating it while I was hanging out the washing etc. but as long as you follow basic hygiene standards during and after harvesting I don't think You'll have any problems.

The Helpful Gardener
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It is only in the First World we have eschewed our own exhaust as fertilizer. In other parts of the planet is is done without thought, and inferior health situations can arise from water contamination from "nightsoil", but in a modern septic system, that issue is eliminated. In many places on the planet it is a necessity. Bacteria IS nitrogen; the first part of the food chain, that goes up as far as, well, us, and all the way back down again.

The real questions are A) did Mom potty train too long and now we can't even think about doody without curling into a fetal position?, and B) if we trust the septic system to handle our business without contaminating the greater biosphere around us, then what's the issue? I fertilize places in my backyard by moving the bird feeders around, and as my friend Aaron says, grass loves bovines, bovines love grass (check out [url=https://wearewhatweeatthemovie.com/short.htm]Aaron's movie trailer[/url]; I can't wait...). S**t Happens Everywhere... :P

Look, even Elaine Ingham, the world's leading soil biologist, talks about the poop loop all the time. EVERYTHING we eat, much of what we wear, every bit of energy (other than radioactives) was at some point somebody's excrement. We can Purell until the cows come home but it does not change the fact that the poop loop is one of the key energy exchanges on this planet (right up there with solar, wind, or petrochemical) and as far as our food goes it is more important. Bird poop, cow poop, people poop, even microbe poop, it all comes to the same end. I would be far more worried about the soaps, artificial colors, fragrances, cleaners and detergents in that septic system, than about any issues of a scatological nature...

HG

tedln
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Location: North Texas

In sewage treatment plants, the solids and liquids are first separated. The water does one direction for cleaning and purification and in some societies, reuse by humans. The solids, human waste, paper, and other products that find their way into a city sewer system; go into large tanks called digesters. In the digesters, bacteria, aerobic and anaerobic, convert the solids into a converted sludge which is then pumped to large shallow drying beds. The sludge is allowed to dry and is then disposed of by many different methods. One of the oddities of the sewage sludge is the fact that it is full of viable tomato seeds (the human intestinal tract finds it difficult to digest tomato seeds and normally passes them through. I have seen some beautiful tomato gardens grown from seedlings removed from sludge drying beds. I don't think there is a recorded instance of someone getting sick from eating the sludge tomatoes. I wouldn't worry at all about a tomato grown above or near a septic system.

Ted

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Gary350
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Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

30 years ago I lived in a house with septic tank lines in the back yard. The grass grew 5 times faster on the septic tank lines than any where in the yard. One year I tilled the septic tank lines an plants my tomatoes directly on top of the lines. I have great tomatoes and never needed to use fertilizer.

Gerrie
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Posts: 152
Joined: Thu Apr 09, 2009 6:10 pm
Location: Southern Oregon

We have septics (2) and wells (2) In one of the septic-well situations, the well is below the drainfields of the septic. We were concerned when we put in the septic as it couldn't be fielded anywhere else without pumping it uphill and we didn't want that expense. The septic installer said 'no problem' the well is at least 150' from the septic TANK and only about 30' from the end of the nearest drainfield. The well installer said generally four feet of soil can clean almost anything out of the water.

Our other well is at the bottom of a hillside gully which in wet weather produces continuous runoff, no problem there either. I'd eat the tomato.



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