I made a rookie mistake with manure! SOS!

[applestar]

https://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/garde ... ntaminants

How to Test Compost for Herbicide Contamination

Do You Need To Test Your Compost For Contaminants?Persistent residues from herbicides can harm your plants.by PAM BECK JULY 7, 2015

a simple bioassay test devised by Washington State University that can be done at home before adding the compost to your garden.

1. Fill three 3-inch pots with potting soil. Fill three more pots with a mixture of two parts compost and one part potting soil. Mark the pots.

2. Plant three pea or bean seeds per pot and keep them watered. Capture any water that drains from the pots so it doesn't contaminate soil in other pots.

3. Put the pots in a sunny, warm place. Once the seedlings have three sets of leaves, compare the plants growing in the compost mix with the control group in potting soil. Unusual cupping, thickening, or distortion of leaves signals the possibility of herbicide contamination in the compost.

[PinkPetalPolygon]

Omg I already tested it inadvertently

I planted sugar snap peas... like two or 3 months ago

I planted 20 seeds, 3 came up. 2 might've been eaten by snails. One lonely pea lived molested by snails. . .

I planted 20 more pea seeds ... waited forever ...

0 sprouted

Now I know why. The second round I really babied, especially with a live pea plant already (it survived)

And then I planted blue lake pole beans there last week.

It has been quite a while since I laid the manure though, and it rained quite a bit in addition to being watered consistently since then, sooo hey

Now I also know why my basil and lovage most likely didn't sprout either in the manured mess of a nursery. It wasn't for lack of trying! <3.

Thank the heavens I only put a tiny bit and mixed it in really well. Ewww. I didn't know how great I had it by having a little plot with soil that grew things more fine before someone messed it up!

I feel better, thanks everyone! I don't know what I woulda done without you.

[PinkPetalPolygon]

Lol, so I didn't really do the test I got overexcited

Warning: valley girl omg ahoy alert, please excuse my shamless omgs I could edit them out but they're organic! <3

But I did notice I meant that the sugar snap pea was... looking all funky and being tiny. I think I saw some sprout and die but I assumed it was snails eating them.

(The snails are under control and now know my organic squishing sluggo wrath)

And the pea is still growing. The other peas were put in so recently I am not sure whether or not they are ... showing signs of unhappiness?

I will go look, lol.

Oooh! The peas I put in like last weekend look more than fine.

And even the surviving sugar snap pea looks happy, it is climbing ^_^

Now I digress, I must:

In other irrelevant news my cactus has its first flower of the season
(Well omg it has 14 flowers!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Last year it had two.)

And the first one is all HUGE and threatening to open it looks intense. I have to take pictures.

And now I know why the chamomile plant went insane... (not letting the maure sit in the soil for a month, ugh)

It shot up like 3 feet when I put it in the ground and fell over everywhere. It made at least 50 if not 100 flowers and was too pretty for me to want to pick them, even if it meant I couldn't eat them or they would go to seed or it would die. >_<

I thought I would like fresh chamomile, I liked dried chamomile tea... but oh gosh, fresh chamomile feels like a real sedative for me.

I drink chamomile blended in with other tea herbs and then I don't want to keep my eyes focused on things or go out, lol! I didn't take it seriously until one day I drank a huge glass before going to a thrift store

O-m-g, I love thrift stores and before the fresh chamomile tea I had been all excited, and we get into the car and !!!
I couldn't want to keep my eyes open. And it was such a night and day change I couldn't believe it. And I decided I didn't even like the feeling. But I loved how the chamomile looked, so woohoo now it's an invasive ornamental. I digress madly.

Any way, that grew all weird too, but I didn't know how it was supposed to grow in the first place. Now I know.

[PinkPetalPolygon]

^ I meant of course shameless & not shamless, & of course I wanted to clarify I was not driving cars while under the influence of chamomile with my eyes closed.

[Mr green]

If the steer has been fed heavily sprayed crops the residues in their manure can very well be enough to cause this. There are numerous scientific reports that supports this.

So I would if possible check with the source of the manure.

[Taiji]

Warning: valley girl omg ahoy alert, please excuse my shamless omgs I could edit them out but they're organic! <3

I have never been in any way offended by oh my goshes or oh my goodnesses; don't worry about it.

[PinkPetalPolygon]

Here is an update, and also a pretty long rant about people dumping poisons onto the lovely landscapes we all have to share as people after the update. And more!

In the short version:

I replaced the tomato plants! Try, try again. The End. Humanity continues. Or so I hope!*

*Am I able to hope this!?! What a mess we're making. Jay kay. *waves her human flag*

Long version as follows!:

I spent all day Saturday fixing everything. I did other stuff too, not just replacing 7 tomatoes. I replaced 7 tomato plants though. I will try to stay on topic tonight, (and kind of fail) , but to suffice to say I did other stuff that amused me too. I feel strong and accomplished. My DH certainly helped. We actually worked well together while replacing the tomatoes.

I moved the manured soil out and added some not ever anything added to it soil, in addition to some organic storebought soil for the ground, and prayed to the earth. Hah. Then planted ... & watered & mulched & put on tomato cages.

Okay. So, the plants that were the least effected / had the least amount of stunted/messed up growth seem to actually been straightening out very quickly. (Yay! That is nice to see even if I replaced most of them. That gives me hope for the new tomato plants and that the remaining tomatoes' fruit might exist or maybe not contain too much awful toxic stuff in the fruit itself, knock on the woodiest wood. )

I am fairly confident this is a true observation and not wishful thinking, that whatever it is that was messing them all up is wearing off. One of the plants I marked for removal was looking so good I took it out of the ground and put it in a container.

(leaves were straightening out / it was growing bigger / or the new growth was not making me wince and want to throw it out? / it was flowering and not looking terrible / it improved so drastically I felt like it earned a chance, DH can be the one to eat all those tomatoes - the guilty guinea pig! I won't even tell him but he will just be the one to get all those tomatoes on his salad while I have unsullied tomatoes, justice served. He wouldn't necessarily object even if I reminded him every time I fed him a herbicided tomato that it was an herbicided one, but I won't tell him because eww, how appetizing. This is all 1000% his fault anyway and he wanted to keep it too. So a done deal.)

I laughed and put it in a 7 gallon container with clean potting soil. If she doesn't look more than happy after a week or two in her clean container then I will give her container to something that makes me happier but any way.

We got a cute companion plant for the tomatoes! ^_^
A cinnamon basil. I always wanted one but I was scared I wouldn't like it as much as the green basil and feel as if I made a season long mistake. I was/am probably just being silly in that regard. My MIL picked out the cinnamon basil and I was over the moon actually (aka happy as a clam, hah? )

I gave this shrub between the tomatoes and the pumpkin/zucchini/gourd patch a deep trim and extended the garden bed with more bricks (it isn't a raised bed, just one with a brick border)
Just so the cinnamon basil could be with the tomatoes but not suffocating them, inaccessible for harvest, or otherwise in the way.

Everything looked so AWESOME after we replaced the wonky plants!!! My DH is the one that pointed it out. As soon as the weirdo misshapen tortured plants were taken out to pasture, it was like the bad feelings were all lifted from the landscape too and taken back into idealism. ^_^

I would even venture to ascertain we had literal "fun" replacing the tomatoes when it was all said and done.

And I must reiterate: the way the damaged tomato plants were already recovering is VERY encouraging. Definitely made me feel a lot less doomed!

(Although I am willing to accept whatever the outcome is. I tried my best! I think I even had an okay attitude throughout most of it, hah. But omg I'm glad that is all over. If things go south again I still have 7 seedlings! Tomatoes or bust I said and tomatoes or bust I meant!)

Goodness golly gosh miss Molly, heavens to Betsy !

I am so looking forward to next year. With the forciest of forces I could ever had. No bleeping poison damage, I don't even mind, knock on wood, if that 13 year swarm of locusts or whatever the bleep it was comes down and eats everything I grow next year -

I swear that would feel better than being poisoned by poison manure stuff that was supposed to help me, not hinder me.

I'd rather feed bugs (that feed birds or lizards or other bugs/etc) that get fried by human-put poisons. At least I wouldn't have some corporation to be mad at and I could just come try to curse the bugs organically with my friends at HG.

I am not quite mad at one thing in particular, I am just mad at the whole sham of a ... (here I go ranting, oops!)

I am mad at the whole direction of my country as far as pesticides, herbicides, and poisons go. This is ridiculous. I go into [big box stores] and see untold gallons of poisons for sale and the directions say to pour them onto the land. . & my understanding is that we are "regulated" (aka imagine places that aren't regulated? Meep!)

And then the part where every piece of earth is a part of the whole!?

Yeah, I can see why people dream of growing stuff on different planets to get the bleep outta here! :rolleyes:

We are poisoning all the life to death including ourselves.
Because the men who sell the poison
Sell the poison and say it's not really poison to everything
But it's definitely poison to everything.

They don't care. If they say it's poison to only some things, they get $
If they say it's poison to everything like it clearly is, they don't get $ because they can't sell their product. Their product whose result is a collapse of the food chain.

I'm being totally general here/not spearheading one product, I think I was able to let it not effect me so fully, like okay, " "they're" spraying poison everywhere and I can just opt out"

But when stores sell manure (or any other product for gardening) that have pesticides/herbicides/bad juju for living stuff in them for any reason, and ... I see ... people buying it, thinking it will help them - and then it becomes a deep detriment to their ability OR THE ABILITY OF THE PEOPLE AROUND THEM to "grow anything" it feels like something somewhere is very broken.

You know? Even if I had waited for the herbicides to wear off ?

I still didn't want to put them into my soil in the first place...

That herbicides are able to be included in a bag of any substance sold to be put into your ground and labeled as "Ready to Use" is more than ridiculous, or offputting, in my opinion, it's wrong.

Even if that isn't/wasn't my particular problem (though I do believe it is/was - that there was herbicide in the store bought manure I used)

The pictures of the effect of weed and feed on vegetable crops / the effects of all that differently formulated poison junk still allows me to stand behind my rant, even if I wasn't personally affected this year, people are dumping poisons into our world that cripple the ability to grow ... ability for anything to grow for any reason... whether we want it to grow or not, indiscriminate vegetative destruction. I feel like we are dumping weapons of mass destruction on ourselves and the fact that anything ever grew anywhere with this stuff, and the fact that everything ever grew is hand in fact that we ever lived how we ever did.

Our ability to grow food, domesticating crops, and being able to find food that the earth happened to be growing is how we... are able to live. Not to mention how ... uhm... foraging is how all the other animals are able to live also.

This all feels so wrong I feel like I should be picketing somewhere.
I probably should be.

I think I know talking about it makes me feel better about it so thank you for allowing me this venue as opposed to me sitting silently with the horror of the state of things.

I did find a
Ooooh I almost dropped the F bomb, hahah

I did find a bleeping empty bottle of "Round Up" under the garden sink in the garden with the plant in the picture I posted that had probably been used 5 years ago. It can't explain for the damage that was in the plants in the place that had already been a garden for 4 years, so I have to place blame on the manure ultimately.

They owner of that garden absolutely know not to use any of that liquid kill stuff ever again now that there is a veggie garden. (I personally strive toward organic, but I even noticed there is organic stuff that harms bees and/or amphibians which makes me feel strange about the whole realm of stuff you spray on your veggies that has side effects to the whole ecosystem, or any part of it really. Although I have to notice I have something like extreme empathy for all living things / systems / the earth as a whole - and I really do question how my gardening effects the whole picture. I try to be only beneficial... that means I can't fry the bees or frogs with a good conscious! Nor would I want to try to play the ignorance is bliss game. )

I just had a great thought! I used to be annoyed when the crabgrass and weeds would come from under the fence into my garden. Oh boy! Now I can be thrilled with that happening. It means the plot next door isn't rounding me out to the pasture with poison! One less pet peeve in the world for me to have - for real!

& - thank you both (Lindsay and Apple & possibly someone else also <3)
Who were telling me healthy tomato plants always ooze yellow!?! I mean, that when you harvest a big huge tomato plant and you're covered in yellow stuff it's not necessarily a disease at all (:lol:) - and that tomatoes ooze yellow stuff when they are tomatoes no matter what?

I had no idea in the world and I always had a terrible feeling when I saw all the sap like it was death ooze!!! That would really make sense. It seemed very different! Now that you mention the whole tobacco/tomato family deal - it really WAS something ooze-y and a sap, not a mildew. (At least on the subject of my experiences last year.)

[PinkPetalPolygon]

Of course you can only notice sexism after you press enter, teehee:

"We are poisoning all the life to death including ourselves.
Because the men who sell the poison
Sell the poison and say it's not really poison to everything
But it's definitely poison to everything."

Of course I meant

We are poisoning all the life to death including ourselves.
Because the men and evil evil evil women who sell the poison
Sell the poison and say it's not really poison to everything
But it's definitely poison to everything.

<3.

[applestar]

I TOTALLY enjoyed your post.

[Lindsaylew82]

BAAAHAHAHA!

[imafan26]

What an adventure.

Another reason to add to why I don't like to use animal by products in the garden.

BTW persistent herbicides will also still be active when composted. More reason to make your own.

[Mr green]

What an adventure.

Another reason to add to why I don't like to use animal by products in the garden.

BTW persistent herbicides will also still be active when composted. More reason to make your own.

Or atleast knowing the source its coming from. I don't like animal products either tho.

[PinkPetalPolygon]

Everything looks so great I can't even believe we had problems! Isn't that wonderful?

(My phone is clogged with pictures already so I can't take any more. I will take pictures soon. I meant to yesterday but I had dirty hands all day and didn't wanna touch my tablet to take pictures. Bad excuse! I coulda washed my hands and used the voice feature. But I was lazy. )

I just felt like I kind of HAD to make an update with text to saaaaay:

Everything looks perfect now.

The plants with the herbicide/whatever/frizzy damage that I kept are actually growing normally now!

Maybe even more than normally and wonderfully! We have one tomato plant that is a Brandywine & it is HUGE now, it looks like it never had any problems! The armenian cucumbers I may have never mentioned in this thread but that totally existed and also had herbicide/whatever damage from the manure recovered! It had slightly scrunched up leaves at first but now it is vining normally.

And let me tell you! (Knock on wood)

I actually don't think we have blight/bacterial problems at all terribly anywhere. (I understand that that situation is almost like a ticking time bomb err like I still need preventative care/luck/the goodwill of the fairies, l have a lot of disease resistant plants this year BUT)

The part where I thought the natural yellow tomato sap was blight instead of normal tomato functioning gave me a certain ... uhhh... preparing to ... have super yucky stuff feeling? If you know what I mean?

And now I have literally realized we DIDN'T have catastrophic problems that could only build up in the soil in the other garden/MIL's garden (hah) -

Basically I have blight in my garden and I have since I got it apparently? (I try incredibly hard not to cross-contaminate and try to make good garden hygiene decisions generally)

But there isn't blight at the other garden though! At least not in the way I was certain there was. Yeah. I go over there and everything is awesome. Nothing is failing to thrive! The bottom leaves are the deepest green possible.

I definitely, unfortunately, know the difference between blight and no blight now.

I need to start forcing DH to not wear the shoes he wears in our garden in the other garden for the love of everything anything.

I don't care if changing your shoes is a hassle, apocalyptic blight is much worse a hassle than switching tennies!

We are already hand washers in the garden though! We try to be even more serious than doctors with the handwashing (no offense to doctors! Thanks for saving me, hah) - after we touch any plant we wash our hands before touching the next.

Sorry if that's "wasting water". Err. Now I should do something water conservation-y to repent.

No, um, I digress, but I am actually very careful with water. Or. I've seen some ridiculousness and I don't know, I really do think running water is an amazing "gift" and try not to abuse it like water grows on trees.

But yeah. When there's blight on my hands I gotta wash it off.

In other news, I am glad, even though they didn't wash their hands first:

Yesterday I watched a big huge chubby bumblebee buzz literally every tomato flower I owned in my garden.

It was funny, we were bbqing/lighting the bbq, but when DH saw the bumblebee start buzzing tomato flowers we stopped to let him eat first. ^_^

I loooooved watching the order in which he buzzed the flowers, like, !!! Seeing what he could be pollinating up in terms of tomato varieties!

I think I gained new respect for any two tomatoes ever being able to click to crossbreed in the first place after seeing all that crazy willy nilly pollen exchanging going on!

I wanna see what crossed with my lemon boy... lemon boy tomatoes are my favorite, but I digress further.

[KitchenGardener]

Awww, you "stopped to let him eat first"! PPP: with your enthusiasm and willingness to work, you deserve every bit of the beautiful, thriving garden it appears that you now have!

I should practice better hygiene in my garden the way you do - there's always something to work on improving, eh? Anyway, what I AM good about is watering. I have a double sink and when I rinse dishes, I use a plastic tub to catch the water (unless its soapy) and then recycle it in the garden. I figure it takes about 4 - 5 tubs to adequately water my garden, and I probably fill that many in a day, just by rinsing my hands, replacing the dog's water dish, rinsing fruit and vegies, and washing food particles off dirty pots, pans and dishes (before I soap them up). I pat myself on my back every day!