My compost pile is pretty cool, likely never reaching temperatures to kill bacteria. I tend to only turn the pile once or twice. So I'm wondering what precautions should be taken when using compost which has had aged manure and/or rotted kitchen scraps added to various browns.
Currently I tend to mix the material into containers and into the top several inches of our raised beds. All veggies, especially greens are vigorously rinsed and any leaf vegetables get spun in a salad spinner.
One adjustment that I could make is to use the compost exclusively in the containers of ornamental plants and with potted shrubs and trees, and then could recycle from that use and place into the vegetable beds a season later.
Any thoughts on this issue would be appreciated.
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hendi_alex
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Attra recommended waiting 120 days from application of fresh manure to harvest edible plants.
Using the manure in ornamentals first would certainly work
You could still use manures on crops that mature later.
Hot composted manure should be safe, but if the compost was not hot enough, it would be safe to treat it like fresh manure and incorporate it at least 120 days before harvest.
Manures should not sit out anyway. They will lose nitrogen if they sit exposed.
https://counties.cce.cornell.edu/washing ... uction.pdf
Using the manure in ornamentals first would certainly work
You could still use manures on crops that mature later.
Hot composted manure should be safe, but if the compost was not hot enough, it would be safe to treat it like fresh manure and incorporate it at least 120 days before harvest.
Manures should not sit out anyway. They will lose nitrogen if they sit exposed.
https://counties.cce.cornell.edu/washing ... uction.pdf
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hendi_alex
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rainbowgardener
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hendi_alex
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There are numerous articles which basically say that e. Coli and other bacteria can be very persistent and are not killed in composting unless the temperature gets high enough. To me aged manure and slow compost with manure mean about the same thing. Here is what one site says about aged manure.
If using aged manure in the garden, the following practices can be used to reduce the potential for contamination:
Never apply manure to growing food crops
Apply manure in the fall after harvest and mix it in. Fall application allows the longest period from application to harvest.
Do not leave manure on the soil surface where it can have direct contact with the crop.
Wait 120 days from manure application to crop harvest. This can be safely reduced to 90 days if the edible portion is protected by a husk, pod or shell which is removed prior to preparation. This time requirement does not include periods when the soil is frozen because of E. coli’s winter hardiness.
https://www.extension.colostate.edu/chaf ... rden.shtml
If using aged manure in the garden, the following practices can be used to reduce the potential for contamination:
Never apply manure to growing food crops
Apply manure in the fall after harvest and mix it in. Fall application allows the longest period from application to harvest.
Do not leave manure on the soil surface where it can have direct contact with the crop.
Wait 120 days from manure application to crop harvest. This can be safely reduced to 90 days if the edible portion is protected by a husk, pod or shell which is removed prior to preparation. This time requirement does not include periods when the soil is frozen because of E. coli’s winter hardiness.
https://www.extension.colostate.edu/chaf ... rden.shtml
The use of manure on crops is of greatest risk on crops that are eaten raw.
Produce that has been thoroughly cooked are the least risk.
Washing produce well does help, but there is no guarantee. Bacteria may enter through the points where leaves were damaged or plants were cut from the ground. As well as workers hands.
Unfortunately contaminated produce does not look any different from clean produce. Contact with the contaminated produce during harvest and processing can spread the contamination.
I know some of you are vegetarians, but for those who are not, that is why a steak from one cow is less risky to eat on the rare side but hamburger which may have come from more than one animal and have had more hands and machines touching it is not.
If you remember a few years back there were some deaths of children linked to e. coli in hamburger served at a chain restaurant. I think some of them were in Seattle.
Hawaii got a batch of that same contaminated lot sent to the local chain as well. No one here got sick. That was because most people here like their burgers well done and would send a burger that was even a little pink back. So, the local restaurant chains always cooked their burgers well done.
Produce that has been thoroughly cooked are the least risk.
Washing produce well does help, but there is no guarantee. Bacteria may enter through the points where leaves were damaged or plants were cut from the ground. As well as workers hands.
Unfortunately contaminated produce does not look any different from clean produce. Contact with the contaminated produce during harvest and processing can spread the contamination.
I know some of you are vegetarians, but for those who are not, that is why a steak from one cow is less risky to eat on the rare side but hamburger which may have come from more than one animal and have had more hands and machines touching it is not.
If you remember a few years back there were some deaths of children linked to e. coli in hamburger served at a chain restaurant. I think some of them were in Seattle.
Hawaii got a batch of that same contaminated lot sent to the local chain as well. No one here got sick. That was because most people here like their burgers well done and would send a burger that was even a little pink back. So, the local restaurant chains always cooked their burgers well done.
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toxcrusadr
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It's not just the heat but also the amount of time in an aerobic environment that reduces the e coli population of manure. If you compost it for few months, it will be fine to add to the garden. My understanding of the 90/120 days is that it applies to fresh manure. If you compost it first for at least that long, there shouldn't be any problem no matter how soon you harvest.
Compost and soil are both full of potentially sick-making microbes. The idea is do our best at reducing the populations of the bad ones that are amenable to reduction by being expose to air.
Happy composting!
Compost and soil are both full of potentially sick-making microbes. The idea is do our best at reducing the populations of the bad ones that are amenable to reduction by being expose to air.
Happy composting!
I thought it was not so much the exposure to air. Salmonella is pretty resilient to just air. I thought it was the bacteria, fungi and soil microbes that break down the manure that actually would make the amendments safe.
Manures will lose nitrogen if they sit on the surface so they should be incorporated into the soil or compost pile.
Bacteria love dark, moist places with lots of food. Until the compost is finished or heated enough to kill the bacteria, they have the perfect environment to thrive.
It is my understanding that the compost pile bacteria and fungi changes during different stages of decomposition and it does not have exactly the same flora and fauna as soil. The actinomycetes that can be found in finishing compost is a source of antibiotics. There are many soil bacteria that have antibiotic attributes that probably feed on the pathogens.
Manures that are not contained or buried can contaminate waterways when it rains. Water that runs off of manures can carry the the pathogens to waterways and contaminate plants, through runoff or irrigation downstream.
It is the same idea that is being proposed to clean up some hazardous waste sites and using bacteria in the sewer drains to clean them up.
The bacteria and microbes in the soil feed on the bacteria and breakdown manures, and chemicals into their inorganic forms which will be absorbed or rendered harmless. It is also why some communities pass their processed sewage water through wetlands to remove the remaining nutrients and clean the water naturally before exiting into a river or ocean.
There are long term studies being done now to test the effects of using reclaimed water on mostly golf courses and turf farms to see if any of the chemicals like heavy metals, insecticides, petroleum byproducts that might be in the reclaimed water has any effect on the ground water.
The theory is that the chemicals in the water will be sequestered or cleaned by the plants and microbes in the soil and the ground water will remain clean. Preliminary results do look good, but it will take awhile.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story? ... 205&page=1
https://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/vetext/IN ... manure.pdf
https://soils.usda.gov/sqi/concepts/soil ... teria.html
Manures will lose nitrogen if they sit on the surface so they should be incorporated into the soil or compost pile.
Bacteria love dark, moist places with lots of food. Until the compost is finished or heated enough to kill the bacteria, they have the perfect environment to thrive.
It is my understanding that the compost pile bacteria and fungi changes during different stages of decomposition and it does not have exactly the same flora and fauna as soil. The actinomycetes that can be found in finishing compost is a source of antibiotics. There are many soil bacteria that have antibiotic attributes that probably feed on the pathogens.
Manures that are not contained or buried can contaminate waterways when it rains. Water that runs off of manures can carry the the pathogens to waterways and contaminate plants, through runoff or irrigation downstream.
It is the same idea that is being proposed to clean up some hazardous waste sites and using bacteria in the sewer drains to clean them up.
The bacteria and microbes in the soil feed on the bacteria and breakdown manures, and chemicals into their inorganic forms which will be absorbed or rendered harmless. It is also why some communities pass their processed sewage water through wetlands to remove the remaining nutrients and clean the water naturally before exiting into a river or ocean.
There are long term studies being done now to test the effects of using reclaimed water on mostly golf courses and turf farms to see if any of the chemicals like heavy metals, insecticides, petroleum byproducts that might be in the reclaimed water has any effect on the ground water.
The theory is that the chemicals in the water will be sequestered or cleaned by the plants and microbes in the soil and the ground water will remain clean. Preliminary results do look good, but it will take awhile.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story? ... 205&page=1
https://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/vetext/IN ... manure.pdf
https://soils.usda.gov/sqi/concepts/soil ... teria.html
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rot
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Is there anything contamination free? If you could construct a perfectly clean environment, like hospitals try to do, could you live there? Would you want to?
We live with bacteria in and on us constantly. The microbes, bacteria, phages and fungi, that live in and on us out number our own cells 10 to 1. Some of those bacteria are necessary for our survival. If we lived in an environment where e coli and salmonella can't live, could we survive?
It's just one of those things I should have learned from my mother had I been paying attention: wash raw produce before you eat it. Otherwise just cook it.
A few years back, a few years after the sick burger business, another food born illness was making people sick. It was traced to fresh packaged salad mixes produced in California. Someone more clever than me observed that all the illnesses occurred east of the Mississippi even though the California producers were industry leaders in cleaning their product. In order to keep their product fresh during shipping, they kept it moist, cool and in the dark in plastic packaging. Since there's no such thing as washing all the bad pathogens away, the pathogens that remained, what little left there was, were left in the perfect environment - cool, moist, in the dark inside plastic bags - to grow. The farther the produce was shipped, the more time there was for pathogens to grow.
Kind of makes me want to eat local.
to sense
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Is there anything contamination free? If you could construct a perfectly clean environment, like hospitals try to do, could you live there? Would you want to?
We live with bacteria in and on us constantly. The microbes, bacteria, phages and fungi, that live in and on us out number our own cells 10 to 1. Some of those bacteria are necessary for our survival. If we lived in an environment where e coli and salmonella can't live, could we survive?
It's just one of those things I should have learned from my mother had I been paying attention: wash raw produce before you eat it. Otherwise just cook it.
A few years back, a few years after the sick burger business, another food born illness was making people sick. It was traced to fresh packaged salad mixes produced in California. Someone more clever than me observed that all the illnesses occurred east of the Mississippi even though the California producers were industry leaders in cleaning their product. In order to keep their product fresh during shipping, they kept it moist, cool and in the dark in plastic packaging. Since there's no such thing as washing all the bad pathogens away, the pathogens that remained, what little left there was, were left in the perfect environment - cool, moist, in the dark inside plastic bags - to grow. The farther the produce was shipped, the more time there was for pathogens to grow.
Kind of makes me want to eat local.
to sense
..
It is true we live with hosts of other critters all around us. We harbor bacteria on our skin and in our bodies. Our normal flora are busy keeping each other in check and as long as we are healthy they don't bother us.
The problem is that most people live in cities and are dependent on getting their food from commercial growers. Few people grow their own food anymore.
Many people don't even know where their food comes from or that pineapple does not come from a pineapple tree. If people grew their own food they would know if it was sprayed with insecticides and how it was grown.
Even some farms at farmer's markets are small to intermediate size farms that process tons of food yearly. Any contamination can affect a larger segment of the community.
The advantage is that most of that produce is local and fresher. Produce that isn't wrapped in plastic does not trap the moisture that bacteria like to grow in.
The problem is that most people live in cities and are dependent on getting their food from commercial growers. Few people grow their own food anymore.
Many people don't even know where their food comes from or that pineapple does not come from a pineapple tree. If people grew their own food they would know if it was sprayed with insecticides and how it was grown.
Even some farms at farmer's markets are small to intermediate size farms that process tons of food yearly. Any contamination can affect a larger segment of the community.
The advantage is that most of that produce is local and fresher. Produce that isn't wrapped in plastic does not trap the moisture that bacteria like to grow in.