Fertilized Grass Clippings- oops!

[yellie417]

We are brand new home owners. I've grown up with a gardening grandfather who has now passed away and so I've always been excited to have my own garden.

This spring we dug up a large, sloping area of our yard and built a tiered garden. Since April, we've been adding our grass clippings to the soil and tilling it in. (We have a lot of clay in our soil.) It just hit me that since we fertilized our grass with Scott's 5 step system (don't know exactly what it's called- my husband does the lawn) that that might not have been the smartest move. The second step of the system was a weed killer. Last night we just finished building the walls of the garden, adding compost and peat humus to the soil, and we tilled for the last time. I was planning on planting fruits and veggies tomorrow, but now I'm wondering if that's a good idea. We're a little late anyway, although we might be okay since we're in the northeast US. Should I go ahead as planned and hope that since it's such a large area the soil can dilute the contaminants, or should I hold off until next year?

[Jess]

Hi yellie

I would hold off until next year. Whatever the weedkiller in your grass fertilizer was will be taken up by any veges that manage to grow and then you will be eating the poison!

See if you can find out exactly what the weedkiller is from the box/bag and then google it to find out how long it will take to break down and exactly how toxic it is.

[yellie417]

Thanks. I thought so... I can't believe we didn't think that through! We've been so careful about everything else we've added to the soil!

I found websites that show how toxic the weedkillers are, but none that say how long it takes to break down. Do you know of any good websites for that?

Also, wow! I had no idea that fertilizers/weedkillers were so toxic. We just asked our neighbor what he uses because his lawn looks so good. Our lawn was in bad shape but it's looking much better now. We now started leaving the clippings in the grass instead of using the bag on the lawn mower. Any other suggestions for fertilizing and killing weeds that aren't so toxic?

Hi yellie

I would hold off until next year. Whatever the weedkiller in your grass fertilizer was will be taken up by any veges that manage to grow and then you will be eating the poison!

See if you can find out exactly what the weedkiller is from the box/bag and then google it to find out how long it will take to break down and exactly how toxic it is.