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"gardens alive" and mothball contamination
- To: Multiple recipients of list SQFT <S*@UMSLVMA.UMSL.EDU>
- Subject: "gardens alive" and mothball contamination
- From: C* A* <C*@CCH.COM>
- Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 08:32:48 -0400
Hi folks - I'm sorry this is not directly on "square foot" point, but this
is my first year gardening and I'm using the sqft method and I have a
couple of questions about organic things to ask my oh so knowledgable
gardening friends:
1. Anybody have any experience with the stuff in the gardens alive catalog?
Is it really organic? Are the food items [ie vegetables alive!] just a
mixture of the stuff I'm already using - ie kelp, manure, fertilizers and
when it arrives, fish emulsion? What about the neem products - are they
truly organic or something I don't want to eat [or the dogs, who
occassionally munch on a plant - darn it!]
2. I am currently gardening in part of my well turned border bed [10x70 -
pretty large for crowded long island where it seems I'm going to be
spending the next couple of gardening decades, but I'm sure small for many
of you lucky folks!] but I'd like to pull up the areas the bulbs came up
in this spring [I hardly got to see them!] and turn those areas into raised
square foot veg beds this fall for spring planting. PROBLEM: before I
really knew anything, last fall, I added a ton of mothballs to those bulb
spots [well defined patches about 2x3'] and now I'm wondering if all the
chemicals have leached into that soil - if I dig up the entire patch and
get rid of mothballs and the first 5-6" of soil - will that be sufficient -
assuming I make an 8-12" raised bed over it and fill the whole thing with
new compost and stuff [making 14-18" of new stuff]? Or is it a bad idea to
place the veggies there at all? Or should I make raised beds a little
higher and have a closed bottom with openings only for drainage? I
definitely don't want my family sucking on mothballs!
I love this list - you are all so helpful and its nice to have someone to
share my new passion with [my husband will happily rake and dig and weed -
but he doesn't really care about actually growing things - he just likes
digging!] So thanks in advance for any help you can offer - Cherie in Long
Island NY - Zone 7ish or Sunset Zone 34.
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