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Re: Contaminated bone meal

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

Ayup.  Globalization and great experiments in animal nutrition and factory
farming, can cause problems and claim victims....

No doubt about it. For those into Biblical prophecy, there will come a time
to return to the vegan diet of Eden...

Meanwhile, for those wishing to play it more or less safe in our little
gardens of eatin', here are some alternatives:

General purpose fertilizer: veganic compost---grass clippings and fall
leaves are ubiquitous ingredients...

N-riched stuff---alfalfa meal, cottonseed meal, soybean meal---organic is
best  I prefer alfalfa for environmental reasons, as the growing of alfalfa,
a perennial legume, is wholesome for the land even when the crops are
exported...not so with cotton, neither with soybeans, both annual crops....

Green manures like alfalfa, clover, vetch, all provide N---grasses will
capture soluble N for later release....

P---alfalfa meal at 5-1-2 NPK is a complete fertilizer, as is compost. To
prime the pump for low phosphorous soils, rock phosphate is available.
Buckwheat and some other cover crops/green manures have the ability to make
phosphorous more available in soils. Rock phosphate works best on slightly
acidic soils.

K--most soils have plenty. Where it is short, greensand, granite dust and
kelp are good K sources---banana peels are especially rich in K.

From an environmental point of view, the greatest benefits derive from
capturing wastes, such as leaves, grass clippings, kitchen wastes, coffee
grounds, etc, before they clog up the landfills, and turn them into plant
friendly nutrient bearing compost.

In this polluted world of ours, we should worry some about what residues
these materials may be carrying. A reasonable strategy for these things and
for manures is, if you can't get totally pure materials you are sure of, let
them compost for a good long while---a year or more is not too long---which
will allow those little angels of mercy, the microbes, to break down most
materials.

This holds true for lawn chemicals, things like vermicides and antibiotics
in manure, and even under proper conditions, chemicals that are otherwise
persistent like PCBs and chlordane.

The Talmud injoins us not to use our composted manure "until sometime after
the outcast have used theirs..."  These days that advice is truer than ever.

Frank---has been promoting a vegetable and mineral approach in organics,
which he calls Harm-Less Horticulture----the first thing is to capture and
use all local materials that are suitable.....

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