gross but...

Your peas, as with all legumes, set nitrogen in the soil. You can either just turn the finished plants right in, or cut them at ground level. Put the tops in the compost pile, leave the roots in the ground, where their nodes will continue providing nitrogen.

Speaking of coffee grounds.
We seem to have a lot of the stuff, but I wonder about tilling it straight into garden soil.
Seems like the kind of thing that should be composted first although my Mom always dumped them straight onto her geraniums.

What do you think KY?

Gross too...
Lemon trees love urine. Save on flushing water by getting people to pee around the tree :blush:

HappyFood, coffee grounds are acidic. In theory, too much of them all at once can effect the pH of the soil.

Geraniums (also azelas, blueberries and some other plants) actually thrive in acidic soil, which is why dumping grounds straight in is ok.

My feelings: If you're talking about the grounds from your own coffeepot, I'd say just dump them in the garden, spreading them out day to day. If you're collecting them from other sources I would mix them into the compost pile first, just so there's no sudden acidic shock to the soil.

BTW, there is no need to till organic material into the soil. Once you've established halfway decent tilth (which, for those of us with almost pure clay can be quite a job) all you need do is spread it in the form of mulch, striving for a greens/browns balance. This is called "sheet composting" generically. It not only serves as a mulch, earthworms will draw it into the soil.

Tilling, you may or may not know, is a very controversial subject. Many authorities insist that tilling upsets the balance of the soil and harms the microherd, so recommend against it.

Actually, a combost bin or pile, as such, is a relatively newcomer.

Direct additions are the more usual approach, even in today's world. Green manures, for instance, are merely turned into the soil right where they were grown. Ditto for other garden waste. Turning the garden in is a fall tradition for many people, and marks the end of their gardening year.

Sheet composting---especially under its modern guise "lasagna gardening"---likely has at least as many adherents as those who maintain compost piles. One benefit of this is that you do not harm the tilth if you overdo one side of the equation. For instance, wood chips spread on the surface have a minimal impact on the soil. Wood chips tilled in, however, can have a major effect as they use up available carbon.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, vermiculture has grown by leaps and bounds. The goal of vermiculture is to produce worm castings, which then get added to the garden. Vermiculture, btw, is a great way to go for people who live in neighborhoods with restrictive covenents that forbid compost piles. You can maintain a vermiculture bin under your kitchen sink.

A surprising number of people bury their vegetable waste each day. They spade up a hole in the garden, drop in the organic material, and cover it over. Next day they do the same in another spot.

Then there are the folks who convert their organic waste into compost tea and similar liquids. These are often applied in the form of foliar sprays.

And I'm probably leaving a few out.

I've read in several places that this is not a good idea due to the high e-coli content of green manures. The resulting soil in which food is grown winds up with a high e-coli content that can then be easily transferred to the fruits of the vegetables planted in it.

E-coli can only be killed with heat, so it's important to add the manure to a compost pile or bin and allow it to heat up to kill the harmful bacteria present.

Remember the e-coli outbreak a few years ago that originated from unpasteurized apple cider? It was made from fallen apples that came into contact with feces of animals that traversed the orchards to eat the fallen apples. Even though the apples were washed, no heat was applied to kill harmful bacteria before bottling the cider and a lot of people became very sick, especially children.

It makes sense that this problem would occur if uncomposted manure was spread on a garden and then vegetables grown in it which were then eaten raw.

Seems to be a bit of confusion here, HappyFood.

You are mixing up raw manure with green manure. Raw manure is the unaged byproduct of an animal. Green manure is a plant.

Green manures are plants that add nitrogen to the soil. They're called that because nitrogen is the biggest thing that animal manure adds. Among the green manures are legumes (cowpeas in particular), certain grains (rye and wheat), and a few others.

Typically a green manure is used on ground you leave fallow that year. One reason I prefer legumes is that I can achieve both; enrich the soil while still enjoying a harvest.

Personally, I think that whole e-coli thing has been rather overdone. The problem with most raw manures is that their nitrogen content is so high that if you apply them fresh you can actually burn plants. The worst of these are the droppings from fowl, which must be aged. There are noteably exceptions. For instance bunny poo can be applied directly to the garden, as can that from llamas and a few other animals. But, in general, animal manure should be aged before adding it.

Just for the record, you have e-coli in your gut right now, as part of its natural fauna.

Do you really think that the process you describe makes sense? Keep in mind that e-coli exists only on the surface of plants. It is, unlike with animals, not systemic to them.

So, according to what you have read, what we're going to do is 1. add additional e-coli to the garden soil in dangerous amounts; 2. transfer that e-coli to the vegetables we grow in dangerous amounts; and 3. despite washing the veggies, wind up injesting e-coli in dangerous amounts.

I think not.

Most people believe that the word "manure" refers to poop of some kind or another. Using the term "green manure" to the casual gardener can, obviously, lead to confusion as is the case here.

I do NOT think the e-coli issue is overblown. As a matter of fact, my belief is that people do not pay enough attention to it.
For example, at a couple of the farmer's markets that my partner and I attend, there are a couple of people who set up grills and cook hamburgers and sausage sandwiches from their grass fed beef and pork. I see little kids running around eating mostly raw burgers and sausages all the time and am flabbergasted that parents don't send it back. These cooks are putting the public's health at severe risk.

We also see farmers selling raw milk "under the table" so to speak. There is no way for these farmers to guarantee the safety of this milk or any way for their customers to be assured that the farmer's milking practices eliminate the opportunity for e-coli and other bacteria to be present in the milk.

Personally, I know a farmer whose 5 year old child died of milk poisoning due to him giving her raw milk. She died within 24 hours of ingesting the milk. The investigation revealed that there was significant fecal contamination on the udders of the cows and thus in the milk and that the udders of several of the cows had low grade bacterial infections that affected the milk even before it was drawn from the cow.

I KNOW there is e-coli in every animal's (including humans) digestive tract. Duh! I also know that I could get very sick if I ate even a small bit of it. That's why industrial meat production is such an issue these days as many animals live for months crammed into feed lots where they stand in their own feces for weeks on end before slaughter. Then during processing, it's very easy for intestinal material to contaminate the meat during the evisceration process that leads to the massive meat recalls that keep occurring.

If, as you describe, I grow cucumbers or tomatoes in a garden that has had fresh manure applied to it, and e-coli exists on the surface of these veggies, it's not unlikely that I might get sick from eating a fresh cucumber and tomato salad made from them. Peeling does not necessarily protect one because the peeler can transfer the bacteria from the surface to the interior. However, washing the veggies in a chlorine solution can eliminate most of the harmful bacteria, though most people would be averse to this idea since most people use too much bleach in such a solution. BTW-1 tablespoon of bleach to 5 gallons of water will do the trick and add no taste to anything you might wash in it.

I've had food poisoning from poorly sanitized food service operators too many times to take any risk here, or downplay the damage it can inflict on small children.
Better safe than sorry, or dead.

>Using the term "green manure" to the casual gardener can, obviously, lead to confusion as is the case here. <

Well, that's one of the reasons for forums like this; so we can edjumacate each other.

>I do NOT think the e-coli issue is overblown.<

Each to his own. And this is an issue on which nobody is going to change anyone else's mind.

Food and environmental safety is not a matter of opinion, KY. It's based on scientific evidence.
You can choose to ignore it, if you want, and choose to confuse opinion with fact. However, people who make their livings by serving food to the public do so at their own peril and liability, and endanger public safety.

As a food writer, it's important that you fact check and not disseminate information that could cause harm to others. Doing so is reckless and diminishes the credibility that you obviously work very hard to create.

As far as a rare burger the local grass fed beef was probably butchered by a local company who uses a lot higher standard of cleanliness than factory beef. I visited the butcher I get my grass fed beef through and I asked him if he would be afraid of eating it rare. He grabbed some from the meat case and ate it raw! Meat that is processed properly is pretty sterile. His operation was spotless and I watched them from start to finish as they processed a cow. Everything was kept as clean as possible the entire time. In between hamburger batches they would tear down the grinder and sanitize it!

As far as raw from the garden a quick rinse is all it takes, I can't see using chemicals on veggies I grow without any chemicals just because I might miss a bacteria or two.

>Food and environmental safety is not a matter of opinion, KY. It's based on scientific evidence.<

Too true, Happy.

So, show me even one study relating to people getting sick from injesting e-coli because of cow manure that was worked into their gardens.

That's probably one of those "obvious" things so beloved of activists and popular science writers who can't be bothered learning the truth.

Reminds me, in many ways, of the zinc controversy surrounding the use of pelletized tires on garden paths. And worse, the idea that children could poison themselves from the arsenic in treated lumber when no actual studies had been done---or any cases reported, for that matter.

Is e-coli contamination a possible health issue? You betcha. But the fact is, it's been used to create hysteria far beyond any real problems. That's what I mean by it being overblown.

You're a good case. Look at all the things you claimed that are not correct. Where did all that information come from? You obviously have strong feelings on this issue. Seems to me you would support that opinion by looking at actual scientific evidence, rather than repeating what some popular writer or broadcaster, with little understanding, had to say.

What you said was: "I've read in several places that this is not a good idea due to the high e-coli content of green manures." Obviously, none of them actually said "green manures," as we've discussed. If they were knowledgeable about gardening, they wouldn't have used the term in that context. And if they don't know about gardening, they'd have never heard the term, and so would have had no reason to use it.

I would suggest further, however, that none of those several places where you supposedly read this "fact" were scientific journals.

I was just going to let this drop, as I indicated. But I can't express how deeply I resent the cheap shot you tried to take at my professionalism, when, as Dilbert has demonstrated so aptly, you're the one who needs to be given a quarter so you can go buy a clue.

You wanna blather about scientific evidence? Fine. As the lady said, "where's the beef!!" Show me the evidence for any of the things you've claimed.

All food service establishments in New York State must have at least one member of their management team certified as having completed and passed the Serve Safe course for food service health and sanitation within 6 months of the initial business license. These courses and certificates are issued by the Department of Environmental Health and are good for 3 years.

The "Serve Safe" course has a manual that clearly explains all food bourn pathogens, their risks to human health, the sources of contamination, and accepted methods to reduce or eliminate risk of contamination. Vinegar does not kill e-coli (it does retard its ability to reproduce however due to the acidic environment)-heat, irradiation, and chemical sanitizers do.

I got my certification last November and still refer to the course manual frequently as I did when writing my previous post. I've also been certified as a Serve-Safe instructor in NC and Florida. If you care to look, results of such studies (which you claim have never been done) can be found at the US Dept of Agriculture site as well as the Centers for Disease Control in addition to any state's Department of Environmental Health. I

Really, as much as you would like to believe that I'm some kind of raging lunatic, I've got my information from documented and reliable sources. In addition, I also read Mother Earth News quite frequently and there is always useful information there about safely composting all kinds of stuff that also checks out with Dept of Ag. and Health Dept findings.
I was only referring to the fact that when the word "manure" is used, most people think "Poop" just as I had previously misunderstood what KY meant by using the term "green manure." I had just never run into the phrase used in that way before.

Also, I make my living at six different farmers markets per week and know many, many farmers. Some are responsible, informed people. Others are not and some of the latter group actually do spread horse and cattle manure directly on their fields and work it in. Just take a visit to Amish country in the springtime. The pig sties all look very clean and the ground very, very black for that very reason.
Unfortunately, many people believe that if they buy their food directly from the farmers at such markets that the food is better for them in quality and overall health. While for the most part, this can be true, it's not necessarily.

BTW, the farmer that gave his daughter raw milk was just the kind of Uber-organic back-to-the-land type that thinks all new research into food safety is bogus and that exposure to bacteria and dirt "builds strength and immunity" in children. He sold raw milk "under the table" to many people until he learned the cruel reality of such mistaken beliefs.

Of course, the grass fed source of the ground beef and pork sausage had no relevance to the e-coli danger posed by serving undercooked meat. I was merely describing the environment in which I witnessed this danger to kids.
I believe you were reading my post inaccurately Dillbert.

And KY, before you eviscerate me for misunderstanding one term you use, take a look at how it could be easily interpreted in a different way. You, sir, are NOT the be-all, end-all authority on all food safety issues and farming under the sun. Neither am I. But we all have valuable experience to contribute here. Walk a while in another's shoes and you may get a little different perspective.

>If you care to look, results of such studies (which you claim have never been done)<

Well, I hope you read that manual better than you read my posts.

I did not claim such studies have never been done. I challanged you to show me one of them---which, of course, you've yet to do. All you've done is made some nebulous claims about what I might find at the USDA and CDC sites.

I've got better things to do than wade through their complete sites. If you know of such studies, send me right to them.

And using a manual based on what USDA says doesn't make it scientifically true. I know---from having worked with them---exactly how USDA, FDA, and EPA TACs do their jobs. Very philosophical; facts do not sway them in the light of higher truths.

Besides which, how commercial endeavers are controlled has little to do with home gardening practices.

>You, sir, are NOT the be-all, end-all authority on all food safety issues and farming under the sun. Neither am I. <

Your absolutely correct. I neither claim to be, nor believe that I am. But, then again, you don't find me attacking somebody elses professionalism after filing a post filled with artifact and incorrect information.

>And KY, before you eviscerate me for misunderstanding one term you use,....<

Ok, so you didn't know what green manure meant, and assumed it meant something else. Had we not continued this conversation, I have to wonder how many others you'd have shared that "factual" information with. But let's see, what other "facts" have been misunderstood.

You originally contended: E-coli can only be killed with heat,
Now you say: heat, irradiation, and chemical sanitizers do.

Need we go on with this.

>>I was only referring to the fact that when the word "manure" is used, most people think "Poop" just as I had previously misunderstood what KY meant by using the term "green manure." I had just never run into the phrase used in that way before.

perfectly understandable. understand also that the term "green manure" dates back decades decades decades. whatever sources relied upon for the error are highly highly suspect in any other degree of accuracy.

I suspect that somewhere in the chain of "thinking/writing/reading/comprehension" there has been an erroneous substitution of "fresh manure" with "green manure"

>>Others are not and some of the latter group actually do spread horse and cattle manure directly on their fields and work it in.

uhmmm, little problem here. if they spread fresh manure on the ground and work it in,,,, what exactly happened to the crop they spread it on?

I live in York County - that's like right next door to Lancaster County - which has a couple Amish families in residence. I also speak the language - so be careful what is true about the Amish because they do battery power and I can take my notebook out there for a character by character quote.

>>I was merely describing the environment in which I witnessed this danger to kids.
I believe you were reading my post inaccurately Dillbert.

nope. are you taking exception to grass fed or not fully cooked? the post bashes both equally and in the same sentence.

>>Vinegar does not kill e-coli
well, you'll need to take that up with a real source vs tabloid / extremists / whacked out publications.

/quote
Yes, vinegar DOES kill many bacteria and viruses, including many very dangerous ones that can be in food such as E. Coli O157:H7 (see for example scholarly research that shows this http://www.ingentaconnect.com/conten...00008/art00005 ). It is probably good to use in the kitchen and other places that you may be worried about harsher chemicals like bleach getting into food.
/unquote

>>Walk a while in another's shoes and you may get a little different perspective.
and that has what to do with "science" ?
more / less smelly feet changes "science"?

* Discussion Focus *

Let's keep this discussion focused on the topic rather than guttural, personal attacks. Certainly, there is much to be said for different perspectives and the sharing of said perspectives. Let us all respect the exchange in the spirit of education for which it is offered.