Persistent Herbicides Contaminating Animal Manures Making them "Killer Compost"

As an organic gardener, I'm concerned about the increased use with inadequate labeling of persistent herbicides such as picloram and clopyralid.  To read more on this issue, see this excellent article from Mother Earth News.

If you want to take action as suggested in the article, you could send an email to the EPA at this address: keigwin.richard@epa.gov

Here is a letter that I wrote to the EPA that you may use as a template.  I'm sure you all can tailor it better.
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Mr. Keigwin,

I am an organic gardener who is trying to garden vegetables at home to improve the health of my family and reduce our environmental impact by eating very locally.  I was surprised recently to learn that I can no longer compost horse manure to reuse as a fertilizer for our garden as it may be contaminated with persistent herbicides such as picloram and clopyralid.  Since these herbicides can persist through the animal ingesting the sprayed food product, get into the manure, and even remain after composting, they may still be present in the composted manure.  It is so sad that we as a country are allowing a potentially reusable resource like animal manures to become contaminated with herbicides that make it into a true waste product rather than a reusable resource.  These herbicides are too harmful to our farming cycle to continue to be legal.  I hope the EPA will change its policy toward these herbicides.

Sincerely,

Slow Down!

As a person who multitasks yet constantly feels like I'm being spit off the back of the treadmill of life, I found this article really interesting.  I try to simplify, yet I also find myself doing things that complicate.  Blogging, for example.  Web surfing.  Various garden projects.  Isn't it just easier to buy stuff at the store?  Faster.  Wait - that's the point.  A lot of my projects (which can be overwhelming in their number and scope, especially for my life phase, as I mother little ones) are simplification projects.  Growing food is a slow process, a labor of love, a developing oneness with the food.  And yet it is also watering, weeding, planting, composting -- translation -- time.  It is slow.  Yet it is also a time sink.  One in the same, I suppose.  There is this tension between wanting to get things done so you have time to move on to the things you want to do vs. just slowing everything down and enjoying the process.  Being mindful. 

Where do I waste time?  Web-surfing, email, reading news.  But is it such a waste?

We don't really watch TV, so the time isn't being sunk there. 

This article points to agreement about increased speed of life now.  We get places faster (cars, airplanes) and get information faster (internet, phones), so why aren't we overwhelmed with leisure time?  Doesn't that sound nice?  Being overwhelmed with leisure time.  Yet I don't know anyone who feels that way.  Why not?  Longer hours at work?  Greater expectations for ourselves and our families?  More scheduled activities for kids?  Multi-generational care across suburban (and global) sprawl?

Some of the ways we try to simplify in our home are:
- almost no TV
- minimal cell phone use (so we aren't getting calls everywhere we go)
- growing some of our food
- preserving some of our food (but again, is this just complicating things?  It would be faster to buy a jar of applesauce than make it.  But I guess that's the point - SLOW DOWN!)
- I don't like to run errands all the time, so I postpone trips like going to the grocery store (in the article he discusses the merits of skipping a bookstore trip that he doesn't really have time for anyway).  But this ends up with less frequent trips.  The ones I do make are time-consuming and feel like a marathon!
- intentional reduction in consumption.  Freecycle and Craig's List are not only cheaper, but also greener - by reusing stuff.  They are more of a process - than the quick accomplishment of just buying something new.  So does searching for a pressure canner for a year on Freecycle, Craig's List, garage & estate sales, and thrift shops count as "slowing down"?  Or is it just a complication and I should have just bought a new one and got it over with?

I'm afraid that I'm a long way off from having the answers.  I'm open to suggestions.  How do you simplify your life?

Garden Update April 2010

I started seeds MONTHS ago so that I'd be ready to go early to plant them.  And here it is the end of April.  Just this weekend, I finally put 7 basil plants in the ground, 3 patty pan squash, and 5 shallots.  The best laid plans...  Anyway, it was good to finally get them in.  And I planted them with some gorgeous compost that we'd sifted a couple weekends ago.  We used the coarser woody chunks as mulch on the yard to suppress weeds.  The fine compost I put in a trash can to store until I needed it in the garden.  In addition to a healthy crop of pill bugs and ear wigs, I couple squash-like plants sprouted in the trash can.  So I planted those in the garden today too and labeled them "mystery".  DS, who loves flowers, was pleased that we were able to plant about 7 marigolds that were already blooming after starting them from seed.

I gotta hand it to our citrus trees.  Today I picked the last orange tree clean.  They've been feeding us steadily since early December.  I've harvested over 216 pounds of mandarins, tangelos and navel oranges!  That's a lot of produce.

I've been keeping my "garden finance log" with the expenses and yields of the garden, starting in Nov 2009 with a large seed order.  To date, my garden expenses (which excludes water - hard to quantify - and labor) are $132.21 and my yield is $449.41.

We picked more of our carrots today, which is such a great crop for kids.  It is so fun to see what comes up out of the ground!

Breastfeeding saves lives and money - BIG money

Breastmilk is amazing.  "The United States incurs $13 billion in excess costs annually and suffers 911 preventable deaths per year because our breastfeeding rates fall far below medical recommendations"  "...95 percent of these deaths, are attributed to three causes: sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS); necrotizing enterocolitis, seen primarily in preterm babies and in which the lining of the intestinal wall dies; and lower respiratory infections such as pneumonia."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/05/breastfeeding.costs/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn

I know from experience that it isn't always easy to breastfeed, though.  Families need support (LOTS of it) and education.

I was impressed this winter when my family got a bad stomach bug.  It killed my 92 year old grandfather.  DS (4 years old) was still throwing up a week into it.  I was sick for days and days.  DD (over 1 year old) was sick for about 4 hours!  She still nurses.  Amazing.

Love my new widget!

Most weeks I try to check the watering index in Southern California so that we can adjust our irrigation system accordingly.  Some "intelligent" timers adjust on their own, but I think they require a paid subscription.  Instead, we check the index.  This helps us to water how much our plants need but not use too much water, which besides being wasteful, is becoming increasingly expensive. 

Well, now I have a widget on my blog that tells us the watering index!  I'm so excited!  Check it out.  It should be over there on the right.

King Corn

DH and I watched the documentary King Corn yesterday.  I highly recommend it.  The movie was entertaining and very educational about how we developed such a glut of corn and how it is in almost everything we eat (beef, bread, crackers, etc).  They connect the dots of the redone Farm Bill in 1973 to the rise of high fructose corn syrup, obesity, diabetes, and declining life expectancy.  It makes me wonder how far we could go in stemming the explosion of health care costs if we just stopped subsidizing corn so that empty calories weren't the cheapest.  And here's a far out idea - if we want to support farmers, we could subsidize local, organic farming such that healthy foods became cheaper.  What would happen to our nation's weight if a fresh salad from the local market were cheaper than a fast food burger and soda?

Announcing our first-ever contest: license plate for hybrid car?

The publisher(s) of Green GF Garden (me) are pleased to announce our first ever contest.  You could WIN WIN WIN!  Just come up with the winning entry and you will get an official "thank you" on our high traffic blog, Green GF Garden!

Here are the rules (or at least the situation):
My dear mom is considering branching out after 40 years of only driving Volvos.  Being a born and bred Volvo driver I can sympathize with her plight.  My Volvo wagon gets about 20 MPG, similar to her sedan.  Not too green.  So she is considering buying the first and only new car of her life (normally she gets used ones).  She has her eyes on a Toyota Prius.  To celebrate her first and only new car of her life and the fact that it will get great gas mileage, she wants to also get her first and only vanity plate of her life.  She's looking for something to put on the plate.  She lives in Arizona and the plate is limited to 7 letters/digits.  Do you have a great idea?  We're not above copying someone else's fabulous plate in another state.  But obviously can't copy one in Arizona.  She saw one on a Prius that she liked:

YNOTU

As in, c'mon get on the bandwagon and get a lower impact car!  I want her to get a vibrantly lime green car and one of these plates:

GOGREEN

GETGRNR

Sadly, she wants a white car so it wouldn't be as big impact.  What are your ideas?  Remember, you could win an official thank you!