Speaking of euphamisms...

[sudsmaster]

Ever gone into a garden center and found some "environmentally friendly" compost that lists a strange ingredient?

Namely, "Milorganite".

It's a made up name for ... recycled sewage treatment plant solids... yep... from your loo to your garden...

Of course the stuff has been rendered non-infectious (or so they say) but I still worry about the heavy metals that might be present. So I don't buy any of it. Actually, I make my own compost (from yard trimmings and kitchen scraps) and it keeps the soil in very good condition.

 

[a440]

Wow!

For now... we have about 36 Oak trees. We mulch all of the leaves and use that for the "stock" for new flower beds.
Recycled sewage treatment plant solids? The is freaking scary! Is this only in your area or worldwide?
Scary to say the least!
Brent

 

[qsd-dan]

Supposedly, most vitamin B's are made from activated sewage sludge.....

 

[sudsmaster]

Dan,

I hadn't heard that about vitamin B... but I tend to doubt it.

Brent,

I believe the term "Milorganite" was coined somewhere in the mid-west. Maybe Milwaukee. It's not especially new, been around for many years.

I've noticed that compost made with the stuff and bagged for sale tends to have a distinctive, unpleasant odor. Proper compost should have a pleasant aroma, not unlike loam from a forest floor.

Yes, Milwaukee. Googled it. Link below. It's been around since at least the 30's.

http://www.milorganite.com/about/history.cfm

 

[rp2813]

So there must be a "molorganite" farm down there outside of Bakersfield where L.A. sends all of its treated sludge to spread out and allow to dry.

 

[iheartmaytag]

Our zoo sells their waste as composted Zoo-Poo. Just imagine fertalizing your tomatoes with Exotic Rino Dung, how exciting.

 

[xraytech]

No Thanks,

I think I will stick with my Miracle Gro and grass clippings for my garden

 

[toggleswitch2]

Phosphates, anyone?

oh please people.

My father used to use cow manure in his garden in NYC. On a windy day it smelled like Amish country, Pennsylvania.

Now of all smells and sights in NYC- dried, flaked, powdered cow-chips is the FURTHEST thing from my mind! But it existed, oh yes it did.

 

[sudsmaster]

You can buy lightly composted cow and chicken manure at just about any garden center. It generally stinks, but it works very well in the ground, as long as you mix it into the earth well and let it age a bit before planting. I used to buy it but now that my compost piles are going well I generally just supplement the soil with potassium (it tested low in that element) as well as the home made compost. The major problem here is that the soil tends to be on the clay side, and lots of compost helps to improve tilth and the plants benefit from it.

I did run across a news story that the Milorganite company had to recall tons of the stuff some years back when a local Milwaukee abandoned factory leaked lots of nasty solvents into the waste stream. And, until 1995, the packaging warned against using the stuff on food crops, due to heavy metal content. Supposedly now it's lower in heavy metals than most commercial fertilizers.

 

[whirlaway]

Poo

Well they called dinosaur dung copperlite!!!!

 

[sudsmaster]

That's "copralite"...

Back in high school I used to hang with science geeks and the resident paleontologist used to joke that the motto was "scat for the living, copralites for the dead". Oh, it was more funny then, I guess. Copralites can be of great scientific interest because they can show what foods ancient animals (and humans) ate way back when, and often pollen/seeds are preserved so plants can be identified as well. And there's plenty of carbon for dating.