WE DON'T NEED ANIMAL WASTE TO GROW PLANTS

PLANTS AND ANIMAL WASTE

 

Farmers have been saying that animal manure is necessary for plant production.  Nothing is farther from the truth.

I have been a gardener for over 40 years.  In 1999, we had to replace our septic system.  The company that we hired to do this came and dug a huge hole in my front yard where I had a garden. They took all my precious, black, rich topsoil and replaced it with rocky, hard, brown dirt. When the new system was done, I was left with the task of growing a garden in substandard dirt.

I went to a bait shop and rescued hundreds of earthworms.  I released them into my garden. In fall, I raked all the leaves from my trees into my garden.  The neighbors dumped their leaves there also.  Gradually, the dirt improved and in a couple of years it was rich, black topsoil. I did not use manure or any fertilizer. 

Other ways to keep the soil rich, are crop rotation and companion planting.  Crop rotation is simply don't plant the same crop year after year in the same soil. Companion planting works like this:  certain plants give nutrients to the soil that other plants need. By mixing those plants in a field you can keep the soil rich. 

 

Using animal manure to fertilize plants is dangerous because it can spread diseases. An E. coli outbreak that killed 33 people in 2006 was linked to animal manure infecting spinach. In 2012, this happened again.

We don’t need poop or chemicals to grow plants. We don’t want poop or chemicals on our food. Nature has a way of making things right if you let it.