Hi & welcome to Gardenweb!

How long have you lived there?

Thanks for replying. I have lived here since December of last year. When I moved in, the previous owner had removed about half of a 5 gallon buckets worth from the yard. Im hoping to have a garden going soon, but If I have to, I will do containers and raised beds that are separated from the contaminated soil.

Unless you can still see poo, I don't see how there could be any danger of any pathogens related to that. It's surely completely decomposed. Any kind of poo is a good fertilizer, even while it's still "there" and visible, it just needs to be composted in a pile or sufficiently decomposed from aging before using, although most people don't want poo in their compost pile, there are quite a few who do doo.

I doubt any of the nutrients from the poo are even still in your soil. That was a very long time ago, and fido's gifts make distinctly green, healthy patches in a lawn, temporarily. I'm sure you were going by last year, but it's the wrong time of year to know if those extra-green patches are still there, isn't your yard more white about now?

Are you planning to trade some areas of sad lawn for great flower/veggie beds?

You and your yard should be fine by now.

tj

Youll be just fine ..we feed out 300 steers every fall and when this initial feeding pen (getting them aclimated to grain) isnt in use from March to Oct We plant spagetti squash, zuchinni, pumpkins,melons and dill in that pen that has thousands of movments deposited in the previous months. we do this because they take up a lot of room and since our garden is only 60x60 behind the house. The plants grow great there I never have to fertilize or weed I just water once a week and wait.

Time is your best friend here since the disease pathogens from that animal manure will not live long in the soil environment. The National Institute for health, Center for Disease Control, and others, recommend not applying animal manures sooner than 90 days to harvest for those crops growing above ground and 120 days for root crops because research finds that the disease pathogens do not live longer in soils then those time frames.
Many poo-poo this because they have never had any problem not realizing that the 24, 48, ir 72 hour "flu" they had may well have been food poisoning caused by one of the many disease pathogens found in all (even human) manure.
Another defense is to be sure that soil has adequate amount of organic matter, vegetative waste not animal manure, which can help develop the Soil Food Web that also can help control disease pathogens.

You should sell your house and buy some land that has never been pooped on. It's the only way to be safe from the swarm of death that is in your yard.

I, however, am so impressed by the lush foliage in my dog's go-zone that I'm considering expanding the garden into there. Last year I picked up some of the demon bricks from the bowels of hell and put them in my worm bin because... oh crap

Ha. When I bought my previous house, I chose the dog run for my first garden. First reason was the existing fence, and second was the pre-existing fertilization. One of the dogs was a Dane with a blue eye and a brown eye, which gave me the impression the nasties would be nastier. I planted two months after taking possession, and failed because it was my first garden and I had started too late. I would have loved a little bout of poisoning coming from a cornucopia of vegetables, but it was not to be until year two.

The rich history of excrement in my garden then continues with hundreds direct hits from overhead birds, thousands of slugs in mulch, unpolitely adding insult to the injury of having ragged lettuce (would it kill them to get off the plant for a minute?), several vole invasions (I am talking real colonies), and earthworms processing several tons of undigested matter (including garbage cans of rotting and extremely smelly kitchen scraps, before I figured that mixing with leaves was they way to go) on a scale the Great Dane could only dream of. That garden is now, and has been for a long time, a pile of invertebrate excrement with a bit of original soil. When rabbits found a hole in the fence I discovered that coyote urine is for people who have money to burn, and I found my in-house, organic, free solution for predator scented urine. I then discovered that all that scenting was making gigantic collards, so I kept scenting long after the rabbits were gone. You should jump right in with all these critters, join the party, and thank them for their positive contribution to your garden, as well as their subtle contribution to the training and strengthening of your immune system.

My dad has the impression that using crushed limestone (garden lime) on dog poo yards it helps to decompose the poo faster and kill germs, which I would imagine would be counterproductive. The so-called germs (some of them) are helping break down the dog poo. Any educated guesses or facts to add, anyone?

Poaky, it's likely that he also mentioned putting lime on dead bodies was something that was common a while back.

From my observations, alkaline materials such as garden lime or water with ashes soaking in it are effective at reversing the odors of anaerobic activity in worm bins. In my opinion, this is a likely reason for the term "sweetening" being associated with raising PH with lime as it certainly seems to take away the sour sulfurous smell.

I've heard from many sources that lime was used in military body bags and on dead bodies in order to speed decay. I was in the army and in combat, but the army was careful not to talk about or let us even see body bags. I suspect that it is one of many nonsensical rumors, but I've seen photographs of the bags with a white powder. If this is not absorbent material to catch the juices that come from decaying bodies, then it could be lime for reducing the stench. It could also just be to keep the bags from sticking together, like surgical gloves and balloons have.

I have seen in multiple old gardening videos sprinkling of powdered lime around a new plant with the intention of repelling slugs.

I have read that the presence of calcium stimulates worms to reproduce. I don't disagree with this, but I can't confirm it either.

I have read that a brief rain will wash huge quantities of calcium in the soil to below the reach of plants.

I have found that if I put a lot of garden lime in my worm bin or directly add it to my worm bin runoff juice, the dissolved solids will rapidly flocculate and the water will turn clear while all the "good" stuff irreversibly settles to the bottom. Lime is used in sewage treatment facilities for this same purpose. Do note though that my worm bin generally has around 20" depth of material in it and that the lime will go right through and end up in the runoff juice. This seems to confirm what I read about calcium washing from soil.

Supposedly tomatoes will be less likely to suffer blossom end rot if you feed them some lime, but I think it's supposed to be dolomite lime since that has magnesium.

I was talking about lime and its recommended usage against slugs with a friend of mine who is in the field of biotechnology and he started talking about calcium ions being critical for ion exchange in muscles and other cells, and that slugs are very sensitive to ionic charge and osmotic pressure because their skin is both their lungs and main sensory organ... or something like that, but it explains why salt kills them rapidly.

I've also gathered from two sources so far that if there is a problem with excessive nitrogen in an area, that adding sugar water will essentially tie up the nitrogen by triggering a bacterial bloom. The first I heard about it was in correcting nitrogen levels for bringing native grasses back into dominance on old pasture land. The second was advice on what to do for grass that dies from dog urine. That has nothing to do with lime.

I didn't take pictures or written notes last year when I bought some lime and started trying it, but I do recall that it seemed to make my young trees and plants more robust to the extent that I started putting it on everything.

I apologize for this negative comment.
Recently I read an article about dog waste.
It inst good, if I was you since there is going to be a food item to be eaten out of your garden, I would check with your local Agriculture dept, here in PA we have our local extension service fro Penn State University
There's some very nasty stuff in a dogs digestive system
Just be safe and careful

It's my job in the summer-oh, who am i trying to kid-it's my job all the time to pick up the dog poo in the yard. If I don't get to it before dh cuts the grass, it gets incorporated into the grass clippings which are then dumped onto various compost heaps in the yard. This has been happening for years (20+) and we haven't gottten sick from it yet!

japus

There is nasty stuff in every living beeings digetive system.. Worms included. your counter top in your house is probably as contaminated, The meat you prepare at at home is full of samonella...dogs and cats have been around since before the pyramids and cities are full of them, they Crap and pee all over (most dont pick up) Its your choice to be hyper sensitive and regergitate the non gardening people who write blogs that majored in sky diving and photography to get thier blog count up or use common sence like your folks and grand folks did.Wash your hands.

Right on Oil Robb, I was baffled as to how a person on this planet could be unaware that food is grown in manure and has been as long as people have been growing food. I thought everyone had driven within a mile of a crop field and realized it smelled like a cow's primary product.

Stating that you grow melons in the lot that is coated with manure was pleasant to read because watermelons evolved in Africa to grow in the wake of the animals that leave them. Watermelons evolved to grow in piles of poop after their seeds traveled through the digestive system of elephants... And it's a pretty common adaptation throughout the plant kingdom.

The only down sides to dog poop that I have found are that I have to cut the grass more often, and when I gathered some up to put in the worm bin my dog mistook that action for "don't go there" and now spreads it all over. So now I need to put on shoes when I go outside. On the bright side, pooping dog is now a source of entertainment as I hope for her to go close to the fruit trees so I don't have to buy poop to put on them. Buy poop... Imagine that.

Next people are going to start insisting that forest fires are bad for the forests when they are really only bad for the morons that put their houses in forests that depend on wildfires to stay healthy.

THANKS everyone for replying.

I have decided to plant above ground veggies this upcoming year , and then underground veggies next year. Just to make sure that if theres anything bad in there that its decomposed and wont be in direct contact with the veggies.

I've always thought that manure is good for gardens, as long as the manure wasn't from MEAT EATERS. That's where the bad bugs come from. My parents had added lime to the bureal pits of 3 or 4 horses we had, once they died and then after to digest dog feces in the yard. The trees in this area can take some lime. There is lots of dog pee (acidic) in there too. So I guess the limimg won't harm anything, as long as I don't overdo it.

If it's been over a year, there's almost certainly nothing dangerous left - or in such small quantities as to not matter.

If you want to be extra safe, though, give priority to fruiting plants whose leaves you don't eat. Although that's probably fine too, and you should be washing the leaves anyway.

You don't have to worry about below ground veggies this year or ever. No matter who has or has not been pooping in your soil, you should always wear gloves any time you handle soil and you should always wash your veggies very well before eating them. I know that a lot of people don't wear gloves, but that is what we learned in Master Gardeners' class. My hands still get dirty even with the gloves, but there is a lot less crud under my nails. Use a nail brush and warm water. There can be e coli or other nasties in any soil.

The Onion put out a pretty good nature series called Horrifying planet. In it, they suggested pouring bleach on everything in order to assist the world in returning to the immaculate barren planet she was always meant to be.

This thread lies closer to that satirical representation of cleanliness than any realistic one.

Here is a link that might be useful: Horrifying planet - episode 12