Its safe because it is organic

Kimmsr

10 years ago

Prof. Jeff Gillman addresses this issue although I do not necessarily agree with everything he does say.

Here is a link that might be useful: GGW314

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (9)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
10 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
anything.. IMPROPERLY used.. is inherently UNsafe ...

so the title is not correct .. ergo.. as to the premise ...

breathe in a bag of dichotomous earth ... you will have problems similar to silicosis ... so whats safe about it???? ... besides the fact.. that it rarely works.. lol .. yeah.. yeah.. use an organic paper mask ... but it still makes the product.. unsafe ...

ken

ps: i read the link article.. i didnt have time to watch the vid.. if that makes a difference ... red wings are on.. gotta go ...
tsugajunkie z5 SE WI ♱
10 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Dichotomous earth? Is that earth from a ravine? An earthquake split? Oh, diatomaceous earth...lol

tj
Related Discussions
Safe termite control for organic garden
Q
Comments (24)
I know I'm late to the discussion. Fipronil trench is a perfect solution to preventing termites from getting into your walls. It is a very labor intensive job, and a homeowner can accomplish this if dedicated to the job. In conjunction to this, exercise the bait stations in and around the perimeter of your house. You can also create your own termite killing bait stations. Get some pine garden stakes, a 5 gallon bucket. Mix a super concentrated solution of fipronil in some water, soak the garden stakes in the solution for several weeks, occasionally stir the solution with the stakes about every 2-3 days. Hammer stakes in the ground around your house. Termites cannot detect the fipronil, will eat on the stakes, bring the poison back to the colony and destroy the hive. Use the old solution of fipronil around dark damp areas surrounding your home to amend your barrier. Agee with other post; the chemical deterrent barriers simply don't work and the termites will find the area that is deficient in treatment, whereas the undetectable barrier is the Trojan horse. You can find this stuff on domyownpestcontrol.com or Amazon Love that website. BTW, I use Taurus SC as opposed the more expensive Termidor SC. Now, back to the question. How do I keep the termites out of my garden, and to stop eating away at the planter box. Here is my intentions. On the bottom of the planter, spread a grip load of diatomaceous earth down nice and even with special attention around the wood areas, lay a weed block barrier down. Apply a plastic barrier between the planter box and the garden dirt (stapled). Wet the planter box boards and rub diatomaceous earth (DE) on the boards (use rubber gloves), and as you work your way to the top of keep pouring DE between the plastic sheet and boards. Cover the top of the boards with the plastic sheet to the other side and down about an inch. The diatomaceous earth (if ingested by any bug, will rip their intestines apart and keep grub and termites from coming from the bottom of your planter). Not sure if this is going to work, but it is plausible in my mind. In one growing season, the termites have eaten about halfway through my pine 2x10's! Nasty critters.
...See More
safe/organic prevention for japanese beetles
Q
Comments (16)
"Natural Controls Many kinds of birds such as bobwhites, eastern kingbirds, crows, European starlings, redwinged blackbirds, catbirds, songsparrows, robins and grackles eat Japanese beetles. European starlings, common grackles and crows eat large numbers of grubs in heavily infested areas. When grubs are close to the surface, flocks of starlings may be seen on lawns and pastures digging up grubs with their long, pointed bills. Crows frequently pull up small pieces of turf and scatter them over a lawn as they dig. Moles, shrews and skunks also feed on white grubs. These animals can damage lawns as they search for grubs. Predaceous insects such as wheel bugs, robber flies and praying mantids occasionally feed on adult beetles. A few native wasps and flies also feed on beetle adults or grubs, but they appear to play only a minor part in beetle control. Several parasitic wasps, flies and beetles have been imported from the Orient in an attempt to control the beetle in the United States with only limited success. Milky Spore Disease Milky spore disease is a bacterial disease that kills Japanese beetle grubs. Spores of this bacterium are produced commercially and sold under the names of Doom,, Japidemic, and Milky Spore. The application of milky spore may reduce the numbers of Japanese beetle grubs in lawns but beetles will fly in from other areas to damage plants and crops. Research trials using this approach to reduce grub numbers in turf have given very erratic results. The disease does not kill other types of grubs that damage turf. See ENT-10, Controlling White Grubs for additional information. Collecting Beetles Hand collecting obviously is not the most effective method of control, but can be used to protect valuable plants when beetle activity is relatively low. The presence of beetles on a plant attracts more beetles. When you remove beetles daily by hand from a plant, only about half as many are attracted to that plant compared to those on which beetles are allowed to accumulate. One of the easiest ways to remove beetles from small plants is to shake the plants early in the morning (about 7 a.m.) when temperatures are low and the beetles sluggish. The beetles may be killed by shaking them into a bucket of soapy water. Trapping Beetles In recent years commercial or homemade traps have become a popular means of trying to reduce beetle numbers. Commercially available traps attract the beetles with two types of baits. One mimics the scent of virgin female beetles and is highly attractive to males. The other bait is a sweet-smelling food-type lure that attracts both males and females. This combination is such a powerful and effective attractant that traps can draw in thousands of beetles in a day. Only a portion of the beetles attracted to traps are caught in them. Small number of traps in a home landscape can actually increase Japanese beetle problems rather than reduce them." "Traps may be effective in reducing Japanese beetle problems if used throughout a neighborhood or in open areas well away from valuable plantings or vulnerable crops. In most home landscape situations, using 1 or 2 traps probably will do more harm than good." http://www2.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/entfactpdf/ef409.pdf H.Kuska comment: I grew about 1000 roses in a no spray garden. I used milkey spore, beneficial nematodes, and birdhouses / bird feeders. I did not eliminate Japanese beetles, but the population did reach an equilibrium that I could live with. Here is a link that might be useful: link to above information
...See More
Just Because Its Organic
Q
Comments (55)
Brix studies are highly controversial...especially those dealing with tomatoes. If you're going to compare supermarket ethylene ripened toms to plant ripened toms you're going to get skewed brix results...the plants simply do it better than forcing the ripening, and it does have to do with better micronutrient availability. That said, there's a lot of high brix/low acid testing brix advocates that want people to put a foolish amount of micronutrients in their soil rather than building a soil structure/quality that can better hold and exchange micronutrients. There's a big industry building around selling people extremely expensive bags of micronutrients the past decade which wash their way through the soil profile and/or are over-amended to make up for poor soil. Build your soil quality (holding/exchange capability), apply less, benefit more. They're micronutrients...you don't need a lot, you just need them to hang around. This post was edited by nc-crn on Fri, Dec 28, 12 at 16:21
...See More
Organic (or safe?) weed cloth?
Q
Comments (15)
Yep; every time I replant a bed, I move the lines for that bed aside, lift the fabric, putter with the soil, replace the fabric, and replace the lines. Well, almost every time; I was recently looking at the bed where the lettuce failed and debating whether it needs refreshing or whether I should just plug some beans in there. To give more detail of how the irrigation is supposed to be in my garden, and how most of it (increasing every year) is: The rows are six feet center to center. The middle four feet are planting area, and then there's a two foot path between rows. The path is permanently covered with weed cloth. The half-inch plastic tubing watering "spine" runs down one side of the path. I don't need to move that, because it's on permanent path. Then for each area I want to water, I poke a hole in the half-inch tubing and insert a length of quarter-inch tubing with a barb, usually making a point of having several inches of extra slack. Then I attach whatever watering apparatus is appropriate, to that quarter-inch tubing. Then I position that in the bed, usually nailing it down with some ground staples. For the "whatever watering apparatus", I've traditionally created all sorts of horrible squid-like things, this one intended for four beds, this one intended for two, this one with an extra line crossing the path because I forgot to add a line for that tomato, etc,, etc. Then at the end of the year I have a bunch of spare parts and lengths of tubing that are a pain to rebuild into something else next year. So I'm trying to get systematic now and have just three or four different configurations, all of them designed to water exactly one bed. That way, if I add that little extra length to the tubing going to the spine, I can just cut off the different apparatuses... (apparati?) and swap them from bed to bed each year. Each swap would cost me about an inch of tubing; hence the mentioned slack. And I want to have a little quarter-inch manual valve on that quarter-inch takeoff for EVERY bed, so that I can withhold water from the potatoes while still watering the onions. So for your raised beds I could imagine: - A simiar half-inch plastic spine, permanently nailed down OUTSIDE your raised beds. You might have just one spine, or you might have two, each one serving five beds, or three, each one serving three plus one taking on an extra... - For each bed, a length of quarter-inch plastic tubing long enough to reach into the bed, with some slack for future changes. - For each bed, a watering assemblage attached to the end of that length of tubing. Actually, you could go with a hybrid: Build your original wicking beds, but still set up the "spine" and use it to refill your water reservoirs. If it doesn't work, you've only wasted a little plastic tubing; if it does, then you could go on to the battery-powered timer to refill the reservoirs; if that works, then you've had a taste of automated watering and you can decide whether you like it.
...See More
Hire_an_Aggie
10 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Organic is dichotomous! One definition means the group of chemicals formed with a carbon backbone containing hydrogen atoms and one is an adherence to one or more of the theologies of 'natural' instead of 'synthesized' inputs into your garden, farm, lawn, etc.

So, benzene, snake venom, and cow manure can all be defined as organic. I'm sure you could conjure some 'bad' use for all of them
Kimmsr
Original Author
10 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Be nice if someone actually watched the video and then commented.
Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
10 years ago
If it's a product from the store, I don't use it, so no comments on the merits of one label or origin/composition of ingredients vs. another. I gave up on gardening shows on PBS a while ago, for various reasons. The debate in this video is a prime example. To me, organic means you don't buy/use any stuff from a package/bottle/sprayer, etc...
Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
10 years ago
On the subject of one packaged concoction over another?
Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
10 years ago
Having been offered here on a gardening forum, in a section called 'Garden Clinic,' (so under a double-gardening umbrella for sure,) my comments were meant in regard to gardening. I think this is obvious and that you know, and are just trying to be argumentative. If my comments were truly that confusing to you, let me be more clear. It is precisely because life can be so packaged and synthetic that I prefer to garden without any packages of store-bought stuff.

"Just because something that comes in a package doesn't mean it's non-organic or unsafe." Who said that?
woohooman San Diego CA zone 10a
10 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I'm not being argumentative. I took your statement literally. Wasn't aware you were just talking of garden products.

So, no "meals" of any type? No neem oil, BT, organic fungicides, or insecticdal soaps or other organically accepted products used for ORGANIC gardening?

Wow!

'"Just because something that comes in a package doesn't mean it's non-organic or unsafe." Who said that?"

I did.

Kevin
Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
10 years ago
Kevin, thank you for your post. Gardening is such an obtuse term, meaning anything from having a potted house plant to ornamental landscaping to growing large amounts of food. Knowing the context in which one is speaking is definitely helpful. Much context had definitely been missing from this conversation, and wrong assumptions made.

What we (DH mows, and then does whatever heavy-lifting tasks I can't, then says, "that looks nice, honey.") are doing is trying to provide entertainment for myself, something pleasing to look at, sustenance for butterflies, birds, and whatever other native critters might live in "our" yard, grow whatever edibles we feel like that particular year (in no particular order.) I don't feel the need or capability to control nature in many ways except to pull the plants I don't want, and install the ones I do.

If pests eat plants, hopefully predators of those pests will show up and prosper on such bounty. I find it interesting, not a problem. If I put chemicals on edibles, I might as well get the ones from the grocery, where it's not necessary to get mosquito bites to get them.

If pests destroy an ornamental plant this year, they probably would next year, and I don't want to spend my time or money battling such a thing. That's an instance in which I would not keep trying that plant.

Applying chemicals does not sound fun to me, so I wouldn't include it in gardening, which I do for fun, and eschew most of the busy-body things people are *supposed* to do for gardening that I don't think are fun and obviously aren't necessary as my yard/plants prove. So what is growing in my yard is that which can do so within the care I consider fun.

Were gardening a necessity for providing my family with food, or my wallet with income, my attitude might be quite different, and I would not have the luxury of sitting back and watching what happens.

I do battle canna leaf rollers because the hummingbirds love the flowers, and if I don't keep the caterpillars off of these plants, there would be few, if any flowers for the hummingbirds, defeating the purpose of having this plant. If I put chemicals on the plants to kill the caterpillars, I would be very concerned about the effect it would have on the hummingbirds.

A healthy natural ecosystem has predators and pests. If my garden is missing either, something out of whack. Often the case is that the pest is exotic, with no natural predator, in which case a product might be necessary if growing the plant in question is necessary.

One of the hardest-working predators in this area is the anole. They go everywhere, on every plant and surface. Poisoning them or their food sources would be tragic. Birds eat many pests from plants, and serving them a toxic meal, or killing their food seems very short-sighted and way too small-picture to me, can't be the right thing for *me* to do. They call it a food chain because all critters are some other...

Its safe because it is organic

Comments (9)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5

tsugajunkie z5 SE WI ♱

Related Discussions

Hire_an_Aggie

Kimmsr
Original Author

Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL

Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL

Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL

woohooman San Diego CA zone 10a

Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Its safe because it is organic

Comments (9)

Related Discussions

KimmsrOriginal Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Kimmsr
Original Author