Sparks in the Soil

Tent City

This morning my neighbors sprayed their trees for winter moth.  The spray is "non-toxic," so says the company and some mild Internet research.  It's water-soluble as well.  But...it's bug spray, and the tree hovers right over my vegetable patch (which the winter moths could care less about), from whence comes tonight's salad. 

Last year I got on a list the company maintains to be notified before the spray went on, and I was super-impressed that they actually followed up and called to let me know it was coming.

So last night, this happened:

And this morning, when the spray rained down and floated across my backyard in a white cloud, wow was I glad I did it.  Another hour or so and the stuff should be dry, so Operation Rescue My Sweltering, Tented Plants will go into effect. 

To-Do List #2: Have Soil Tested

Because we're new to this house...

And because the previous owners put in a quick sod lawn with unknown treatment history just before listing the property,

And because our house was built in 1939 and is likely loaded with lead paint,

And because we want to give our plants the best balance of nutrition....

High on our to-do list is to have our soil tested for pH, heavy metals, and nutrient balance.  It was pretty easy.  First, we identified 3 distinct areas to test--the "orchard" area on the side of the house, the prospective veggie garden in back, and a spot behind the porch just for the heck of it.

We dug 12 small divots into each of the 3 areas, removing soil from various depths - near-surface down to about 6 inches.  The number of spots plus the different depths will get us the best overall picture of each area.

In each zone, we mixed the 12 samples in a paper bag, then ripped open the bag to let the dirt dry in the sun.

Once dry, it was into a labeled zip-top baggie with one cup of each sample. The baggies were then packed into a box with a completed form and check ($9 per test), and mailed out to the UMass Soil and Plant Tissue Testing Laboratory.

If you aren't sure where to send soil samples in your area, take note--you can send samples to UMass' lab from anywhere in the country!

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Worried About Lead

I'm starting to put together my new garden to-do list, and the more I think about next steps, the more worried I'm getting that my soil is completely contaminated by lead.

Our house was built in 1939, long before lead paint was outlawed in 1978.  And even though the soil in this neighborhood is said to be great because of its proximity to a silty, nutrient-rich pond, the land was a farm until it was developed in the late '30s.  Lead was used in pesticides in those days, and it survives in the environment a long time.

The latter issue is probably not legit, because 70 years of erosion and lawn and garden maintenance make it unlikely that I would be digging in pre-WWII soil.

But lead paint likely still lives under the current outer layer of housepaint, and flecks of it might easily have leached their way through my yard.

I'll be reading more about lead in the coming weeks until my soil thaws enough for me to send it out for testing (speaking of reading, start here for a great NY Times overview of how lead is a dark cloud over the healthy trend of edible home gardens).  But meantime, here are 3 reasons I'm not completely panicked about the prospect of lead in the soil:

1. I can grow my vegetable garden in elevated beds with landscape fabric on the bottom and fresh, clean soil on top.

2. Fruit trees, which I fall asleep each night dreaming of, do not significantly absorb lead.  It's your root vegetables and leafy greens that are easily contaminated. 

3. There are ways to leach out lead by adding lime and compost or growing a leafy green that will suck up the lead (and then become toxic waste).  The former, reported the Times, is what the White House garden did to battle their lead problem.  Because that house, too, was built before 1978.

Any success stories out there?  Have you successfully battled back heavy metals from your garden?

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It's a Foodie Movie Summer

How exciting to have two movies coming out this summer that have to do with the food industry, sustainable agriculture, and what we can do to eat better, be healthier, and protect the planet.

I'm so sorry that I missed the chance to screen "Fresh," a film by Ana Sofia Joanes, at Harvard this weekend.  But I was super-inspired by the trailer (see below), and by my friend April's take on the film over at her blog, Wicked Tasty Harvest.

Also coming soon is "Food, Inc.," which seems equally worthy but perhaps more focused on consciousness-raising on industrial agriculture, where "Fresh" seems more focused on the ways in which farmer-pioneers like our "Omnivore's Dilemma" friend Joel Salatin are producing gorgeous food without hurting anybody in the process.  Is it pioneering to go back to an old way of farming? In this climate, I think yes. 

See below for both previews.

Help! Cat Poop in the Garden!

Oy.  So we have some new neighbors, and those neighbors have a cat, and that cat spends most of its time outdoors, and it loooves our vegetable garden. 

This is bad.  Very bad. 

Cat waste is--duh--not healthy for human beings.  Specifically, it puts us at risk for toxoplasmosis, a parasitic disease that can cause flu-like symptoms in some, and in others (especially pregnant women or immune-compromised people) can cause serious, even fatal, illness including encephalitis.

So what's a gardener to do, especially when a garden fence isn't an option?  Here are the four things I'm doing so far:

1. Wear gloves whenever you work in the garden, and wash the gloves after each use.
2. Wash your hands and clothes in hot, soapy water after each garden session.
3. Sprinkle red pepper flakes over the area where the cat is doing its "business." Kitties don't like the spicy.
4. Wash all vegetables well before eating.

Anyone have other tips for discouraging cats from making their mark on your vegetables?

The Monsanto Food Safety Bill Debate

My friend Don over at Evangelical Ecologist commented on my "garden advice" post, worrying that the new Food Safety Bill (HR 875) would stop churches and other small institutions from growing food because the bill would prohibit, among other things, the sharing of seeds and the use of non-government-farm property to grow.  Here's his post: Farmer's Markets - RIP.

I will be honest and say that I hadn't heard of this issue before he brought it up, but looking into it, I really believe that we have a major misunderstanding on our hands. Here's what I can piece together of what happened:

It started with a widely-circulated blog post by Linn Cohen-Cole called "Monsanto's Dream Bill, HR 875." In the post, Cohen-Cole alleges that the bill (sponsored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro D-CT) is little more than an effort by industrial agriculture (specifically, the agribusiness giant Monsanto) to protect genetically modified food and fat government subsidies, and to put the little guy--even the pastor farming his church's backyard--out of business. Cohen-Cole writes:

"The corporations want the land, they want more intensive industrialization, they want the end of normal animals so they can substitute patented genetically engineered ones they own, they want the end of normal seeds and thus of seed banking by farmers or individuals.  They want control over all seeds, animals, water, and land."

This would all be very alarming--and, frankly, sounds plausible given what we learned about agribusiness in The Omnivore's Dilemma and other books--except for the fact that these issues are simply not present in HR 875.

For one thing, seeds and organic farming are regulated by the USDA, not the FDA, which HR 875 would affect. Secondly, there is nothing in the bill about backyard (and churchyard) gardeners or local farmer's markets--the bill is directed at farms that participate in interstate commerce. Finally, Cohen-Cole's accusation that Rep. DeLauro's husband works for Monsanto is not true either: Stanley Greenberg, a Democratic political strategist and consultant, did once have Monsanto as a client, but not in the past 10 years.

Generally speaking, the bill really is not about how, where, and by whom food is grown as much as it's about how food is kept safe when it is going to be presented for sale to the American public.

Click here for Rep. DeLauro's statements and an FAQ on the bill, plus to read the full text of HR 875.

To me, this sounds like a well-intentioned effort to prevent salmonella and other dangerous outbreaks in our nation's food supply.  The bill is backed by the Center for Foodborne Illness Research & Prevention, Consumers Union, and The Pew Charitable Trusts, among others. Plus, for what it's worth, it's sponsored by a Democrat from Connecticut, so how likely is it that she's in the pocket of agribusiness?

In short, I think church gardens--and my backyard plot--are safe. Do you?

Is Organic Safer?

This article in last week's New York Times is an important wake-up call that even certified organic products are susceptible to food safety problems like the salmonella contamination that prompted the massive peanut product recall.

I'd like to confess something: when I first started eating organically, I thought that "organic" meant "totally pure."  Like some germ-phobic health nut had personally inspected each grape or leaf of lettuce or cucumber, so I didn't have to, you know, wash it.  I also thought I didn't need to wear gloves in my garden because it was all organic compost and top soil. 

But "organic" doesn't mean clean, safe, or even healthy in and of itself.  You still have to wash your produce (to get rid of any little critters that might have lived in the soil or on the hands of your neighbors who handled that apple at the grocery store), you should always wear garden gloves (to protect your skin and nails from drying, to stave off bug-bites, and to keep dirt--even organic dirt--from finding its way into your mouth), and you should think of organic food as mere players in your healthy, balanced diet.  

And perhaps most importantly, buying organic food shouldn't make you feel inoculated against things like the peanut butter recall. There are so many benefits to eating organic, but full protection from pathogens isn't among them (especially, as the article points out, when inspections don't fully do their jobs). 

For me, this is all yet another reminder that making informed, mindful, common sense food purchases is always best.  Sometimes, that might even mean passing over the organics.  From the Times article:

Emily Wyckoff, who lives in Buffalo, buys local food and cooks from scratch as much as possible. Although she still buys organic milk and organic peanut butter for her three children, the organic label means less to her these days — especially when it comes to processed food in packages like crackers and cookies.

“I want to care, but you have to draw the line,” she said.

But the line stops when it comes to basic food safety.

Recently, a sign near the Peter Pan and Skippy at her local grocery store declared that those brands were safe from peanut contamination. There was no similar sign near her regular organic brand.

“I bought the national brand,” she said. “Isn’t that funny?”

In Defense of Conventional Bananas (Sort Of)

John raised a great point in my "green shopping tips" post about why he buys organic bananas: the pesticides used in conventional methods don't necessarily hurt the fruit or the eater (because of its thick rind), but the chemicals can hurt the people who grow and pick the bananas.

He's very right--and it used to be even worse.  In 2007, banana growers sued American companies Dole, Dow Chemical, and others because they claimed that in the 1970s, the companies negligently allowed workers to be exposed to DBCP, a toxic worm-fumigant known to cause infertility and cancer.  DBCP was banned by the U.S. in 1977, but other chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used to keep bananas "clean" yellow and free of bruises. This article makes a good case for organic banana-buying.

The problem is that organic bananas are $1.19/proud at my local Whole Foods Market, as opposed to $0.79/pound for conventional ones.  And I'll confess: I've been spoiled by the idea that bananas are smooth and yellow, not brown and spotted.  Organic bananas that I've eaten in the past have tasted starchy to me, been small, and often had rotten spots.  That's my anecdotal experience, granted, but there it is.

The good news is, there is a middle way for those of us who don't want to pay $0.40 extra at the market for food whose pesticide residue is unlikely to find its way into our bodies, yet who care about worker safety and health and want to feel that we're not hurting whole communities so we can have bananas in our morning cereal.

That middle way is the "Fair Trade" seal that appears on the $0.79/pound conventional bananas at my market. The seal means, among other things, that workers are:

a) Paid a living wage
b) Protected from human rights abuses like child labor
c) Given healthcare benefits
d) Not exposed to banned toxic chemicals
e) Given protective clothing (gloves, masks) as needed to prevent respiratory and skin absorption of chemicals
f) Working under environmentally sound conditions

Click here to sign a petition to urge your grocery store to stock fair-trade bananas. 

But first, please leave comments - do you buy conventional bananas?  Are you comforted by "fair trade" seals?  Or do you avoid bananas because of the carbon footprint required to transport them to your neck of the woods?

(Image from this interesting Babble.com post about how bananas are marketed here in the U.S.)

Mercury in High-Fructose Corn Syrup

I posted a couple of weeks ago about the corn syrup lobby and their absurd advertising campaign that suggests that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is "ok in moderation."  The latest brick in that wall came late last week with the release of a study by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy that showed measurable amounts of mercury in 17 out of 55 products in which HFCS was the first or second ingredient. (Thanks, April, for pointing me to this story!)

There's much to debate about the study and its scientific merit.  For one thing, its findings have not yet been reproduced, they are not published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and the type and levels of mercury are subject to (some) debate.  For more on the study, read this Washington Post article and this one from WebMD.

Two things here stand out to me.  One is this fact: 90% of the HFCS made in the U.S. is made by a process that does not use mercury, but many processed packaged foods are made with HFCS from other countries, making the extent of the contamination difficult to trace. Which makes the case yet again for knowing where your food comes from.

The second is in this comment from David Wallinga, MD, the author of the study: "We've got a safer, more efficient technology for making these chemicals that are part of the ingredients used to manufacture high-fructose corn syrup," he told WebMD. 

He's referring to non-mercurial ways of making "caustic soda," a chemical that's used to separate corn kernels from corn starch, an essential part of gleaning HFCS from corn. If ever you needed convincing that HFCS is not "food," though, just unpack that sentence and witness these words:

• technology
• chemicals
• manufacture

Um, yum? Continue reading this post for the list of the 17 products that were found to contain mercury.

Balancing Health and Paranoia

I wrote earlier about how buying local and eating fresh are key factors in people's sense of food safety.  They certainly are for me. 

But.

Yesterday I went to a Boston Celtics game, and the minute we stepped into the arena I was overcome with a desire for some M&M Peanuts.  When I was a kid, I always ate sweet snacks at sporting events, and the nostalgia-powered desire to revisit that sense memory was almost too much to resist.  I'll go further - I saw no reason to resist it.  Like Michael Pollan, I don't believe processed foods that make us happy should be avoided forever and always.  They should be treats, albeit occasional ones.  And if one has a generally healthful diet, for goodness' sake, have the M&Ms and get on with life!

After looking at the list of recalled peanut products in my previous post, though, I thought of those M&M Peanuts I enjoyed yesterday and felt my stomach clench.  The candies aren't on the recall list, but I started to think, "How do I know what it is that I ate?  How do I know it wasn't dangerous?"

I could use some advice from seasoned generally-healthy-but-not-guilt-ridden-about-processed-treats folks:  how do you keep your commitment to healthy eating without becoming obsessed with investigating the "purity" of everything you eat?  How do you release the need to justify every bite, every snack? 

Or do you struggle with this like I do?