# I ruined my garden



## TommyJefferson (May 12, 2010)

My garden this year was pathetic. As usual, in February and March I put over 180 hours of hard physical labor into it. 

In the beginning of summer I had nothing but a collection of sickly, yellow, stunted, underperforming plants.

I think I figured out why. It's a dumb rookie mistake everyone warns against. But you see, I'm a special, clever, attractive, daring rouge with a long history of successfully breaking rules and taking shortcuts.

My yard has horrible clay soil. I am in constant need of biomass to amend it. My friends muck out rich people's horse stalls or pay $$$! for a truck load of mushroom compost. I'm too smart for that. 

When I see neatly bagged grass clippings streetside waiting for the garbage truck, I stop and throw them in the trunk of my car. When I get home I dump them on my compost heap.

NO.

Last summer I think I got some grass clippings with high levels of weed killer. The areas of my garden where I added compost last fall were ruined. After 4 months of growth the vegetables in those areas were pathetic 11" runts with no fruit. The few areas of my garden with I did not compost were fine.

When the drought hit Texas this summer, I quit watering and let it all go.

If this were a survival garden, my kids would be starving because of my mistake.


----------



## jungatheart (Feb 2, 2010)

I dunno but I think the smart prepper practices and makes his mistakes before the SHTF just like you did. 

I know people who can't learn from their mistakes.


----------



## Immolatus (Feb 20, 2011)

Lesson learned, count it as a good thing!
I recently got one of those backyard spinning composter thingys off Freecycle, and will put it to good use next year, and will try to get the whole family to compost absolutely everything.
I also plan on filling my newest garden bed with manure.


----------



## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

Welcome to the club. About a month ago I started a thread about the herbicide use that is a is a major problem with local food production, it generated 0 interest. 

Many hay growers, cattle grazers, government entities, and general dumb a**es with no regard for anyone/anything except their own interests carelessly and many times illegally use herbicides to rid their fields of unwanted weeds. Many of these herbicides persist for extended periods after application, some up to 5 years. If you put any clippings or manure contaminated with it on your garden, you've just destroyed your years food poduction, and sometimes several years worth. Some of the real nasty poisons survive digestion and and can be passed back into the environment through manure.

A neighbor who recently purchased the property bordering mine had the local feed store spray a mixture of 2-4,d(Agent Orange) and Dicamba which drifted to my property and destroyed much of my garden this year.

I made a complaint with the "Texas Department of Agriculture", they came out and took samples and conducted an investigation. 3 weeks ago I received the results and an $800.00 fine resulted for the feed store. Kinda dissapointing but now he is going to get my bill as a Christmas gift.

You have to be very careful what you put on your garden now-a-day and may have to end up spending big bucks on commercial amendments. Those are not always safe, some of them have even been contaminated.


----------



## TommyJefferson (May 12, 2010)

Thank you for the information (and kind words).

I will be more aware of chemical contamination from my neighbors spraying, and water that runs onto my property.

Sidenote. I thought the concerns about GMO crops was mostly hippie woo-woo nonsense. Here is a video by a scientist explaining how products like RoundUp interfere with food absorption in your gut.






I don't completely understand his chemical jargon, but it sounds legitimate to me. I have so far only watched the first 20 minutes.


----------



## Jason (Jul 25, 2009)

Tommy-that really stinks, but it'a a mistake you made early and one that you not only learned from, but shared with all of us to learn from. Making mistakes is fine, but making the same one twice is a problem. I don't see that happening here.


----------



## IlliniWarrior (Nov 30, 2010)

*Dangerous Heavy Metals*

The chems not only killed off the plants, they also deposited long lasting heavy metals into your soil .... minute amounts but something to be aware ....


----------



## Meerkat (May 31, 2011)

Jefferson,sorry to hear this . its bad enough to work so hard as it is then for it to be ruined is sad.I've made my share of misakes too .
You may have to change the dirt at least top several inches ? I was offered manure by dairy but won't use it .I use our kitchen compost for green manure,my own chickens and rake leaves in fall for browns.
I have bought pine fines at lumber mill though,so far no problem. I have opposite the clay problem with sand here .
Build raised beds and add builders sand or better yet childrens play sand at Lowes. This will allow more drainage on that clay.I had clay in Ga.


----------

