Hi Group: Since the gardening season has begun, we're finding a need for mulch, lots of it. At the other place we used grass clippings but here, we have no grass and a much bigger garden. So, we went to the city (pop approx 3500) compost pile. Lots of good grass clippings, lilys, cornflowers and some kind of ornamental shrub, all pulled out by the roots or dug up with root ball in tact. They have a new home now and seem to be doing well after their shabby treatment.

-- john (natlivent@pcpros.net), June 21, 2000

Answers

We have a city compost place here. I got some a few years ago when it first started and it was nothing like I thought it would be.Well maybe I should say I sent hubby after some.Anyway it looked sort of grey and slimy. And then I learned shortly after that it has human waste in it. yukkkkk!!!! What human ???? I'm just glad I only put it in my flower bed. It took it years to break completely down.It comes from sewage treatment. They also have race track hay. I saw it one day when I passed. I wonder if they would give it away in that form.They also dumped tree trimmings from tree service. Do you think it might be safe to get that stuff. Oh they say the other stuff is perfectly safe but it gives me the willies!!! Critter poo is one thing but people poo???? YUK!!!

-- Bonnie (josabo1@juno.com), June 22, 2000.

Bonnie, what you got was sludge. I think Organic Gardening mag might have some more info on it. I used stuff from a horse barn once in the vege garden without composting it first and got lots of new varieties of weeds. Compost first!! Live & learn. Good luck!

-- Jean (schiszik@tbcnet.com), June 22, 2000.

Sludge! Yuck! I wouldn't touch it.

Our city compost (Evanston, IL) is beautiful black earth. I planted my rose bed and veggie garden in it - mixed with peat moss and the clayey topsoil. It's wonderful! They've also got a HUGE pile of grass clippings and chipped branches and Christmas trees for mulch.

-- Deborah (ActuaryMom@hotmail.com), June 22, 2000.

For what its worth, Milorganite, the organic fertilizer is made from sewerage sludge, in Milwaukee.

-- john leake (natlivent@pcpros.net), June 22, 2000.

Hi Deborah! I am glad to know there are Countrysiders in IL! I grew up in Park Ridge, moved to the western suburbs, then moved farther west - out in the farmland. Blooming where you are planted, hey?

-- Jean (schiszik@tbcnet.com), June 22, 2000.

I have a hard time believing it was human waste in the city compost pile. That is illegal (by EPA, thus federal regs). Unless you are talking about 1970s or before when these types of regs were just coming into existence.

And if it was sludge it certainly shouldn't be grey and slimy. Aged sludge, which it should be before it is land applied, because there are pathogen and heavy metal requirements to be met should be dark and friable. Some sewage treatment plants are able to sell or have a give- away program for their biosoloids (aka sludge) because of its high fertilizing properties and their capability of meeting federal standards on pathogen and metal content. Don't turn up your nose at it. (It shouldn't have an offensive odor either.) It is very good stuff and "organic". I know of one farmer who went from about 40 bushels an acre of corn to about 72 by land applying biosolids. Some biosolids though may need to be pH adjusted because they are treated with high calcium lime which makes them high on the pH scale, thus unsuitable alone for plant growth. It needs to be mixed with other organics.

Now the above paragraph is for biosolids or city sewer sludge, not the city compost pile which should only consist of yard waste. City compost piles are probably more common for the individual in give-away programs than land applying biosolids from the municipal wastewater treatment plants. These usually depend on farmers for land applying or take the sludge to a land fill, which to me is a waste unless the treatment plant is not meeting the land application standards, again pathogens and metal content.

-- R. (thor610@yahoo.com), June 22, 2000.