An article in the New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Dennis G. Maki, titled Don’t Eat the Spinach — Controlling Foodborne Infectious Disease is an important read for any of you using manure on your gardens. It is in the Files section of the MittleiderMethodGardening@YahooGroups.com for your consideration.
The article identifies manure as the prime suspect in the big heavily publicized outbreak from tainted spinach in 2006, and implicates it in a great many other situations as well.
E-Coli, Mad Cow Disease, Salmonella, and other diseases that are introduced to our food supply by animal manures are one of several reasons we don’t get excited about using manure and compost in our gardens.
In addition, unless the materials have been thoroughly sterilized, they often introduce plant diseases, weed seeds, and bugs into the garden.
And probably the most important reasons for not relying on manure and compost are that you don’t know what nutrients they have, and application is usually done only once, rather than throughout the growth cycle of the plants.
The Mittleider Method is considered by many to be “The Best of Organic” because we use natural mineral nutrients that are all approved by the USDA for use in organic gardening, but they haven’t been corrupted nor had much of the nutrients taken out by going through the cow.
We feed our plants small amounts of a balanced mix of all 13 nutrients plants need, and do so several times, so plants always have what they need for optimum fast healthy growth.
We encourage everyone to grow and eat disease-free spinach and other produce by using the Mittleider Method, and encourage you to tell those you know to grow their gardens this way as well. You may even save someone’s life!
