Michael Berridge wrote in message ...

anton wrote in message ...

I have no problem eating the things that I and others have
grown in ground to which horse manure is applied- (though
when I've used this then it isn't fresh).

But we (or most of us) are human, and a possible infection
route for many human diseases & parasites is via sewage.
I appreciate that the micro-organisms/ spores etc disappear
with time, but I don't know how much time. Eating things
which you eat raw from ground which has been freshly
flooded with a sample of everyone's faeces from miles
around sounds to me like a dopey idea. I hope that we
can agree on that. So the question then is- what length of
time would you leave before cropping such ground with
a crop that you eat raw? I'd choose a couple of years-
you choose what you like.

My house has a septic tank for drainage and a few years ago I was
flooded, this obviously caused the septic tank to fill and overflow. I
was warned to be careful if water got into the house (it did but only by
soaking up through the concrete floor. All carpets had to be destroyed
and replaced by the insurance company but nothing else was done. When or
septic tank is emptied I use a local farm contractor, who empties it and
it is then used to spread on the land that grows the crops you eat.
There is no danger as the crops cannot take up bacteria,

That's clearly not what I was on about. I have no worries
about apples- but salad crops grow near the ground and are liable to be
splashed from the ground by rain or irrigation.
That's not 'taking up' bacteria.

but it is always a good idea to wash all fruit and veg
unless you know exactly
where and how they have been grown.

and, if I knew that human sewage had been used recently,
I wouldn't eat a salad.

This is also the major cause of
stomach upsets in the Mediterranean countries because, in many areas,
they spray growing crops with the diluted contents of septic tanks.


Precisely.

--
Anton