Dwight Sipler wrote:
: wrote:
:
:...It's *not* the same and and never should be used on a vegetable
: garden...unless of course, you'd like a nice dose of ecoli
: (a single gram of dog feces can contain 23 million coliform bacteria),
: roundworm...[etc... snip]

: I guess we're all doomed, since there's no way to keep the local
: omnivores/carnivore (e.g. raccoons) population from defecating in our
: gardens.
: The above argument applies only to root crops and crops which have
: contact with the soil. Bacteria/microorganisms do not travel through the
: plants' vascular system to the fruit.

This isn't relevant. If soil is contaminated, any part of plant can also
become contaminated through rain splash or human handling. In parts of
the world where human wastes are still used to fertilize crops, bacillary
dysentery is endemic. There's a reason travellers to those regions are
advised to wash their vegetables and fruits thoroughly with bleach water.

: Just to start a parallel thread, the real problem with ecoli etc is the
: overuse of bactericidal soaps etc. "In the old days" people would
: occasionally get sick from such things but they weren't really bad and
: people built up natural defenses/immunities.

And which old days were those? Well into the early 1900s, people,
especially the very young and the sickly, died in significant numbers from
a very common diarrheal malady called 'summer sickness'. Sanitation of
human and animal wastes was poor, food handling practices were unsafe, and
there was no modern fly control.

If you want to 'recycle' dog waste safely, get a Doggie Dooley. Don't put
it on your compost pile.

-- Karen

The Garden Gate http://garden-gate.prairienet.org
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