I have Bermuda grass.
I want to "top dress" our yard this year.
I got some quotes from few landscapers.
Most use dillo dirt while one uses "organic compost."
Here are my questions.

1. What is dillo dirt?

2. Which is better for my yard - dillo dirt or organic compost?

3. How much (thickness) is enough for each material? Is 1/2" of dillo dirt
sufficient, or do I need full 1"?

4. Any good/honest INEXPENSIVE dillo dirt or organic compost business you
can recommend in NW Austin (183 & Anderson Mill)?

5. Are they worth the money? Do they really help?

JKC wrote:

I have Bermuda grass.
I want to "top dress" our yard this year.
I got some quotes from few landscapers.
Most use dillo dirt while one uses "organic compost."
Here are my questions.

1. What is dillo dirt?

2. Which is better for my yard - dillo dirt or organic compost?

3. How much (thickness) is enough for each material? Is 1/2" of dillo dirt
sufficient, or do I need full 1"?

4. Any good/honest INEXPENSIVE dillo dirt or organic compost business you
can recommend in NW Austin (183 & Anderson Mill)?

5. Are they worth the money? Do they really help?



Dillo dirt is processed biological sewage that has been sterilized.
Organic compost is a mixture of soil and organic materials that have
been nurtured to present a biological nutrient.

Both are essentially the same thing. If I were choosing, I would chose
based on the cheapest price. Expecially for lawns. I would consider
organic compost if I were using it in a victory garden where I wanted to
eat the produce.

I have no answers for your other questions. But if I were interested in
Dillo Dirt, I would look on the Web Site for the City of Austin as it is
the producer of Dillo Dirt. You might get some answers there.


Harold

One caveat that I have personally with dillo dirt. My neighbor had
gotten some dillo dirt to fill in some low spots in his yard and had
some left over that he used to fill in a low spot in my yard. I suspect
that I will never get rid of the nut grass that appeared that summer. I
had never had nut grass in the yard before. I would not use it for that
reason alone. I surmise that sometimes the mixture does not get that
hot and when you consider that it contains sewer sludge well....you
decide.

Cea

In article , Harold
Robbins wrote:

JKC wrote:

I have Bermuda grass.
I want to "top dress" our yard this year.
I got some quotes from few landscapers.
Most use dillo dirt while one uses "organic compost."
Here are my questions.

1. What is dillo dirt?

2. Which is better for my yard - dillo dirt or organic compost?

3. How much (thickness) is enough for each material? Is 1/2" of dillo
dirt
sufficient, or do I need full 1"?

4. Any good/honest INEXPENSIVE dillo dirt or organic compost business you
can recommend in NW Austin (183 & Anderson Mill)?

5. Are they worth the money? Do they really help?



Dillo dirt is processed biological sewage that has been sterilized.
Organic compost is a mixture of soil and organic materials that have
been nurtured to present a biological nutrient.

Both are essentially the same thing. If I were choosing, I would chose
based on the cheapest price. Expecially for lawns. I would consider
organic compost if I were using it in a victory garden where I wanted to
eat the produce.

I have no answers for your other questions. But if I were interested in
Dillo Dirt, I would look on the Web Site for the City of Austin as it is
the producer of Dillo Dirt. You might get some answers there.


Harold

Celeste Evans wrote:

One caveat that I have personally with dillo dirt. My neighbor had
gotten some dillo dirt to fill in some low spots in his yard and had
some left over that he used to fill in a low spot in my yard. I suspect
that I will never get rid of the nut grass that appeared that summer. I
had never had nut grass in the yard before. I would not use it for that
reason alone. I surmise that sometimes the mixture does not get that
hot and when you consider that it contains sewer sludge well....you
decide.


The human waste involved doesn't concern me nearly so much as the fact that you don't know *what* some people pour down their drains. If it was nothing but composted human waste and lawn trimmings, I'd use it in a heartbeat. As it is, I wouldn't touch the stuff.

BTW, did anybody catch Cameron Diaz talking about "poop" and its role in the ecosystem on the Tonight Show last night? She can come dig in my garden any time. ;-)

DT
http://www.thehungersite.com/

escape wrote:

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 12:29:49 -0600, dt opined:




The human waste involved doesn't concern me nearly so much as the fact that you don't know *what* some people pour down their drains. If it was nothing but composted human waste and lawn trimmings, I'd use it in a heartbeat. As it is, I wouldn't touch the stuff.

BTW, did anybody catch Cameron Diaz talking about "poop" and its role in the ecosystem on the Tonight Show last night? She can come dig in my garden any time. ;-)

DT
http://www.thehungersite.com/



Yes, I saw Cameron. She is so tall! No organic farmers or certified organic
growers use dillo dirt. I don't use it and wont, and it is free around these
parts.


I used to think it was free, too, until I tried to get some to topdress a friend's lawn a few years ago (she doesn't do veggies, so it seemed fairly safe). They only sell "wholesale to registered vendors", who then sell it retail.
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/water/dillovendors.htm

But, the good news (?) is that the regs have changed, and it can now be used on vegetable gardens! http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/water/dillofaq.htm

I still wouldn't use on my garden, even if it was free.

DT
http://www.thehungersite.com/

In article ,
dt wrote:

I used to think it was free, too, until I tried to get some to topdress a
friend's lawn a few years ago (she doesn't do veggies, so it seemed fairly
safe). They only sell "wholesale to registered vendors", who then sell it
retail.
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/water/dillovendors.htm

But, the good news (?) is that the regs have changed, and it can now be used
on vegetable gardens! http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/water/dillofaq.htm

I still wouldn't use on my garden, even if it was free.

DT
http://www.thehungersite.com/



What organics are completely free of questionable stuff?

I do not see much difference between say composted cow manure and
composted human manure.

Secondly even stuff that is theoretically pristine may not be kosher.
For example in a profile of mushroom farmers I read that the workers are
worked so hard that they relieve themselves on the mushroom media to
save time.

That said I like "Black Kow" brand compsoted cow manure - it really
seems composted but it is relatively pricey $3-4 a bag.


Roland

escape wrote:

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 14:45:19 GMT, Harold Robbins
opined:


Dillo dirt is processed biological sewage that has been sterilized.


It has not been sterilized.


Check with the City of Austin. Maybe they are lying.


Harold

In article ,
Victor Martinez wrote:

Joe Doe wrote:
I do not see much difference between say composted cow manure and
composted human manure.

Cow manure is usually devoid of things like drano, toilet bowl cleaner,
comet bleach, tide with bleach, etc. etc. etc. that human sewage is
accented with.

I know all those things go down but they are fantastically diluted by
normal water usage. All sewage treatment plants use microbes at some
stage and if the pollutants were so noxious they would definitely be
killed.

While there is no doubt that several organic fertilizers increase heavy
metal and other pollutants (coliform organism, phosphorous etc.) it is
also true that even after fairly heavy usage soil levels are not much
different from the levels of heavy metal levels naturally present in
soil. See for example:

http://www.ncagr.com/agronomi/hflyer.htm

Many other organic products have heavy metal contamination - they are
simply not that widely advertised. The same is also true of inorganic
fertilizers. Further, in an urban environment pollutants are regularly
coating are trees, falling on our lawns etc. etc.

I am neutral on sewage sludge - I would neither seek nor shun it. It is
slightly stinky though so it would not be my first choice. If the
original poster had Dillo dirt applied to his lawn it would certainly
not pose any significant risk. If applied in rotation with other
products any risk would be further minimized.

Roland

In the spirit of interjecting facts into the debate:

Rutgers has some good solid data on sewage sludge and bio-solids. There
are eight fact sheets filled with generally good information in PDF
format. For heavy metals See:

http://www.rce.rutgers.edu/pubs/pdfs/fs956.pdf

This has a nice table showing heavy metal levels in various soil
amendments (rock phosphate, muncipal leaves, various manures etc.).
Rock phosphate is worse than sewage sludge in several categories. Of
course you do not use it in the same amounts but this is just to show
that things people consider innocuous are not so. This fact sheet also
has a table showing predicted soil levels after 100 years of application
of the various ammendments. Again, levels are not alarming for sewage
sludge and not really all that different from several other manures etc.

Another good summary from the scientific perspective in PDF format is:

http://www.eawag.ch/publications/eaw...rinter/en53e_s
tadelm_p.pdf

or

http://tinyurl.com/42953

They are generally balanced and put facts into perspective. For example
they state:

³In Switzerland only 12 % of the heavy metal input into the soil is
contributed by sewage sludge; 38 % originate from manures, 25 % from
atmospheric deposition, 14 % from mineral fertilizers, 6 % from
fungicides, 4 % from compost and 1 % from wood ash
[1]. Many kinds of organic pollutants, e.g. PAK (Fig. 3), get into the
soil to a larger extent by deposition and manure than by sewage sludge
[1]. The annual pollution of the agricultural soil in Switzerland by PCB
is composed by 1000 kg from deposition, 70 kg from manure, 8 kg from
sewage sludge and 3 kg from compost²


Roland