Quote: "Compost manufacturers are considering putting warnings about
Legionnaires' disease on their bags following advice from the Royal
Horticultural Society."

The full article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7978133/Potting-plants-could-cause-Legionnaires-disease.html

Personally I enjoy getting my hands into the compost, it is half the fun
of potting up plants!

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

Personally I enjoy getting my hands into the compost, it is half the fun
of potting up plants!

Yesterday evening at our Society meeting we had a visiting speaker who
used to work in the Garden Trade, and now retired still runs a small
nursury. After fifty years he now, when potting up using compost,
wears disposal latex gloves.


www.lincolnfuchsiasociety.info

On 03/09/2010 10:45, Sacha wrote:
On 2010-09-03 08:55:03 +0100, David in Normandy
said:

Quote: "Compost manufacturers are considering putting warnings about
Legionnaires' disease on their bags following advice from the Royal
Horticultural Society."

The full article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7978133/Potting-plants-could-cause-Legionnaires-disease.html


Personally

I enjoy getting my hands into the compost, it is half the fun of
potting up plants!

Hang on - I'm just dashing out to the nursery......!

I've noticed that bags of some cheap compost have a very strong smell -
any idea what that is? I can't decide if it is some sort of man-made
chemical smell or some sort of decomposition related odour. Such compost
often has white fungus of some sort growing in it, so is clearly far
from sterile.

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

On Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:31:50 +0200, David in Normandy
wrote:

On 03/09/2010 10:45, Sacha wrote:
On 2010-09-03 08:55:03 +0100, David in Normandy
said:

Quote: "Compost manufacturers are considering putting warnings about
Legionnaires' disease on their bags following advice from the Royal
Horticultural Society."

The full article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7978133/Potting-plants-could-cause-Legionnaires-disease.html


Personally

I enjoy getting my hands into the compost, it is half the fun of
potting up plants!

Hang on - I'm just dashing out to the nursery......!

I've noticed that bags of some cheap compost have a very strong smell -
any idea what that is? I can't decide if it is some sort of man-made
chemical smell or some sort of decomposition related odour. Such compost
often has white fungus of some sort growing in it, so is clearly far
from sterile.

Added spent mushroom compost?

--
(¯`·. ®óñ© © ²°¹° .·´¯)

On Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:06:50 +0100, Derek
wrote:




Personally I enjoy getting my hands into the compost, it is half the fun
of potting up plants!

Yesterday evening at our Society meeting we had a visiting speaker who
used to work in the Garden Trade, and now retired still runs a small
nursury. After fifty years he now, when potting up using compost,
wears disposal latex gloves.


www.lincolnfuchsiasociety.info

I've used disposable gloves when pricking out/potting up for years and
heavier gloves when planting in the ground. I also keep TCP and
"sanitiser gel" in the garden shed - better safe than sorry as my doc
won't give me tetanus boosters any more because I react badly to them.

"David in Normandy" wrote
Quote: "Compost manufacturers are considering putting warnings about
Legionnaires' disease on their bags following advice from the Royal
Horticultural Society."

The full article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7978133/Potting-plants-could-cause-Legionnaires-disease.html

Personally I enjoy getting my hands into the compost, it is half the fun
of potting up plants!

Am I wrong in thinking that in the old days the compost was sterilised? In
these days of the incorporation of composted household waste in most
composts it certainly should be.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK

David in Normandy wrote:
Quote: "Compost manufacturers are considering putting warnings about
Legionnaires' disease on their bags following advice from the Royal
Horticultural Society."

The full article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7978133/Potting-plants-could-cause-Legionnaires-disease.html

Personally I enjoy getting my hands into the compost, it is half the
fun of potting up plants!

Hmm, I vote "dubious" for the claims of this article. I have some knowledge
of legionella as I used to be a building services engineer (polite term for
maintenance man) and a significant part of that is legionella precautions.

Legionella bacteria is all around us in the evironment. It's in all our
water. It is, under normal circumstances, harmless. It only becomes
dangerous when inhaled in a fine water spray, at which point it is able to
circumvent the body's natural defences against bacterial attack. We must
remember that the environment is full of things that want to do us harm,and
the reason we're here as a species is that the body has over billions of
years of evolution developed all kinds of protective mechanisms; which is
why disabling the immune system causes a horrible death from opportunist
infections. Once your protections are down, it's not *if* you will get ill,
but *when* you will get ill.

This is based on one particular case, and a supposition by the doctors
treating the man. It's a guess that he caught the infection from compost.
They have no proof, and cannot have proof; the only facts they have are that
he caught legionella, and had handled compost with a cut hand. But
correlation does not equal causation. He might have caught it from a spray
of water he does not even remember to tell them about.

So far as I am aware there are no known cases of legionella (except this
one, now, apparently) in which it has been caught by this route of
infection, through a skin lesion. If legionella were capable of infecting us
this way, it would be epidemic. But it isn't. Just rinsing a cut under tap
water- a very common first aid- would lead to infections, from legionella
infected water getting into the cut. Swimmers would catch it. People
handling garden soil would routinely catch it. Farmers dealing with water
troughs for animals would catch it. And so on.

But they don't. It is even very hard to catch from fine water sprays. Only
very high concentrations of the bacterium combined with a lack of water
treatment cause outbreaks. It only became a threat when cooling systems
using water sprays became commonplace, an environment in which the bacterium
thrives as the water is in a closed loop and can thus build up bacterial
concentrations; which is why engineers have to have a regime of bromine
treatment.

So I call foul on this. It's a supposition, not a scientific conclusion;
just guesswork from a doctor. It seems very unlikely to me.

Of course it's always advisable to avoid getting a cut dirty. There are lots
of diseases that like to make their way into the body via a dirty wound.
Legionella isn't one of them.


Ian

On 03/09/2010 15:49, Ian B wrote:

Of course it's always advisable to avoid getting a cut dirty. There are lots
of diseases that like to make their way into the body via a dirty wound.
Legionella isn't one of them.


Interesting. I did wonder if it was an over-reaction by what is becoming
an overly elfin safety conscious society. I am surprised so many
gardeners wear gloves though to handle compost. It sounds like it may be
a wise thing to do?

Last year I ended up with a fungal infection on both knees - I think it
was due to kneeling on the bare soil while planting seedlings and
wearing shorts. It took three months to get rid of the infection with
anti-fungal creams - it was damn persistent. I guess the abrasion of the
soil on the bare skin was enough to introduce the spores under the skin,
especially while putting weight on my knees.

I've just been kneeling and planting more seedlings today, but kept
stout jeans on despite the heat. My back just won't take stooping for
long nowadays.

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

David in Normandy wrote:
On 03/09/2010 15:49, Ian B wrote:

Of course it's always advisable to avoid getting a cut dirty. There
are lots of diseases that like to make their way into the body via a
dirty wound. Legionella isn't one of them.


Interesting. I did wonder if it was an over-reaction by what is
becoming an overly elfin safety conscious society. I am surprised so
many gardeners wear gloves though to handle compost. It sounds like
it may be a wise thing to do?

Last year I ended up with a fungal infection on both knees - I think
it was due to kneeling on the bare soil while planting seedlings and
wearing shorts. It took three months to get rid of the infection with
anti-fungal creams - it was damn persistent. I guess the abrasion of
the soil on the bare skin was enough to introduce the spores under
the skin, especially while putting weight on my knees.

I've just been kneeling and planting more seedlings today, but kept
stout jeans on despite the heat. My back just won't take stooping for
long nowadays.

I'd certainly want more evidence than one case which amounts to no more than
hearsay.

As to knees, my mum had a "kneeler" for gardening which both protected her
knees and made it more comfortable too. Perhaps a worthwhile investment?
Even a dustbin liner would help stop knees getting ground into the soil.


Ian

In message , David in
Normandy writes
On 03/09/2010 15:49, Ian B wrote:

Of course it's always advisable to avoid getting a cut dirty. There are lots
of diseases that like to make their way into the body via a dirty wound.
Legionella isn't one of them.


Interesting. I did wonder if it was an over-reaction by what is
becoming an overly elfin safety conscious society. I am surprised so
many gardeners wear gloves though to handle compost. It sounds like it
may be a wise thing to do?

Last year I ended up with a fungal infection on both knees - I think it
was due to kneeling on the bare soil while planting seedlings and
wearing shorts. It took three months to get rid of the infection with
anti-fungal creams - it was damn persistent. I guess the abrasion of
the soil on the bare skin was enough to introduce the spores under the
skin, especially while putting weight on my knees.

I've just been kneeling and planting more seedlings today, but kept
stout jeans on despite the heat. My back just won't take stooping for
long nowadays.

I wonder if you suffer from dry skin? When I had an itchy spot on my
shin which would scab over when I scratched it, my GP called it Ringworm
and gave me some Trimovate cream. I used this for many months,
stopping when it cleared up, only for it to reappear.

After insisting on a second opinion, the GP referred me to a skin
specialist who snorted at "Ringworm", said that it was eczema, took a
scraping to be tested and prescribed Trimovate, but more importantly
Acqueous Cream, a bland moisturiser, and told me to use it on my shins.
This cured the problem permanently.

The skin is a good defence, but not when it is dry and cracked.
--
Gordon H
Remove "invalid" to reply

On 3 Sep, 14:49, "Ian B" wrote:
David in Normandy wrote:
Quote: "Compost manufacturers are considering putting warnings about
Legionnaires' disease on their bags following advice from the Royal
Horticultural Society."

The full article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7978133/Potting-plants-could-cause-...

Personally I enjoy getting my hands into the compost, it is half the
fun of potting up plants!

Hmm, I vote "dubious" for the claims of this article. I have some knowledge
of legionella as I used to be a building services engineer (polite term for
maintenance man) and a significant part of that is legionella precautions.

Legionella bacteria is all around us in the evironment. It's in all our
water. It is, under normal circumstances, harmless. It only becomes
dangerous when inhaled in a fine water spray, at which point it is able to
circumvent the body's natural defences against bacterial attack. We must
remember that the environment is full of things that want to do us harm,and
the reason we're here as a species is that the body has over billions of
years of evolution developed all kinds of protective mechanisms; which is
why disabling the immune system causes a horrible death from opportunist
infections. Once your protections are down, it's not *if* you will get ill,
but *when* you will get ill.

This is based on one particular case, and a supposition by the doctors
treating the man. It's a guess that he caught the infection from compost.
They have no proof, and cannot have proof; the only facts they have are that
he caught legionella, and had handled compost with a cut hand. But
correlation does not equal causation. He might have caught it from a spray
of water he does not even remember to tell them about.

So far as I am aware there are no known cases of legionella (except this
one, now, apparently) in which it has been caught by this route of
infection, through a skin lesion. If legionella were capable of infecting us
this way, it would be epidemic. But it isn't. Just rinsing a cut under tap
water- a very common first aid- would lead to infections, from legionella
infected water getting into the cut. Swimmers would catch it. People
handling garden soil would routinely catch it. Farmers dealing with water
troughs for animals would catch it. And so on.

But they don't. It is even very hard to catch from fine water sprays. Only
very high concentrations of the bacterium combined with a lack of water
treatment cause outbreaks. It only became a threat when cooling systems
using water sprays became commonplace, an environment in which the bacterium
thrives as the water is in a closed loop and can thus build up bacterial
concentrations; which is why engineers have to have a regime of bromine
treatment.

So I call foul on this. It's a supposition, not a scientific conclusion;
just guesswork from a doctor. It seems very unlikely to me.

Of course it's always advisable to avoid getting a cut dirty. There are lots
of diseases that like to make their way into the body via a dirty wound.
Legionella isn't one of them.

Ian

All of the above is exactly so.
I was a hospital engineer and spent quite a time bothering over
legionella.
You are more likely to get legionnaire disease by taking a shower.
About the compost, problems have arisen since substitutes for peat
have been incorporated. Peat was fairly sterile. Stuff like coir and
even composted human excrement are now used. I suppose there's a
good chance of infection via a cut.

On 03/09/2010 17:55, Gordon H wrote:
I wonder if you suffer from dry skin? When I had an itchy spot on my
shin which would scab over when I scratched it, my GP called it Ringworm
and gave me some Trimovate cream. I used this for many months, stopping
when it cleared up, only for it to reappear.

After insisting on a second opinion, the GP referred me to a skin
specialist who snorted at "Ringworm", said that it was eczema, took a
scraping to be tested and prescribed Trimovate, but more importantly
Acqueous Cream, a bland moisturiser, and told me to use it on my shins.
This cured the problem permanently.

The skin is a good defence, but not when it is dry and cracked.

I'm fairly sure it was fungal. It grew outwards in the classic circular
shape. It also itched like crazy. I had something similar once on my
shin though, where it grew similarly but outwards from a cut. I don't
have dry skin. The soil here must be laden with fungal spores - or I've
just become more susceptible to infection in my decrepitude! ;-)

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

On 03/09/2010 16:54, Ian B wrote:

As to knees, my mum had a "kneeler" for gardening which both protected her
knees and made it more comfortable too. Perhaps a worthwhile investment?
Even a dustbin liner would help stop knees getting ground into the soil.


Good idea. Oddly I've got a kneeler somewhere in the garage but it never
occurs to me to use it! Not sure how practical it would be though when
shuffling along the ground planting several rows of veg seedlings.
I've got some proper DIY strap on kneeling pads but they would be
useless as the soil would just get between them and my knees. Maybe the
bin liner would be more practical.

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

On 03/09/2010 19:50, Sacha wrote:
On 2010-09-03 18:45:59 +0100, David in Normandy
said:

On 03/09/2010 16:54, Ian B wrote:

As to knees, my mum had a "kneeler" for gardening which both
protected her
knees and made it more comfortable too. Perhaps a worthwhile investment?
Even a dustbin liner would help stop knees getting ground into the soil.


Good idea. Oddly I've got a kneeler somewhere in the garage but it
never occurs to me to use it! Not sure how practical it would be
though when shuffling along the ground planting several rows of veg
seedlings.
I've got some proper DIY strap on kneeling pads but they would be
useless as the soil would just get between them and my knees. Maybe
the bin liner would be more practical.

Now, I know this sounds extremely Heath Robinson but it works. One of
our Nursery staff took the wheeled bit off the bottom of an old garden
tractor, attached a couple of cushions on a board to it and zipped up
and down the lines of trees etc. while weeding. Don't you have some old
office chair or something of that kind in a skip-near-you? ;-)

Thanks for the suggestion. Heath-Robinson is my middle name! LOL. I'll
have a ponder.

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

Sacha wrote:
On 2010-09-03 18:45:59 +0100, David in Normandy
said:

On 03/09/2010 16:54, Ian B wrote:

As to knees, my mum had a "kneeler" for gardening which both
protected her knees and made it more comfortable too. Perhaps a
worthwhile investment? Even a dustbin liner would help stop knees
getting ground into the soil.

Good idea. Oddly I've got a kneeler somewhere in the garage but it
never occurs to me to use it! Not sure how practical it would be
though when shuffling along the ground planting several rows of veg
seedlings. I've got some proper DIY strap on kneeling pads but they
would be useless as the soil would just get between them and my
knees. Maybe the bin liner would be more practical.

Now, I know this sounds extremely Heath Robinson but it works. One of
our Nursery staff took the wheeled bit off the bottom of an old garden
tractor, attached a couple of cushions on a board to it and zipped up
and down the lines of trees etc. while weeding. Don't you have some
old office chair or something of that kind in a skip-near-you? ;-)

I'm wondering if just an old cushion wrapped in plastic might work quite
well.

I do see David's point that any device doesn't go well with shuffling along,
you have to keep getting up to move it. Maybe we need to invent some thickly
padded trousers!


Ian