Recently, I've been researching purchased soil and compost, often delivered in large bags or bulk. This year, many gardeners are facing a disturbing issue: soil poisoning. It's a problem our great-grandparents never dealt with.

1. Fields are sprayed with herbicides to control plant growth.

2. Animals consume treated hay, passing the herbicide through their digestive systems.

3. Manure from these animals, containing herbicide residues, is used in gardens.

4. Plants initially grow but then exhibit stunted growth and fail to produce fruit or seeds.

Despite composting and transit time, herbicide residues remain toxic to gardens.

“In those rare cases where garden plants have been damaged by aminopyralid, the herbicide was introduced through animal manure that should not have been used as a garden fertilizer soil amendment. Any introduction into a garden is due to a failure to follow label directions."

The U.S. EPA approved this herbicide, placing responsibility on them.

Affected plants include potatoes, legumes, carrots, tomatoes, lettuce, dahlias, and roses.

“If aminopyralid has been introduced into your garden, and plants are showing symptoms of herbicide damage consistent with aminopyralid, but produce a harvestable yield, these inadvertent aminopyralid residues are at a level low enough that you can eat the produce from the garden.”

Did you notice the distancing word “inadvertent” in there?! After this paragraph, they deflect by going on about how you should be careful of “other contaminants” also, like e.coli.

Perhaps you purchased soil and want to know if it is poisoned without losing your entire crop. The perpetrator has the answer even for that; you can click through to their letter — I’ll link it at the bottom of this post as a “source.” But the short version is: to plant some peas or beans in the soil. Both of these grow quickly, and both are affected by aminopyralids, so you’ll know if the poison is in your soil.

If the plants look yellow and curly and weird, they’re poisoned. If they look normal, they’re normal.

Gardeners who have spoken about their poisoned soil in the past (mostly Europeans – they were hit hard), have said it took two years for their soil to produce again. Dow says, “In many cases [it] dissipates by the following year.”

Dow AgroSciences says (and we should hold them accountable for this statement), “Aminopyralid decomposes with the help of microorganisms found in soil. Residues in manure or compost break down if rototilled into the soil and turned over regularly.”

It’s infuriating to me that Dow AgroSciences has known of their product’s effect on gardens since at least 2009! In the dozen years since then, can you imagine the tens of thousands of affected acres, and the unthinkable amount of poisoned soil there is by now?

Even more infuriating is that the Environmental Protection Agency has done nothing to stop this poisoning of our Earth.

If you have a poisoned garden, I’m so sorry. I think if I had one, I would probably look into anything that could increase microbial action, such as compost teas and manure from our farm animals, leaf litter, etc.

If you do not have a poisoned garden, it’s time for us to learn how to compost, and how to make soil right where we are, right off our land. We do not need to be impatient; we do not have to bring in soil. God made the Earth able to heal itself and we can create soil from what it provides.