Green and Confused : How to spread a little healthiness in your garden

Is it safe to throw vegetable and fruit peelings and leftovers into the compost? Could pesticides soak into the pile and cause problems when spread on the vegetable garden?

A well-run compost heap functions in much the same way as your liver. It breaks down the various materials passing through it, removing impurities and delivering a purified end product. But, like the liver, compost can suffer if too much is loaded on to it at any one time: cirrhosis of the compost heap might be the outcome.

So, in the same way that you might every so often give up alcohol, detox or flush out your liver, a compost heap needs careful nurturing. Ideally, its feedstock should contain a variety of materials — from lawn clippings to vacuum cleaner dust, from autumn leaves to used coffee filters.

Layering the mixture with a good activator, such as horse manure, is a smart move. Turn the whole lot over once in a while and cover with an old piece of carpet to cook quietly away. Within a few months you should have a lovely, soft, rich material to spread on the vegetable patch or allotment.



Regulations governing the use of pesticides on vegetables and fruit have been tightened over the years, but maintaining a living, breathing compost heap is crucial if various nasty residues are to be eliminated. Many fruits, vegetables and also commercially grown flowers contain the residues of what are called crop-protection compounds. These go by a whole football team of names — the fungicides thiabendazole and dodemorph and the insecticide endosulfan are among the most common.

A proper compost heap will contain all manner of active micro-organisms. This diversity helps to promote the breakdown of the various compounds — with every chance that one of those hundreds of thousands of microbes will be able to degrade residues of a particular pesticide or insecticide. As long as some sort of balance is maintained among the compost ingredients, the residues should quickly disappear.

The Pesticide Action Network (www.pan-uk.org/Projects/Food/index.htm) lists the worst pesticide offenders on the food shelf: potatoes, bread, apples, grapes, tomatoes and cucumbers all feature. The advice is to wash thoroughly, peel, buy organic or, best of all, grow your own. And don’t forget to keep that compost heap warm and healthy.