Dallas Morning News – August 27, 2020

Soil Detox Update

There are people and even universities still recommending and using destructive fertilizers and toxic chemical pesticides. If you are moving into a new property and are not sure, you probably should assume that the previous owners were not organic. That would mean a high chance of the soil being contaminated, but the good news is that it can be fixed.

In addition to owners using the bad stuff on purpose, lawn care companies treat the wrong address sometimes. I get a surprising number of calls about it. It’s also not uncommon for neighboring farm spraying to drift toxins onto your place. I receive far too many calls and letters from organic gardening spouses that are upset because the chemical using spouse has applied a toxic herbicide or other chemical to (usually her) organic vegetable garden.

Fine textured activated carbon or humate are messy but highly effective as part of the detox program

Even a one time chemical application is destructive, so a review of my detox program is in order, and there is a commercial product available now that makes the procedure easier and maybe even more effective.

The detox program works for all kinds of contamination including preservatives in treated lumber, creosote in railroad ties, heavy metals from iron supplements and fertilizers, as well the toxic pesticides like azoxystrobin, permethrin, MSMA, 2,4-D, Roundup, Sevin, Manage, Raid, Orthene, Bayleton, Daconyl or anything else. Digging the soil out and hauling it off is not the answer. There’s a much easier and more effective solution.

Fine textured humate can be mixed with water to spray the soil and tie-up toxic materials

Medina Liquid Humate is a convenient way to apply the fine-textured material

First, stop the contamination assault if it continues in any way and the violators need to be put on notice that they are responsible for the cost to fix the problem. Next, apply a fine-textured activated charcoal or humate product. It’s best to mix these products into water to spray and drench the entire problem area. The rate of use should be enough to saturate the top two inches of soil. The fine textured dry products are hard to find usually but here’s the good news. To make this step easier, use a liquid humate product because the fine textured humate is already mixed with water and ready to be applied. One such product is sold as Medina Humate Liquid Humus. It can be found in certain garden centers and farm stores that stock organic products as well as on line.

Next, spray the foliage of plants and drench the soil in the problem area with the Garrett Juice mixture with orange oil (D-Limonene) added at 2 ounces per gallon of mix. The carbon product (humate or charcoal) ties up the contaminants instantly and the other organic inputs stimulate the microbes to feed on and actually break down the toxic molecules.

Liquid molasses is in the Garrett Juice mix, but adding additional molasses to the mixture will help speed up the decontamination process. Adding a soil stimulant such as Medina Soil Activator will speed up the process even more.