I say yes, compost your food scraps. There are specific definitions for certified organic growers but for the home gardener do what you are comfortable with.

It is easy to confuse yourself if you start thinking about it too much, for example what about compost that comes from hay that was grown using fertilizer, is that organic? How about manure from horses or chickens that were fed grain grown with fertilizer? And so on . . .

This post was edited by art_1 on Mon, Sep 16, 13 at 22:58

yes stephens use them for sure,

we tried worm farm for ours too much work and you'd need a big farm to produce enough.

so we retired worms to heavily mulched gardens, and we now tuck our vege' scraps under the mulch all too easy.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

The primary foods that are Genetically Engineered are corn and soybeans but few of the rest of our vegies have been tampered with so those can be composted with little concern. Pesticide residue should disappear during preparation as you wash that produce, putting that stuff in the ground water through the waste water system. Supposedly these pesticide residues have dissipated by the time the vegies have reached the store, although some studies appear to refute that.

The answer depends, to a degree, on your view of organic, and what your desire or goal is by being an organic gardener.

As kimmsr noted there are very few GMO fruits and vegetables currently sold as fresh produce in the U.S. market, one notable exception being papaya from HI. Most of the GMO stuff is in corn, soy and rapeseed derivatives. There is, however, ongoing work to bring GMO's produce to market.

That said, the USDA's Certified Organic program specifically prohibits the use of any GMO's. Certified organic farmers have the burden to show that their products are being protected from contact with anything prohibited, and that includes GMO's (i.e., dairy cattle for organic products cannot be fed GMO-containing feeds, and cross use of equipment between GNO's and non-GMO's). Whether the USDA would extend that to compost I believe is rather questionable. I'm not aware that they require manure used as a soil amendment/fertilizer on certified organic farms to be from animals that have been managed organically under the NOP. Would they prohibit compost made from GMO corn or soybean residues? An interesting question, but given the equipment contamination issues I doubt any NOP certified farmer would touch the stuff.

On pesticides, what you do in your organic garden at home likely differs substantially from what commercial organic growers practice for pest control. There are substantial quantities of insecticides and fungicides used in organic farming. The probability of pesticide residues on commercially grown organic produce is no different than that of conventionally grown produce, but the pesticides are different. As far as composting goes, pesticide residues from commercially grown market produce, be it organic or conventionally grown, should not be a concern.

I figure if it was good enough for me to eat before I threw it in the compost, it sure won't hurt the compost. If you're that worried about pesticide residues, you should be buying all organic produce in the first place. If you're not, the using non-organic organics in your compost shouldn't worry you.

The notion that composted GM crops purely by their nature of being GM could cause any harm after being composted is ridiculous.

The purpose of my question is to address can we call ourselves or the veggies we grow truly organic if were using scraps from store bought sources in our compost. Im not concerned about injesting pesticides and what not i garden organically for the same reason most do, not supporting the use of dangerous pesticides and GMO products. Most organic lititure tells you to compost kitchen scraps which i feel is a wrong to obtain a true organic title.

Like I said, it depends on your view on the proper use of the term organic in gardening or agriculture.

You might want to raise the question in the Organic Gardening forum - link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Gardening forum

Oh, we have an Organic Gardening forum? I spend so much time here I don't get around much. :-)

Organic *farmers*, of course, won't have this problem as they're recycling their own stuff and not importing vegetables from the store. But I suppose to be officially organic, by the book, it probably would be an issue.

I think it would be less 'organic' to send compostables to the landfill...

If you are "not supporting the use of dangerous pesticides and GMO products" you shouldn't be buying veggies that don't conform to your standards, not buying them then throwing away the scraps. That amounts to voting with your wallet for pesticide use, then compounding that with unsustainable disposal.

Wow, I'd better stop there - I seem to be escalating! ðÂÂÂ

~emmers

If they finally pass the law making food manufactures to label their products that contain GMOs i would pick the product with out, moneys not an issue with me, its next to impossiable to research every source that your local supermarket carries. This is not about what i personally use in my garden its about the inaccuracies in published materials about organic gardening. Throwing these scraps away and choosing to not compost them has nothing to do with being organic, producing organic veggies is strictly how and what you used to produce the veggies or fruits. Throwing away the scraps has to deal with sustainability.

I couldn't disagree more. I think you'd have a hard time finding a rigorous definition of organic gardening that didn't involve a concept of sustainable soil building and conservation, nebulous as 'organic' may be when you're not talking about legal certification for farms.

Returning organic material to the soil/carbon cycle is about as 'organic' as it gets.

If we really want to break this down on the subject of sustainability, we would be returning the scraps to be composted and used in the soil where the product was actually grown not our own backyards. Sustainabilty concept is all about a balanced self sustaining ecosystems with no waste and no contamitants. The term Organic gardening dose support the concept of sustainability but dose not require it for a product to be labeled as organic. Now i dont see how composting possiable contaminated material is organic or sustainablity! Growing Organic, Sustainabilty, Recycling etc together is the bigger picture of a healthy sustainable plant.

If you buy NOP Certified Organic produce, it will be GMO-free, and it will also be free of pesticides that aren't approved for organic certification. Doesn't that solve your problem?

The city of NYC (amongst other places) would like to note that there is nothing "sustainable" about that...storing it, picking it up, or centralizing it for hauling it away back to it's source.

A lot of farming areas have a surplus of OM available...whether they use it or not. Along with the cover crops that aren't harvested or shipped anywhere and unharvested plant matter from crops left on the surface or turned under into the soil, there's generally a lot of animal farming going on where crop farming is happening producing a whole lot of animal manures.

It's a commodity which is concentrated in some areas more than others...many times to a surplus.

Your average cow can produce 80+lbs of manure a day...almost twice that if it's a milk cow. A single pig will produce about 15lbs. of manure a day. A single chicken will produce about 80lbs. of manure a year. Scale this up to commercial animal farming scale and you've got a lot of organic matter to deal with.

nc-crn i can agree with that

everyones not getting the point of this post yes obvoius if you only buy certified organic produce you dont need to worry about pesticides and what not. My point is that almost all organic literature published states to compost kitchens scraps but they failed to mention to only use certified organic kitchen kitchen scraps in their gardens, using standard store bought produce is not organic even if you properly wash.

Organic gardening != certified organic farming or product labeling requirements. By the standards of organic certification I believe you need to go another year before your product can be labeled organic.

It isn't a contradiction or an inaccuracy - gardening organically is about the choices you make in managing your soil and your plants. Applying pesticides would be a choice not in keeping with organic philosophies. When you compost kitchen scraps, you are making a choice that resonates with organic philosophy. Whether or not that product once had a pesticide applied to it doesn't matter -that's not your choice. You are choosing to enrich your soil with available materials, and disposing of them in an environmentally responsible matter.

Organic farming and certification is different -that is about ensuring the consumer of your product has a reasonable expectation that the product does not have pesticide residues and has been grown in a more environmentally responsible manner than conventional produce.

I'd also like to point out that if you purchase organic products at the supermarket (putting your money where your mouth is) you should be able to compost your kitchen scraps without violating your standards -unless you're still worried about contaminated grandpappy compost.

This is what comes of careful self de-escalation! Several posts came in whilst I was deleting inflammatory rhetoric.

It's been pointed out several times (here and in the organic GARDENING forum) that compost, evil food scrap containing or no, is highly unlikely to be 'contaminated' or 'non-organic'.

Suggestion: if 'everyone's' not getting 'the point', it might not be 'everyone's' fault.

I agree with your statement as a whole organic gardening is a choice and is apart of the bigger picture of a healthy planet, i feel the literature should be as accurate to the definition of what certified organic gardening truly is. Once again as ive stated multiple times, monies not an issue, i buy organic, this topic was started to point out a notable inaccuracy in organic gardening literature i noticed.

A devout practitioner of organic methodology and organic products, as you would define it, would only have produce passing through their kitchen that would be consistent with the NOP requirements.

For those who aren't so devout I would rather have them recycle their kitchen waste via composting and use it in their version of an organic garden than send it either to a landfill as solid waste or down the drain as wastewater to preserve their "organic" compost.

As you noted the issues of organic agriculture and sustainability overlap, but neither requires the other. Sustainability also needs to consider a much bigger picture that includes total resource utilization (including energy, water, land, etc.) and the attendant waste produced. Sustainability is much more complicated, is broader and more demanding than what is encompassed today as organic.

I can operate my kitchen today using nothing but NOP certified produce, dairy, etc. But, to do so would require a 50-mile trip one-way to source all the products. I know a number of people who make that trip a couple of times each week to satisfy their demand for those products. In the overall picture is that 200 miles of weekly driving more sustainable than the 20 mile local alternative for the conventional products?

This post was edited by TXEB on Thu, Sep 19, 13 at 1:29

Ok, again, you've said the literature should reflect what 'certified organic gardening' really is.

'certified organic gardening' DOES NOT EXIST. No such thing.

Organic certification is a standardization of many organic farming concepts (that were around long before certification) towards a goal of consumer protection - truth in labeling. This is only relevant to companies producing products for sale to consumers.

This does not apply to me as an organic gardener, nor to all those poor authors you feel are being hypocritical at you by writing books for organic gardeners.

Even so, I do not believe organic certification requires using organic stuff to make organic compost - correct me if I'm wrong.

If you'd like to write your congressman and ask his permission to use conventional feedstocks in your compost, go ahead.

emmers has it right. There are no broad standards for "organic gardening", nor are there any regulations governing organic gardening as an activity separate from other classifications. There are, however, some common and generally accepted principles of organic gardening. How any individual gardener embraces and adheres to those basic principles is a matter of personal choice. For you that may mean the exclusion of certain items from your compost that others would freely use. Neither is right or wrong, just different.

Separate and distinct from organic gardening is the use of the term "organic" in commercial agriculture. In the U.S. the use of the term "organic" in the labeling of food products sold commercially is regulated specifically for the purpose of consumer protection.

Even if organic certification were relevant to kitchen scraps/home gardens:
"However, the NOP regulations were established with recognition that background levels of synthetic pesticides may be present in the environment and, therefore, may be present in organic production systems. This is referred to as unavoidable residual environmental contamination (UREC) in the regulations. Furthermore, the NOP standards are process based and do not mandate zero tolerance for synthetic pesticide residues in inputs, such as compost. Compost that is produced from the approved feedstocks, listed above, is acceptable for use in organic production, provided that any residual pesticide levels do not contribute to the contamination of crops, soil or water. "

Here is a link that might be useful: NOP Compost Guidance

There you have it! The approved feedstocks include 'food waste.'

Sure is great having people around here who know this stuff inside and out. I'm just a poser. ;-]

When you put scraps of GMO plants into your compost pile and they are thoroughly broken down, I don't see how they can harm your garden. Not defending genetic modification, only saying that if you have access to parts & pieces of such plants, just compost them same as anything else.

For home organic gardeners who want to be rigorous in their avoidance of GMO plant materials or residues, they need to consider their use of manures from any number of animals whose feed may include GMOs, some commercially prepared composts that may include either manures or be based upon GMO plant products (e.g., cotton burr compost), and fertilizers or soil amendments based on soy, cotton or corn.

If you chop up a GMO'd plant and then it breaks down thoroughtly in the compost pile into C, H, O, N and other elements, I don't see how it could be dangerous any more. Any seeds are dead and gone and can't reproduce. It's not like plutonium is released or something.

I'm not defending genetic modification, I'm opposed to that. Just saying we can still use these things if we transform them into a harmless form.

For the home gardener it is a personal choice. Some will care, others won't. For commercial growers/farmers who desire to produce USDA NOP "certified organic" products it often is not a matter of personal choice but one of a regulatory restriction.

BTW, composting doesn't reduce the feedstocks to the elements, and many seeds often survive composting. Tomatoes are notorious for it.

I'm afraid that dirtguy50 is correct. We can only lessen our contact with unhealthy substances whether "organic" or not; we can't eliminate them.