THANK-YOU FOR THE GOOD INFORMATION

by Maralela , Monday, May 21, 2012, 23:37 @ lilpony2all

You wrote

... this is the first year I'll be growing a LOT of food outdoors - the hope and goal is to grow most of our food ourselves,

[snip]

Second thought - zeolite powder. Specifically, the variety of zeolite (a volcanic mineral group) called clinoptilolite. Sprinkled in and on the soil before and after planting seeds or starts, and also mixed with water (about half a cup to a cupful per gallon) in a one-gallon backpack sprayer (about $10 at the do-it-yourself) and misted all over the plants while they're growing, maybe once every week or two. If you google zeolite you will find it's what they used at Chernobyl, and when they fed 'zeolite cookies' (I'm supposing it's cookies with part of the flour replaced with zeolite powder) it removed 30% per day of the radiation in kids' bodies. It binds with radioactive particles and keeps them from being taken up into the plants - in my most inexpert summary. But it's probably your best friend for keeping you and the plants and earth, and your animals (I mix a tablespoon in canned dogfood for my big dog, and a teaspoon in cat food, split between 2 cats). For people, use it to replace some flour in bread or other baked goods, maybe a quarter of the flour... I bake our bread and it's not really detectable.

etc

Thank-you for some good suggestions. I want to check out the zeolite powder some more. Since a neighbors tall tree was cut down I am able to expand my garden by quite a bit (more sun) so I've been hard at work preparing the new area. The way this yard is shaped, plus neighboring trees nearly eliminates a chance of using hoop houses to cover the garden food like someone else suggested.

There are LOTS of dandylions in my yard and next door. They've always grown very tall and with long leaves like I have seen sold in a market. Haven't noticed any changes in their looks or habits. The thicker stems on the parsley are the only strangeness in plants I've noticed and did have me thinking about radiation, but you have explained a possible cause (hope it is the only cause).

Surely we must have at least SOME higher radiation, so much going on in the world to do that. (So MANY nuclear power plants on this coast, too!)