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Ancient dried cat poo in greenhouse
OtherChris
Posts: 20
in Fruit & veg
Hello,
We have recently moved into a house with a huge old industrial greenhouse (about 60 feet long, has a boiler and water tank and everything!). The greenhouse clearly hasn't been used in a very long time - all the beds were full of soil and it was as dry as a bone - if you touched it you got clouds of fine dust coming up.
The only problem is that the soil has a *lot* of what appears to be historic cat poo in it. Like the soil it is also completely dried up. I can only guess that at some stage in the past local cats used to come in during the winter because it was warm.
A couple of weeks ago I cleared out a couple of sections of the greenhouse - removing all the cat poo I could find (at least a couple of big bucket loads). I then dug in some compost and fertiliser, watered, and planted some tomatoes, peppers and stawberries.
They all seem to be doing well and growing fine given that these will be the first vegetables I've ever grown. However, I've recently read a lot of scare stories about cat poo and wondered if that which I found is likely to be a problem? Am I going to be ok with my tomatoes etc as long as I wash them before eating? Anything else I should do or look out for?
Many thanks for any advice.
We have recently moved into a house with a huge old industrial greenhouse (about 60 feet long, has a boiler and water tank and everything!). The greenhouse clearly hasn't been used in a very long time - all the beds were full of soil and it was as dry as a bone - if you touched it you got clouds of fine dust coming up.
The only problem is that the soil has a *lot* of what appears to be historic cat poo in it. Like the soil it is also completely dried up. I can only guess that at some stage in the past local cats used to come in during the winter because it was warm.
A couple of weeks ago I cleared out a couple of sections of the greenhouse - removing all the cat poo I could find (at least a couple of big bucket loads). I then dug in some compost and fertiliser, watered, and planted some tomatoes, peppers and stawberries.
They all seem to be doing well and growing fine given that these will be the first vegetables I've ever grown. However, I've recently read a lot of scare stories about cat poo and wondered if that which I found is likely to be a problem? Am I going to be ok with my tomatoes etc as long as I wash them before eating? Anything else I should do or look out for?
Many thanks for any advice.
0
Posts
If you're not pregnant, or don't plan to be pregnant any time soon.. or will not feed the produce to any pregnant people.. then I would just put a couple of inches of fresh soil on top and call it good for now. Next spring top it up with a thicker layer of compost, and hopefully all the remaining poo will breakdown and disappear.
If anyone in your house is pregnancy, or could get pregnant, then probably best to dig out all the soil and replace it with fresh. I suppose there is no guarantee that the fresh soil isn't cat contaminated though..
Here is some research, if you're interested. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3416395/#!po=51.9231
When we moved in we were planning on getting the greenhouse removed, but our friends have said it would be sacrilege so we're learning to love it.. It's great for hanging sailing gear to dry too
I am also a bright shade of envious green. Lucky you. In a year or twos time you will wonder how you ever managed without it. It reminds me of the greenhouses all over The Channel Islands when they were in full production of flowers and tomatoes. My father worked as a boiler fitter, servicing and repairing the coal fired hot water boilers used for heating the greenhouses during the winter.
Ho Hum. Those were the days.