Clare Scifi

Thanks for the responses. I am in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Some in another group have suggested that perhaps the soil was just too dry for the seeds to germinate?

The plants the farmers grew last summer were left there all winter. I wondered whether that might have caused pathogens to be present in the soil that were not killed off during our extremely mild winter? The crops left in the ground over the winter were tomatoes and hot peppers.

Can anyone recommend some good articles online about how modern farming methods (using pesticides and heavy fertilizer applications) deplete the soil of nutrients? I'm especially interested in 2,4-D (herbicide) and how it impacts the soil, etc.

I tried to garden in an area farmers had farmed last year, and it was a nightmare. I'm organic. And then I learned they'd used this 2,4-D stuff (after initially having been told they were merely using soap and dish detergent to kill the weeds!) and wonder if that's why it took my sunflower seeds 5 weeks to germinate and I had such low germination rates of seeds, etc. My transplants stunted. Watermelons, pumpkins, cantaloupes, and strawberries all stunted and then turned to dust and blew away. Only radishes, peas, and lettuce did well.

Could the bugs have been driven out of the field with the 2,4-D and into my organic patch and that is why my seeds mostly didn't germinate-- they were eaten?

And the stuff I grew in hot horse manure did well, too.
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