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David Handley: Hi. My name is David Handley. I'm the Vegetable and Small Fruits Specialist
for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. Today we're going to talk a little bit about
food safety in the home garden situation. Now we can break up food safety into several
different steps which pretty much fall as your typical gardening steps as we go through.
Food safety is very important. You've probably all seen some of the issues with food contamination
recently. This can happen both in a home garden and on a commercial scale. What you have to
realize is the garden is just full of the potential contaminants that could bother you
such as bacteria, mold, and viruses and you need to do whatever you can to keep those
at a level that is too low to cause you any sickness.
The first step in gardening is preparing the garden. When we're talking about this one
of the first things you need to think about is site selection. So in food safety site
selection what you should think about is where this garden is going to be and any potential
risks that might occur.
So we don't want to put the garden where a manure pile is, for example, or where run-off
could come into the garden from there. You want to keep it away from your septic system
and you want to keep it away from areas where animals walk through quite regularly and may
leave droppings behind that could cause contamination.
Next let's talk about preparing the garden and getting that site ready. One of the things
we often think about for preparing our garden is working up the soil and adding things like
manure to it to build that soil structure and help with nutrients. Manure is very good
in that regard, but manure is also a very strong potential source of contamination.
As a result of that what we typically recommend is that if you're going to use fresh manure
in your garden to increase its nutrient value and to improve its structure, you do it at
least 120 days before you're going to harvest anything out of that garden. Now here in Maine
what that means is that manure applications should be made in the fall after harvest and
incorporated into the soil so that its benefits will be waiting for you there next spring.
The other thing we need to think about in terms of preparing the garden is where your
water is coming from. Water contamination is another critical thing. Generally if we're
using municipal water supplies that is going to be considered safe because that is tested
very frequently.
If you're using a drilled well that is also considered relatively safe. But you should
have that well tested and you don't want to put your garden right by the well head because
there can be some cross contamination there depending on what you're doing in your garden.
For example, using manures.
If you're using surface water, water from ponds, rivers, or streams, this is most likely
going to have some contaminants in it. So when you use it you should only be using it
at the base of the plants, especially if we're talking about leafy greens like lettuce or
spinach, so that that's going to the root and not contaminating the leaves.
Let's move onto harvesting. Now when we talk about harvesting one of the first things you
need to think about is yourself. Are your hands nice and clean before you get into that
garden? Always wash your hands before you harvest produce. If you have any cuts or open
sores you shouldn't be picking the produce unless that sore is well-covered. Use gloves.
Dish gloves work well, but make sure your gloves are clean. Dirty old gardening gloves
that you've been handling compost or manure with are not safe coverings to bring that
produce in.
Now, the other thing, of course, is what are you going to pick into? Containers? Well,
if you're using picking containers make sure that they are clean. We recommend using plastic
food-grade containers. In other words these are buckets that are meant to have food in
them.
Using an old paint bucket or using a bucket that you've been toting around compost or
maybe mixing up pesticides in is not safe. You should not be putting your produce into
those.
Once we've got this harvested one of the things we want to do is clean all the soil off of
it before it goes into the house and in some cases, the case of carrots or anything you're
digging out of the soil, this can just be an easy brushing or shaking off to get most
of that soil off before it goes into the house.
Now, if you're going to wash your produce before you put it into storage you can wash
it, get most of the soil off it, don't scrub it and take the skin off of it because this
opens up wounds that can cause rot later. Just lightly wash it and rinse it with potable
or drinkable water. Then make sure it's thoroughly dry before it goes into storage. You shouldn't
be putting anything into storage that's wet because this will encourage mold.
Taking all of these things into account, the fact that you're preparing your garden away
from potential sources of contamination, the fact that you're using any manures or composts
safely as you go through the garden. Also using any pesticides safely according to the
directions, reading those labels carefully so you're allowing those residues to go off
the produce before you eat it.
Harvesting into clean containers and make sure your own personal hygiene is up to snuff.
Then storing these things properly and preparing them properly will severely reduce the risk
of any potential source of contamination and keep you and your family happy and healthy
and enjoying these great vegetables out in the garden.
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