Have you noticed the many “Out of Season” banners on our shop page? Are you wondering why they are visible at all?
These are memorial posts for the crops would have been grown and distributed last year out of our urban food forest. There was an unfortunate incident involving an incorrect pesticide application involving Good Chicken Gardens early last year. The end result was a full contamination of the property with a pesticide that is not food safe and is slow to break down in the soil.
To ensure the safety of our customers and the local pollinators, all the flowers involved in the incident were removed and destroyed last year. The soil was left undisturbed all summer to maximize UV exposure to assist in breaking down the pesticide as quickly as possible. The original business plan for Good Chicken Gardens was to grown and develop artisan edible goods such as fresh herbs blends and teas. Since the profile of the pesticide indicates it can take years to break down there is still a few growing seasons before we will be planting food directly in the soil for edible products.
The past four years have been spent using natural soil remediation methods to create healthy in-ground plant beds on our urban farm. That grow space needs to be utilized so the plan for 2025 is to lean into flowers and other non-consumable plants in those beds.
The floral and greenery plants will still be grown in soil on our urban farm since the plants do not uptake this particular pesticide through their roots. There is still a risk of contamination from soil splashing on the plant so consumption is not recommended even if the species of floral is edible. In addition to these precautions, Good Chicken Gardens will not be advertising these products as “pesticide free” although we personally do not apply any pesticide treatments. If a plant is advertised as “Edible” it will be grown in containers with methods that mitigate the risk of direct contact with the soil.
Our grow methods will be outlined in blog posts this spring so be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get updates about new posts!
