I compost all types of animal manure when I can get it, Maggie. That's not what I was saying. It's the potential for spreading plant diseases that bugs me. When I started my veg garden here 35 years ago I had no onion white rot. Somehow it got into my soil and I haven't been able to grow onions, shallots, leeks or garlic without losing a half to two-thirds of my crop. The black spores can lie dormant for 20 years. Unlike most UK gardeners I've managed to keep brassica clubroot at bay. I had that when I had an allotment just outside London and it devastated my crops every year. So nothing from any bought cauliflower, cabbage, kale, sprouts or broccoli goes into my heaps. The counsel of perfection is to put suspect material into the middle of fresh heaps where the heat will kill any spores, but in practice that in unachievable for most of the heap, especially the stuff nearer to the outsides. I generate so much compost from my home-grown crops, weeds and grass clippings that I should think that shop-bought trimmings would contribute less that one per cent of the bulk. My blighted potato tops go in the heaps as the spores can't survive the winter unless they're in "volunteer" potatoes, and I never worry about weeds that have seeded. As for pesticide residues, to register as an organic farmer in the UK you mustn't have used the chemicals banned for organic for at least two years. That rule is there for a reason. Many shop-bought products, including oranges, tangerines, lemons and peppers are dusted with fungicide before sale. There no definitive evidence that mere rinsing gets rid of it all.

My view on fresh chicken and rabbit droppings is that they should go on the compost heap, not straight into the soil. Small amounts of rabbit won't do any harm, but chicken is a "hot" manure which will do wonders for your heaps but not a lot for crops, and in large amounts it will do damage. The only fertiliser I ever buy is chicken manure pellets, which have already been composted. Not saying you're wrong, but I've been gardening organically for 45 years...