"Mark Anderson" wrote in message
.net...
In article says...
It should wash out or at least dilute itself enough over time. How much
time? Who knows...till it up regularly so it all gets wet.

But I bet if you used that as a mini compost bin/area that would speed
things up. Would need a few handfuls of "real" dirt from downstairs if
all
you have used so far is bagged clean dirt. Mix in kitchen scraps and
crumbled up dried leaves, maybe some grass clippings. Dig in a bowl of
kitchen scraps every few days. Even buy a tub of red wigglers from
Wal-Mart's sporting goods area (not night crawlers for composting, the
small
red ones...).

Our family business is building wetlands and all we do is break the soil
up
18" getting air and microbes down all the way, flood and replant, and we
turn some pretty nasty dirt into some of the best soil and beautiful
marshes
ever...and in less than a year.

Thanks for the info. This sounds like a simpler solution than digging
out 1/4 of the dirt in that box and even then I might not get all the
chemicals because they could have spread. I'll start composting that
area today and I do normally water there heavily. This year we're in
severe drought here in Chicago. We only got one good rain all year and
that was 2 weeks ago and that lasted less than a day making it extremely
difficult to keep up with watering. That may have exasperated the
problem and I've been having problems with all my wildflower boxes. I
feel like I've become a slave to my garden this year -- absolutely no
days off! No amount of manual watering can match the power of a good
sustained rain or the downpour from a thunderstorm.




Remember not to plant edibles in that soil, unless you like mysteries.