GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

28-03-2003, 03:44 AM

In article ,
(mags) writes:

hello,
i've just begun a vegetable garden with my cousin on my aunt and
uncle's property. the spot we are planting is right next to a burn
pile. many of the ashes of burnt garbage have been dumped on the
area. while i was digging in the ground i found pieced of charred
plastic and even a battery at on point. i am concerned that this is
not health to be growing in? does any one have advice for me?

If you like flowers, and you don't want to eat them too(!) you are in good
shape. You could have tests done to see the extent of heavy metal
contamination, but if it's been used to burn trash for years, you have a lot
more of that than the occasional battery.

Treatments are to ignore the condition and only use the area for flowers, and
interesting plants, or you could get in and do it the EPA way and dig out and
replace the contaminated soil. There are too many good produce stores around
to make this last treatment economical. But then again, you might want to be
sure that you have a good ground cover growing on the area to keep the dust out
of any wind that may blow towards the house.

I universally advise my neighbors in San Francisco to avoid eating *anything*
grown in a city backyard, because people have been painting the fences in the
yards with Lead since 1860. And then there are the improvers who dumped all
the ashes from burned Sunday papers to help improve things more.

David Giunti email: unity
What is the question? Gertrude Stein's last words
No one mouth is big enough to utter the whole thing. Alan Watts

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