I observed something strange in one of my newly built and spring planted
wildflower boxes this year. An area of 2 feet x 2 feet was completely
bare even though I kept reseeding and reseeding and reseeding till I
finally gave up. Nothing would grow there even the most noxious
invasive weeds which I saw start to sprout and then kind of whither
away. It was very strange. I initially suspected that a couple of bags
of dirt I bought from Menards was contaminated with a chemical like
Round Up.

When cleaning the garage the other day I noticed a stain on the floor
that had been caused by me leaving this Citrus cleaner in a coffee can.
The cleaner is that orange liquid stuff that you can get at Home Depot
and smells like oranges but the instructions demand that you wear gloves
when using it so it must be pretty corrosive. It was corrosive enough
to eat through the bottom of the coffee can, get onto the cement floor,
and eat into the cement. I kind of forgot about the coffee can for a
month last year until I discovered the mess so the chemicals had a long
time to change their molecules. Anyway, right next to this little
chemical spill were two extra bags of potting soil that I had stored and
I think perhaps made contact with this chemical and might have absorbed
a lot of it. When tracing back what happened, I think I remember
grabbing those two bags to get rid of them not giving a second thought
about the contamination. At that time, in the early spring when I
installed these boxes, I was hauling a lot of soil. Each wildflower box
takes 25 bags of dirt/compost/peat/whatever.

So this blighted area in the box most likely was my fault. My question
to anyone who knows: Will this chemical eventually wash out of the box
on its own? My boxes have very good drainage systems. In the fall I
need to make a decision whether to extract all the dirt in that area and
replace it or just hope the fall and winter precipitation will clean out
the dirt. This box is located on my main rooftop making getting dirt up
there a lot of effort but I'll do it if necessary.

Here's a pic of the box in question:

http://www.brandylion.com/gallery/Garden2005/121_2157

The bald spot is at the right end.

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.

Course a quick fix would be to dig that soil out, dump it someplace away
from a stream or water source and replace the dirt but that would be heavier
on the back :)

hth
John
in Houston



"Mark Anderson" wrote in message
.net...
I observed something strange in one of my newly built and spring planted
wildflower boxes this year. An area of 2 feet x 2 feet was completely
bare even though I kept reseeding and reseeding and reseeding till I
finally gave up. Nothing would grow there even the most noxious
invasive weeds which I saw start to sprout and then kind of whither
away. It was very strange. I initially suspected that a couple of bags
of dirt I bought from Menards was contaminated with a chemical like
Round Up.

When cleaning the garage the other day I noticed a stain on the floor
that had been caused by me leaving this Citrus cleaner in a coffee can.
The cleaner is that orange liquid stuff that you can get at Home Depot
and smells like oranges but the instructions demand that you wear gloves
when using it so it must be pretty corrosive. It was corrosive enough
to eat through the bottom of the coffee can, get onto the cement floor,
and eat into the cement. I kind of forgot about the coffee can for a
month last year until I discovered the mess so the chemicals had a long
time to change their molecules. Anyway, right next to this little
chemical spill were two extra bags of potting soil that I had stored and
I think perhaps made contact with this chemical and might have absorbed
a lot of it. When tracing back what happened, I think I remember
grabbing those two bags to get rid of them not giving a second thought
about the contamination. At that time, in the early spring when I
installed these boxes, I was hauling a lot of soil. Each wildflower box
takes 25 bags of dirt/compost/peat/whatever.

So this blighted area in the box most likely was my fault. My question
to anyone who knows: Will this chemical eventually wash out of the box
on its own? My boxes have very good drainage systems. In the fall I
need to make a decision whether to extract all the dirt in that area and
replace it or just hope the fall and winter precipitation will clean out
the dirt. This box is located on my main rooftop making getting dirt up
there a lot of effort but I'll do it if necessary.

Here's a pic of the box in question:

http://www.brandylion.com/gallery/Garden2005/121_2157

The bald spot is at the right end.

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.

"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.

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

I considered moving my hot peppers into that box next year. Luckily I
caught this and now that box will be wildflowers for the next few years
at least. I'm starting to worry if perhaps some of that dirt made it
into my tomato planters since a couple of my tomato plants look like
shit this year even though they're producing healthy fruit.

"Mark Anderson" wrote in message
.net...
In article says...
Remember not to plant edibles in that soil, unless you like mysteries.

I considered moving my hot peppers into that box next year. Luckily I
caught this and now that box will be wildflowers for the next few years
at least. I'm starting to worry if perhaps some of that dirt made it
into my tomato planters since a couple of my tomato plants look like
shit this year even though they're producing healthy fruit.




Could be the chemical, or it could also be that the soil needs beefing up.
Buy yourself a soil test kit - one that checks not just pH, but also
nutrients. Even so, always assume that yard chemicals (or obviously,
cleaning products) are UNsafe until proven otherwise. Since that's
impossible to prove without testing them on humans, it's safe to assume that
they're UNsafe. :-)