Soil check

[manjety.livejournal.com]

Hi everybody!

Do you know how can I check the soil on my backyard for chemicals and whatever bad could there be?
Are the self check kits trustful? What would you recommend?

Comments

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Between the lead paint on the outside of houses and the lead in gasoline for decades, it would be miraculous if your soil didn't have serious levels of lead in it, so I probably wouldn't bother with the $25 unless you have some reason to think a previous owner put in clean topsoil in the past twenty years.

My vague recollection is that the places you send samples to are more accurate and test for more contaminants than the at-home tests, but I don't remember how I found the company that did my water and paint test a few years back.

[manjety.livejournal.com]

I'm more than sure my landlord did not "put in clean topsoil" - does it mean it is not safe to grow and eat vegies from the yard?

Maybe.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Fruits should be ok; possibly greens. I would skip root vegetables.

Here's what UMass says:

http://www.umass.edu/plsoils/soiltest/lead1.htm

1. Locate gardens away from old painted structures and heavily travelled roads.

2. Give planting preferences to fruiting crops (tomatoes, squash, peas, sunflowers, corn, etc.).

3. Incorporate organic materials such as finished compost, humus, and peat moss.

4. Lime soil as recommended by soil test (pH 6.5 minimizes lead availability).

5. Discard old and outer leaves before eating leafy vegetables. Peel root crops. Wash all produce.

6. Keep dust to a minimum by maintaining a mulched and/or moist soil surface .

Re: Maybe.

[manjety.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for the link and all the details!

[larksdream]

For $13 plus the cost of shipping a small package to them, UMass will test your soil sample. (It almost certainly has lead in it; the question is how much.) $9 if you don't care about organic matter content (which you would if you wanted to grow things). I wouldn't bother with the home test kit.

[manjety.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I like the idea of giving knowledgable people do the test.

[jadelennox]

the UMass report was incredibly useful. You dig up soil samples, you send them to them in Amherst, and they tell you all kinds of detailed levels like "you can grow fruit here but not greens" (because different plants store lead differently). They also tell you how to enrich your soil. As a result of that test, I grow a lot of my edible food in raised beds. Urban soils tend to be full of lead, and Somerville in particular use to have a lot of tanneries which dumped mercury into the soil, so it is good to be careful -- especially if the food is eaten by anyone pregnant or nursing, or by small children.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

The old-school residents grow and consume all kinds of wonderful things from their front and back yards here. If you're friendly with any of them, they might know. A few houses down from me, Italian neighbors filled their split front yard with lush chicória. I've seen corn, watermelons, hot peppers, and lovely carport grape arbors, year after year. I'd worry more about how you're going to find the time to garden -- if you walk around the back residential streets, many residents are eating (and probably winemaking) well from the soil here ... I recommend talking with any old-school yard gardeners if you can.

[manjety.livejournal.com]

Thanks!
Here is my little 'story' :)

Every year since we moved in here (4 years ago) we help our landlord to take care of the garden. Tomatos, peppers, cucumers, herbs are just WONDERFUL! We eat our own tomatos till late October (except last year when the summer was cold). It's just today I was talking to some friends who are very organic-all-natural-grown concerned... so I've become curious about our soil and how clean it is.

About finding time to garden. It does not take THAT much time :) Most time consuming steps are prepering and planting... then it's all the fun part: weeding, watering, and feeding once in while.
I grew up in Russia where summer houses (aka 'dacha') and gardens are VERY popular. I used to go there on weekends or on summer vacations when I was a kid. At that time I hated gardening :) wanted to hang out and play with friends. Back there it was a bit further than 4 steps down from my porch here - there it was 2-2,5 hours trip one way :)

I don't mind to spend some time on our backyard after work :)

[ron_newman]

There used to be an annual Garden Tour, co-sponsored by the Arts Council and the Garden Club. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any notices about it in several years.

[natef.livejournal.com]

I think some gardeners around here grow stuff they intend to eat in raised beds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raised_bed_gardening