soil testing in Davis

[loravarnion.livejournal.com]

I just harvested a bunch of beautiful potatoes grown in my back yard on Kidder Ave. I have not done any soil testing, so I don't know whether I should consider the products of my garden, particularly potatoes, safe to eat.

Are there any gardeners in the Davis area who have done soil testing? If so, who did you contact to do it, and what were the results?

Comments

[in-parentheses.livejournal.com]

I sent mine to UMass Amherst (http://www.umass.edu/plsoils/soiltest/). My results were fine, but I've heard that many people's aren't, so it's good to do the test. It didn't take long to get the results.

[infinitehotel.livejournal.com]

Results vary wildly even in the same yard, especially with things like lead. (Which is why the Umass test has you pull plugs from several different places.)

We originally put our garden under the windows near the foundation but at some point lead paint had flaked off or been scraped off and Umass recommended not growing ground plants there. Fifteen feet away the lead levels were almost nil.

[hawkegirl.livejournal.com]

I wanr ro second that. Everyone's yard will be different depending on their house paint and/or fence paint as well as the pesticides sprayed on your particular street etc. Sending off to a lab is a good idea. There are also plants that will help "clean" the soil if the results are unfavorable, you can try it, and retest in a few years.

Just my two cents.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Most of the lead that is in the soil is not from paint, as many people believe. Most of it is from leaded gasoline.

I would err on the side of assuming that everything in the Somerville area is full of lead unless new soil was brought in in the past 10 years of so. And in that case, you wouldn't want to eat anything that had grown in or right near the soul itself. So definitely no potatoes or other root veggies. And no lettuce. Things like tomatoes are apparently ok. For more info Cambridge has a page on lead soil (http://www.ci.cambridge.ma.us/CDD/lead/ls_safersoil.html), which leads to the UMass testing info.

[infinitehotel.livejournal.com]

It depends a lot on where the lead is found and in what concentration. Low levels throughout the yard and near the road, yep, leaded gas. High concentrations of lead next to the foundation and almost zero closer to the street and driveway, that's likely paint.

[amethystmoon.livejournal.com]

I heard somewhere, I think it was a landscaper on This Old House, that the safe assumption is to never plant vegetables within 10 feet of a foundation in New England, since so many houses had clapboards covered in lead paint at one time or another.

Does anyone know how long it takes lead to disperse or degrade in soil?

[sprrwhwk.livejournal.com]

Lead is elemental. It doesn't really degrade. Dispersion depends on how toxic it is, and, IIRC, lead is toxic in pretty low doses. I don't think it's going to go away soon, at least on human time-scales. Your best bet is probably to have the soil replaced.

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

Given the size of Somerville yards, I'm guessing you got enough potatoes for a meal or two. If that's the scale we're talking about, I doubt they accumulated enough lead to do you any harm. Don't feed them to children or pregnant women, to be on the safe side, but enjoy them yourself. And get your soil tested for next year. Or dig out the soil and replace it with clean soil for next year.

[nomacmac.livejournal.com]

I had my Kidder Ave soil tested a few years ago (by the UMass extension service). As I recall, the back yard soil was just a few points short of being classified as toxic waste. We're putting in raised beds in the spring.