Community Gardens: Abundant, Popular…And Toxic?

There's no question that community gardens offer a bounty of benefits beyond just the broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and baby bok choi that overflow their raised beds every year. They help you get to know your neighbors, they're an easy way to get fresh produce into areas that sorely lack access, and they let gardening newbies learn from seasoned pros.
In fact, community gardens are so popular, the number has TK'ED in the past five years. But if you're organizing a community garden in your neighborhood, or at least thinking of getting your hands wet, er, dirty, for the first time, there's one absolutely crucial step you need to take: Get your soil tested before you ever drop a seed into the ground.

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University Center for a Livable Future have just published a paper in the journal PLoS One, highlighting the need for better education among community gardeners, particularly in urban areas, about the potential for soil that could make them sick. The authors interviewed gardeners with a wide range of backgrounds and found that, although many gardeners were aware of risks like the neurotoxin lead, they weren't aware of a number of other potential soil contaminants that are just as risky, including mercury, arsenic, cadmium and chromium. The gardeners also didn't always research past uses of the sites on which their gardens grew. Doing so can help community gardeners get a better sense of what to test for, the authors write, since a garden might be situated atop an old gas station, which would necessitate checking for petroleum products, or near a chemical facility that may contaminate the soil.

"While the benefits are far-reaching, gardening in urban settings can also create opportunities for exposure to contaminants such as heavy metals, petroleum products, and asbestos, which may be present in urban soils," Keeve Nachman, PhD, senior author of the study and director of the Food Production and Public Health Program with CLF, said in a statement. "Our study suggests gardeners generally recognize the importance of knowing a garden site's prior uses, but they may lack the information and expertise to determine accurately the prior use of their garden site and potential contaminants in the soil."
CLF is certainly not one to deter future gardeners—they're one of the founding members of the Meatless Monday campaign, so they definitely want to encourage people to eat their vegetables—but their survey does suggest that community gardeners take three important steps before the growing season gets underway:

• Know as much of your site's history as you can. Without knowing your site's history, you might miss out on potential contaminants that aren't included in a standard soil test. Call your city's department of planning to get the most thorough site history.

• Test your soil! Once you know what to test for, contact your local cooperative extension service to find a place where it can be tested. But be aware that testing for contaminants is different than testing for soil quality and fertility. You'll want to do both, eventually, but learning about contaminants requires the former. And if your plot is particularly large, take multiple samples from multiple locations, since contaminant levels can vary depending on location.

• Reduce your exposure. Even if your soil is contaminated, there are steps you can take to reduce your exposure, but the authors stressed that simply using raised beds doesn't protect you entirely from contaminated soils. You can be exposed by inhaling contaminated dirt or inadvertent hand-to-mouth contact while you're gardening. And the roots of plants in raised beds can extend into contaminated soils. Sometimes, even the wood used to build the bed may have been treated with a compound like arsenic. Even wind can blow contaminated soil into otherwise healthy beds. They recommend a few steps that will help minimize exposure to contaminated soils:

- Use mulch to reduce splashing contaminants onto crops when watering.

- Always wash your produce thoroughly and peel root crops if possible.

- Wash your hands after gardening.

- Leave your gardening shoes at the door when you're finished to avoid tracking in contaminated soil.

- When building raised beds, be careful with reusing wood. Use untreated wood only or consider something like stone or concrete blocks to avoid the issue of chemicals altogether. 

via Rodale News http://ift.tt/PYP8Bt