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imeldanie

Soil safe for vegetable garden?

imeldanie
9 years ago

Hello everyone! I am a beginner gardener and am trying to keep it organic. I have some raised beds that I filled with 'clean' soil but I have the gardening bug and I want to plant more all over the yard.

In an attempt to improve some native soil, I have planted some legumes. I tilled the original soil with some organic compost and mulched over it.

I have some beans beginning to pop up and I was wondering if they are safe to eat.

What is everyone's opinion on this? I have lived in this home for a couple years and have never used poisons, but I know that toxins can exist in the soil for a long time.

Thanks!

Comments (20)

  • lazy_gardens
    9 years ago

    What reason do you have to suspect "toxins"?

    And what "toxins" do you think might be lurking there?

  • imeldanie
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    I do not have any reason really. I am a weird person who worries a lot? Like maybe the person who used to live here used poisons or pesticides that could be dangerous.

    I really do not know much about gardening. So you think I have nothing to be concerned about then?

    Thanks!

  • lazy_gardens
    9 years ago

    Unless you have plants that glow in the dark, or are living on a "superfund site" ... nothing to worry about.

  • imeldanie
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    hahaha okay thanks again

  • Kimmsr
    9 years ago

    Which "toxins" are you thinking of? Most all soils will have some lead in them, from paints made and applied before the mod 1970's and from vehicle exhaust. However, most exposure to that soil borne lead is from eating the soil and not from plants which do not uptake that very readily. Arsenic will be in most all plants in small quantities as a defense against insect pests, but not in enough quantity to harm you.
    Soil borne toxins can be a problem and should never be brushed off with glibness.

    Here is a link that might be useful: about soil toxins

  • prairiemoon2 z6b MA
    9 years ago

    I agree that it's reasonable to be concerned about what has been done to the soil before you lived on a property. For instance, I grow organically, but I've watched one of my neighbors use every pesticide, herbicide all over his lawn and garden for 25 years. If he were to sell to new buyers, they wouldn't know that. And not a garden that I'd be happy to be growing food in. But, I believe that after a certain amount of time, these residues will dissipate, isn't that true, Kimmsr?

    At the very least, I would get a soil test and ask for them to test for lead. They're not that expensive. You could also ask what else they could test for.

    Regardless of what has been done to your soil before you lived there, the answer is to learn what will make your soil healthy and do that. Sounds like you have already started to do that. You might learn how to make your own compost, and add a layer of that, especially where you will grow food. In the Fall if you can get ahold of a lot of leaves, I'd run them over with a lawn mower and then mulch your soil with that. Maybe turn them into the soil the next spring. The more you build up your soil, I would think the less you will have anything to worry about.

    But if there is lead in it, I'm not familiar with what can be done about that. It would be especially important to know that if you have children who are more effected by it.

  • toxcrusadr
    9 years ago

    Lead was not used in residential paints after 1978, so if your house was built after that, there's really nothing to worry about. If the house is older, it *may* have elevated levels of lead but that's usually within 3 feet of the house itself, where paint dust, flakes and runoff land on the soil. If you're in a typical suburban tract and your garden is not right up next to the house, the risk is small.

    If you're in a an old urban neighborhood, soil can have elevated lead anywhere, mostly due to exhaust from leaded gas in decades past.

    Since you've been in the house a couple of years already, I would not be too concerned about what the previous owners used. Anything they used should have dissipated to insignificant levels by now.

  • imeldanie
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Our house was built in the 1950's so lead paint is definitely a possibility. All good things to think about, thanks toxcrusadr!

    I will probably keep my veggies farther from the border of the house and go from there and test when I can.

  • gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
    9 years ago

    You should also know that soil testing for contaminants requires you to be somewhat specific about the contaminants suspected. And it's not exactly cheap compared to testing for nutrient analysis.

    I guess it comes down to how serious a concern is this for you. The vast majority of pesticides available to homeowners - even those used regularly and liberally - will dissipate into harmless components over time and a relatively short time at that. I would not even be too concerned about levels of lead in the soil as most plants will not absorb in concentrations enough to be a concern. You are more likely to ingest via particles of soil or dust that may adhere to the plant than you are in the plant material itself. So washing your produce thoroughly before eating is always a sound recommendation. And you can always negate the uptake of lead by adding organic matter (compost), as that binds and prohibits lead uptake by the plants.

    Personally, I wouldn't give it a second thought but it's your choice.

  • prairiemoon2 z6b MA
    9 years ago

    Thank you for pointing that out about the soil test, Gardengal. The soil test I was suggesting was a routine soil test for nutrients with the added lead test. I am sure you are right, that unless you suspect something specific, it would be an expensive proposition to test randomly for any toxins. Personally, I would want to know whether lead was there or not and that's not an expensive add on to the routine testing.

  • toxcrusadr
    9 years ago

    Correct, lead testing (and most metals) is cheap compared to pesticides, but ag soil test labs may not be set up to do it, so it may require finding another lab.

  • elisa_z5
    9 years ago

    The University of Massachusettes Ag lab tests for nutrients and heavy metals for 10 dollars. You can send to them from anywhere in the US (you don't say where you live.) They also give a sheet on precautions to take if your lead is high. And as Kimmsr pointed out, kids playing in the yard and then eating lunch with dirty hands (thus eating the dirt) generally causes more lead exposure than eating well washed produce from the garden.

  • imeldanie
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    thanks elisa_Z5 that is really helpful!

  • albert_135   39.17°N 119.76°W 4695ft.
    7 years ago

    W̴h̴a̴t̴'̴s̴ ̴i̴n̴ ̴a̴ ̴n̴a̴m̴e̴?̴ ̴V̴e̴n̴o̴m̴s̴ ̴v̴s̴.̴ ̴P̴o̴i̴s̴o̴n̴s̴ ̴|̴ ̴T̴o̴x̴i̴n̴o̴l̴o̴g̴y̴ ̴1̴0̴1̴ ̴-̴ ̴S̴c̴i̴e̴n̴c̴e̴ ̴S̴u̴s̴h̴i̴ ̴-̴ ̴T̴h̴i̴s̴ ̴i̴s̴ ̴t̴h̴e̴ ̴f̴i̴r̴s̴t̴ ̴i̴n̴ ̴a̴ ̴n̴e̴w̴ ̴s̴e̴r̴i̴e̴s̴ ̴I̴ ̴c̴a̴l̴l̴ ̴T̴o̴x̴i̴n̴o̴l̴o̴g̴y̴ ̴1̴0̴1̴,̴ ̴w̴h̴e̴r̴e̴ ̴I̴ ̴e̴x̴p̴l̴a̴i̴n̴ ̴a̴n̴d̴ ̴e̴x̴p̴l̴o̴r̴e̴ ̴t̴h̴e̴ ̴f̴u̴n̴d̴a̴m̴e̴n̴t̴a̴l̴s̴ ̴o̴f̴ ̴t̴o̴x̴i̴n̴ ̴s̴c̴i̴e̴n̴c̴e̴ ̴t̴o̴ ̴r̴e̴v̴e̴a̴l̴ ̴t̴h̴e̴ ̴u̴n̴u̴s̴u̴a̴l̴,̴ ̴o̴f̴t̴e̴n̴ ̴u̴n̴f̴a̴m̴i̴l̴i̴a̴r̴,̴ ̴a̴n̴d̴ ̴u̴n̴n̴e̴r̴v̴i̴n̴g̴ ̴w̴o̴r̴l̴d̴ ̴c̴r̴e̴a̴t̴e̴d̴ ̴b̴y̴ ̴o̴u̴r̴ ̴p̴l̴a̴n̴e̴t̴’̴s̴ ̴m̴o̴s̴t̴ ̴n̴o̴t̴o̴r̴i̴o̴u̴s̴ ̴b̴i̴o̴c̴h̴e̴m̴i̴s̴t̴s̴.̴


    Sorry, never mind.

  • wayne_5 zone 6a Central Indiana
    7 years ago

    While lead may have been used until the 1970s, I remember that the house paint I used in 1958 was titanium based...not lead.

    Unless your garden site was a burn dump site in the past, it likely is ok.

    Still, if a bird flies over your garden and relieves itself, all bets are off...just kidding.

  • toxcrusadr
    7 years ago

    Old thread from 2014 but yes they have used titanium oxide as a paint pigment for some time. It's white, looks the same as white lead paint. Titanium is very nontoxic, you can practically eat it. As a matter of fact it's in some food products and cosmetics. I worked on cleanup of a site used by National Lead to make paint pigment. National Lead owned the Dutch Boy brand. Anyway the site wasn't even contaminated with lead, but it had a huge landfill of tailings they discarded while purifying titanium ore concentrate into paint pigment. A little history, no extra charge. :-]

  • albert_135   39.17°N 119.76°W 4695ft.
    7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    toxcrusadr(Zone 6a - MO) I spent WWII living with a grandmother near Rolla MO. We were told that was downwind from some lead mines. Is that correct? My health is beginning to deteriorate. Could that dust be my problem today? ◕‿↼

  • toxcrusadr
    7 years ago

    I don't know of heavy mining areas near Rolla. The two big lead belts are east of there (downwind) around Potosi, De Soto, Farmington area, south of STL; and far to the southwest, around Joplin. You have to be pretty close to be affected because the dust doesn't travel that far. I suppose there could have been smaller operations around you but they are still researching and finding all those and investigating them. Were you ever tested for blood lead? Probably not since they weren't doing that when you were little, and they don't do it for adults unless there is a reason. Children are the most sensitive population.

    If you got through school OK and didn't have behavioral and health problems as a child, it's doubtful you were exposed to lead.

  • toxcrusadr
    7 years ago

    If you're interested in looking at a map of known MO mining sites, go here:

    http://dnr.mo.gov/geostrat/

    Click View Map, zoom to your area (you might want to turn on Roads and Cities under "Reference Layers" on the layer menu at left). Then click Mines and select Inventory of Mines. This doesn't have every spot that's ever been investigated, but I notice when clicking around Rolla, out of about 10-15 sites I clicked on, they were almost all clay, limestone and iron in that order, with only 1 identified as a lead mine. I'm sure that would have been a small one. Mainly it's the processing and smelting that releases a lot of dust anyway, and that was in other places.