How to find out how safe your soil is for growing food | Gardening 101 | Gardening Australia
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- Опубліковано 28 чер 2024
- Growing food is a key reason for many people to garden, but a key question is how safe is my soil - and how do I find out? Subscribe 🔔 ab.co/GA-subscribe
Millie meets EPA chief environmental scientist Profession Mark Patrick Taylor, who runs the EPA’s GardenSafe program with colleague Hannah Elliott.
The program offers free soil tests to help people understand what’s in their soil - which can include chemicals associated with industrial pollution. If these get into soil they can then get into food and inside people’s homes - but knowing they’re there means steps can be taken to reduce health risks.
The main chemical the EPA tests for is lead, which is often found around older homes close to city centres. The contamination may come from lead paint originally used on timber buildings (but now banned) or from lead in the air from petrol fumes, before unleaded petrol was introduced.
Lead is a neurotoxin, which interferes with a person’s neurological development; children are particularly at risk. Soil is also tested for arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, manganese, nickel and zinc.
Hannah shows Millie how to take a soil sample, pulling back the mulch from the soil to reveal a 15cm x 15cm square of clear soil, and digging up the top 2cm of soil. The sample should be about half a cup in volume or 150grams - about the size of a tennis ball.
Hannah recommends taking three samples: from your front yard, back yard (especially in areas where children play), and vegie patch.
Samples are dried and tested for nutrient levels and structure as well as for contaminants; this information helps gardeners know what sort of soil they are growing in - sandy, loam or clay - and what fertilizers or compost it may need to grow a wider range of vegetables.
The results of the tests are de-identified and added to the MapMyEnvironment website, which shows the hotspots where contamination is most likely to be found: usually in inner-city areas and near industrial sites. This information helps the EPA manage risks to the environment.
Learning that your soil is contaminated doesn’t mean the end to growing vegetables or playing outside - the EPA advice is to:
- Grow in raised beds,
- Mulch beds and paths to reduce dust,
- Wash veggies before eating,
- Wash hands after gardening and
- Remove your shoes before going indoors.
- Avoid planting in the dripline of older houses.
If you keep chickens, make sure they’re digging a scratching in a deep bed of clean litter.
Create a safe play area for children, such as a sandpit.
What you grow also affects risk levels, because different plants absorb different chemicals at different rates.
Leafy greens absorb the most lead, for example, while fruit trees won’t be affected the same way. So silverbeet and lettuce should be grown in raised beds, while your lemon tree may grow directly in the soil.
The GardenSafe program is free for all Victorian residents. Gardeners in other states can pay a small donation to access the VegeSafe program run by Macquarie University.
For both GardenSafe and VegeSafe programs, or to test your household dust, visit www.360dustanalysis.com
Filmed on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country in Macleod, Vic
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A very good idea, the map is interesting. I have just registered and will be sending my samples in 🙂
Fool
🤡
Well done EPA!!
What a great service!
For free? I'd be more than happy to donate. It benefits everyone and everything!
So far my biggest issue is finding the portions of what I believe to be asbestos sheeting from one of the previous owners who presumably decided it was best to just bury them... including in the concrete raised beds. I keep removing them when I find them and putting them in a plastic bag to eventually be taken to a disposal location... but very frustrating.
Now days with the herbicides being used that doesn’t break down during composting for using in raised garden beds
💚
'What do you know about lead?'
Darryl Kerrigan
I’m pretty sure I got P fob and dioxide and a few other major chemicals in my yard. How do I get that tested? I don’t think that little thing is gonna be able to do it
Can i get the details of the equipments used for field and lab for assay please.
are there any heavy metals other than lead that people should be worried about?
Google would be your best bet.
What happens if they find your whole yard is not safe to grow in doe's anybody know
Raised beds
Not safe in Port Pirie Broken Hill or Mt Isa, 😂
For those who have sent in their samples, or are about to, please be aware that there are currently delays. I contacted Gardensafe and received this response:
"I can confirm that we received your samples on the 28th of Feb. Given our recent publicity, the program is experiencing very high demand at the moment. I estimate it might take as long as another four to eight weeks for us to get your report back to you."
Thanks for the update! Great to see so many people engaging with the program
At this point the universe is contaminated...
The EPA is helping to gather data on how to prevent backyard gardeners.
As the WHO wish for us all to eat bugs etc. thanks gardening Australia for assisting with the governments dirty work.
Well done gardening Australia. Doing yourselves out of work in the long run. 😂
You should move to America and campaign for Trump. Not a compliment.
Copied and pasted from the description because it was too hard for @HGCUPCAKES to find:
"Learning that your soil is contaminated doesn’t mean the end to growing vegetables or playing outside - the EPA advice is to:
- Grow in raised beds,
- Mulch beds and paths to reduce dust,
- Wash veggies before eating,
- Wash hands after gardening and
- Remove your shoes before going indoors.
- Avoid planting in the dripline of older houses.
If you keep chickens, make sure they’re digging a scratching in a deep bed of clean litter.
Create a safe play area for children, such as a sandpit.
What you grow also affects risk levels, because different plants absorb different chemicals at different rates.
Leafy greens absorb the most lead, for example, while fruit trees won’t be affected the same way. So silverbeet and lettuce should be grown in raised beds, while your lemon tree may grow directly in the soil."
Just remember to put your tin hat in the recycling.
@@charlie-jay I imagine that @HGCUPCAKES sees recycling as a way for the government to steal your identity