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Garden Gate:  plants that purify soil?  |
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Alee
True Blue Farmgirl
22941 Posts
Alee
Worland
Wy
USA
22941 Posts |
 Posted - May 29 2007 : 11:45:12 AM
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Hi ladies-
I was thinking as I mowed the lawn yesterday that I am not so sure if my carrots will be good to eat this year or not. This is the first year that this ground has been used for gardening. Previous years it had been fertilized and weed sprayed and just neglected. As I dug up the ground to plany my garden I got all sorts of trash out of the soil- broken glass, plastic bits, metal.
I am worried that my plants will be absorbing all sorts of nastiness from the soil and I am not sure if I want to turn around and eat that! So does anyone know to what degree my carrots and such will be purifying the soil? Anyone know of any cheap soil tests that will tell me how much noxious stuf I have in the garden?
Thanks
Alee |
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KYgurlsrbest
True Blue Farmgirl
4853 Posts
Jonni
Elsmere
Kentucky
USA
4853 Posts |
Posted - May 29 2007 : 1:06:46 PM
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Alee, I'm not sure about whether your carrots will taste like broken glass or metal  or not, but I would count how long it's been since the ground was sprayed. I think that's why I went for raised beds, because lord only knows what's actually IN my soil  . A few years ago, my elderly neighbor was sited by the EPA for lots of rubbish leaking chemicals on her land, and into the water shed behind our neighborhood. It's quite a ways from my garden, but I really didn't want anything even remotely close to the ground after that!
I recently read in my Victory Garden Cookbook from the early 80's and an organic garden book about potatoes usually being "sacrificial" crop for most pioneers,farmers and home gardeners. You can usually tell what's wrong with your soil by the way they perform.
"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." Margaret Atwood
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GaiasRose
True Blue Farmgirl
2552 Posts
Tasha-Rose
St. Paul
Minnesota
2552 Posts |
Posted - May 29 2007 : 1:16:27 PM
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a good crop to plant to help purify the soil is clover. You grow it and then just whack it back into the soil...or any kind of wheat....use it as green manure for the garden. I have also found that peas work well for that too, but I wait to be able to harvest peas and then work the foliage back into the soil.
I am not sure about carrots as we do well with carrots here, but that is what I can offer as far as soil conditioning....as well as the usual, compost and manure and maybe some good screen black dirt added tot he existing garden soil.
~*~Brightest Blessings~*~
Tasha-Rose
Blogs: http://gaiarose.wordpress.com
http://tasharose365.wordpress.com/
Homepage:
http://gaiasrose.etsy.com
http://ForestFaeries.etsy.com
Birth is safe, interference is risky; TRUST BIRTH |
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Alee
True Blue Farmgirl
22941 Posts
Alee
Worland
Wy
USA
22941 Posts |
Posted - May 29 2007 : 9:36:16 PM
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Thanks for all the great info ladies.
Tasha- The soil is rich in nutrients- I am just worried about the toxic stuff that could have been sprayed/applied before we moved in. It is a rental property so who knows? Perhaps we are lucky that the yard has been neglected for a few years. I am hoping most of the pesticides are gone by now. I have lots of bugs and worms in the soil so that makes me hopeful.
Alee |
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Garden Gate: plants that purify soil? |
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plants that purify soil?
