This year saw many people rediscovering an interest in gardening, digging in the dirt and maybe even harvesting vegetables from a garden plot. But around the Puget Sound, not all garden soils are created equal. Soil, particularly in urban areas, can hold contaminants that are unhealthy for people who handle it or eat things grown in the ground.
Interested in testing your garden soil?听You can find Dr. Malone’s guide on听
Chemicals left behind by vehicles, air pollution and heavy industry can show up in the ground and in plants. Soil can reflect our human activities, says , assistant professor in 91爆料 Bothell鈥檚 School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences. Even compost and wood chips we add to our gardens can bring in the residues of pesticides that were once applied to those materials.听
investigates these contaminants and their prevalence in shared garden spaces like community gardens. She started the Urban Garden Project as a way to measure soil pollution and share the information with community garden sites around the Seattle area. Focusing on sites and communities often impacted by pollution, she notes that contaminated soil and marginalized populations often go hand in hand. Unsurprisingly, south Seattle, home of the and within reach of plume, is an area that usually measures high in pollutants.听
The chemicals Malone most commonly looks for are lead, arsenic, petroleum products and glyphosate, an herbicide found in products like RoundUp.听
When Malone meets with gardeners, she suggests ways to limit harms from contaminants they identified 鈥� solutions like bringing in new soil, wearing gloves to limit contact with soil, and determining where to plant vegetables and which parts of a plant are safer to eat based on the concentration of contaminants in the soil. She has also begun teaching gardening groups how to sample their own soil so they can inform themselves about land they鈥檙e already using.听
In this video, we see Malone in partnership with Renew Church gardeners in Lynnwood and the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps in South Park, taking soil samples from a well-used neighborhood park on the Duwamish River.
鈥淭he fact that they鈥檙e really into it, and then can have their own insight into what鈥檚 in their soils and what鈥檚 in their plants, and how to do it accurately 鈥� is really profound,鈥� said Malone.
鈥淚 really value the social justice component of this. Scientific literacy is very, very important for this project.鈥�
Most of gardens she’s sampled had contamination levels that exceeded safety guidelines, so it makes a difference when community members know the potential risks and how to take precautions.
鈥淚 would say to test your soil, know your site鈥檚 history, and be aware of what you鈥檙e putting into your garden,鈥� said Malone. She created and shared this听 to instruct gardeners interested in testing their soil.听