This is really useful post. Thank you.
No worries. Someone mentioned soil testing to me ages ago but I didn't look into it again until I saw people encouraged to get into subsistence gardening. Thought it might be good to spread the info
I did VegeSafe last year after reading an article about the potential for lead concentrating in homegrown eggs and veggies. Our house (and neighbourhood ) date from the era of lead bring in paint and petrol, so I wanted to check.
Thankfully the only area of this yard that came back as a red flag was the dripline (i.e. next to the house), so we should be okay as long as we grow our food away from the building.
I haven't done mine as I've been growing in little containers.
A map I saw which I can't seem to find again suggested my spot might be low risk, however I was between points of low and high contamination. Also back when I was more capable of digging over what soil is there I found discarded chunks of concrete and building materials buried in a lazy disposal by the builders.
So that's a concern. I'm now wondering if I should have let the cat eat grass from there
I did the GardenSafe one earlier this year. It also gives you a report on the composition of your soil, which confirmed my own soil analysis I did in the gardening course I am doing which was nice. Also confirmed no contaminants to be concerned about which is nice to know.
I considered doing it here but between all the challenges in such tiny patches of earth it might not be worth the effort
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