Contaminants In Urban Gardens- Lessons Learned In the Past.

Interest regarding urban gardening as well as number of urban gardens has been on the rise significantly in the recent past.  Growing vegetables in an urban environment can present challenges because of the possibility of soil contamination.  Lack of understanding about soil contamination continues to be a cause of concern to urban gardeners and associated community groups. It is well known that the total concentration of contaminants in the soil or plants does not strongly correlate to their bioavailability or potential toxicity.  Therefore, a careful assessment of site specific contaminants and soil characteristics is essential for designing suitable safety measures required for minimizing the direct or indirect transfer of contaminants to the gardeners.  Because of overall soil quality issues associated with urban soils, addition of organic matter seemed appropriately the most common solution for many of the urban gardens. There are many opportunities for us to use some lessons we have learned in the past to effectively deal with urban soil contamination issues.