Howdy,
I'm really excited about my garden plans for the upcoming season. I have some pretty poor soil but this year have worked a compost pile from yard debris and kitchen scraps. The existing compost will amend the soil but i plan to have some compost brought in for the veggies. I called a local guy advertising organic compost. I found out his source material is yard debris. I know compost will cook some bad stuff away but should I be concerned about the p/h-cides and potential heavy metals from peoples yards?

I checked out logans soil analysis and called them. They have a compost analysis but it doesn't cover my concerns. They have more specific single tests but there about $200 a piece. I want to know if this media is safe to grow vegetables in. Does anybody have any recommendations?

P.S. I have a "medium" amount of lead in my current soil hence i wanted to grow in the imported soil/compost. The plan is to have raised burms of about 2 foot imported soil.

Thanks

Pesticides, yes...metals, maybe. How medium is medium on the lead? For the most part, lead is fixed by a good near-neutral pH and isn't a problem, but...

Pesticides can be an issue, particularly a few that are entirely compost-durable and may damage your plants (most, however, are NOT composting-durable).

From UMASS, lead in my back and front yard is 60PPM extracted with 603PPM estimated total. The land I will convert to the garden is not the same I sampled, it's in back of my garage. I am assuming it will be in the same ballpark because the garage backside was/is lead painted and my neighbors houses are close and old.
Because of the lead I want to grow veggies in some new clean material. I figure two feet of imported soil will keep roots mostly out of the existing soil especially leafy greens. Not only that but a year ago my soil test for the front/back yard was very poor (P=9, K=48, Ca=683, Mg=54, with Ph=5.0. I have since been amending the soil as directed in the lawn threads. I'm sure I have made progress but probably not enough for happy veggies. This is further motivation to bring in outside material.

So, if the Ph is near neutral, lead is the least worry? I may have found a place that sells "certified?" organic compost. I'm trying to contact them now.

A pH of 5 wouldn't be sufficient for fixing lead--you'd want 6 at least. Lead, like aluminum, deactivates at near-neutral and isn't so much of an issue, but it's never a good idea to push that.

A raised garden and things that have shorter roots would probably be best, at least for a while. Or you can grow crops that are specifically good at concentrating lead (sunflowers being among those) and discard the remains instead of eating them.

"Certified" organic compost... Yeah, OK, all compost is organic. I'm certifiable. This is probably not quite what they mean.

If they're guaranteeing no pesticides (most of which aren't an issue post-composting) and low heavy metals (you never get zero, they're naturally in all soils), then that's not a bad idea.

The compost guy hasn't gotten back to me yet with the soil test. I did however send a sample from this years compost pile. I planned to use this as the bottom layer in the new beds. I have been ammending the lawn and usually when i add something to it I also throw a scoop in the compost pile. Here are a few key points:

-I applied 4 lb of 0-0-50 to the yard, I must have thrown some in the pile.
-I threw a few handfuls of dolomotic, then a few handfulls of calacitic throughout the year (both pelitized).
-I applied boraxo with Milo to the lawn, seems some has gotten to the compost as well.
-I fertilized the lawn with all types of things (before i learned more here), seems some nutrients are showing up.
-I have a bunch of greensand coming in the mail, should help the P.

I'm really happy to see the lead level compared to the rest of the lawn! I'm hoping the compost I buy will have a higher Ph, but I will try to sweeten this up some, any recommendations. The attached tests are apples to oranges but a point of reference. The first test "old" is from last years lawn. the second test "new" was just tested and strictly from the compost of last year.

I know Andy will have something to say here but I wanted to include the UMASS lime recommendation:

incorporate 20 lb of ground dolomitic limestone per 100 sq ft ASAP. Because your soil pH i slow, an additional 6 lbs of lime will be required to achieve the proper pH for vegetables. Split this remaining amount into small applications over successive tillings in spring and fall. avoid mixing in lime when soil is very wet.

I'm still not completely thrilled with 203 PPM lead (it being over my magic number of 200), although the EPA wouldn't have an issue with it. Canada's equivalent agency would.

-I applied 4 lb of 0-0-50 to the yard, I must have thrown some in the pile.
-I threw a few handfuls of dolomotic, then a few handfulls of calacitic throughout the year (both pelitized).
-I applied boraxo with Milo to the lawn, seems some has gotten to the compost as well.

-I fertilized the lawn with all types of things (before i learned more here), seems some nutrients are showing up.
-I have a bunch of greensand coming in the mail, should help the P. [/quote]

While I'd still like to see the pH coming up more, you can stop with the K. 6.6% base saturation is just fine (more won't hurt, I tend to balance around 9-10% myself).

Greensand (glauconite) is iron and potassium and contains little, if any phosphorus (P). To raise that, use triple superphosphate or good old starter fertilizer. What it will do is add iron and potassium (K)...at least the K you don't need, but it won't hurt.

Oops, yes greensand is not for P so much. The variety i have is 0-1-6, although it should have a complex trace profile. I got a sample of some local compost i will send out today, it looks brilliant. My pH probe tells me it's 6.8 so Im eager to see what the results are. I'll post them when they come in.

OK. Finally I got the results of the local compost guy. The compost was a bit expensive ($38/yd) so I ordered 5yd compost and 5 yd topsoil had the two mixed and made my raised beds. The numbers seem really high. At least the lead is low.

AMAC wrote:OK. Finally I got the results of the local compost guy. The compost was a bit expensive ($38/yd) so I ordered 5yd compost and 5 yd topsoil had the two mixed and made my raised beds. The numbers seem really high. At least the lead is low.

Is that test of the compost only, or the results of the compost/topsoil MIXture?

Compost only, and by numbers i mean P,K, Ca,Mg,CEC.

Looks chocked full of nutrients! did you get an organic matter percentage number?

Works for me. A CEC of 25 is actually kind of low for compost, but that might mean it's just completed its composting period (the CEC rises as the decay continues).

HanLawn wrote:Looks chocked full of nutrients! did you get an organic matter percentage number?

No, I wish i had now