Toronto: City offers soil-cleaning tips to promote urban gardening
Toronto Star / Theresa Boyle / 03 September 2010
The branches of the apple tree in Michael Armstrong’s backyard are heavy with fruit, but the west-end man refuses to eat his bountiful harvest.
Instead, he will compost four bushels of apples and let local raccoons gobble up the rest.
Armstrong doesn’t trust that the fruit is safe for his family to consume. Or more precisely, he doesn’t trust that the soil in which they grow is safe.
“My neighbourhood has a long history of contamination,” Armstrong says of the South Junction Triangle, once a highly industrialized area. “We have a 2½-year-old and a 6-year-old and we don’t want them eating anything that is questionable.”
It is for residents like Armstrong that the city is developing a soil-contaminant protocol. To be released next year, the protocol will help urban gardeners determine if their soil is contaminant-free. If it’s not, the protocol will explain how they can still grow edible fruits and vegetable on their property. This might involve doing raised-bed gardening or having their soil remediated.
The main targets of the protocol are those who garden in community and allotment gardens and on vacant land. Backyard gardeners like Armstrong can also benefit.
“The objective is to put tools in the tool box of city staff and residents and empower them with the information they need to make informed choices about where and how they garden,” explains Josephine Archbold, a research consultant in the environmental protection office of Toronto Public Health.
