This post brought to you by Whitney Farms. All opinions are 100% mine.
We just moved right next door to a community garden, which is really exciting for Tim. He is very eager to rent one of the plots and see if he has a green thumb, or not. The garden has 10 or 11 raised beds in it and it looks as though a few are unclaimed.
It's a good thing that the beds are all raised, because we recently got a knock on the door from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) telling us they had reason to believe that the soil in our neighborhood had dangerously high lead levels. Yikes. They have tested our soil for lead levels, and if it reaches a certain level, they will dig up the dirt in our yard down to a certain point and replace it with "clean" dirt. We've already heard that a neighbor 5 houses down is going to have their dirt replaced. Crazy! So if our dirt could have such high levels of lead, so could the community garden. The EPA rep made a point to tell us not to try to plant any food crops directly into the ground here.
The community garden plots contain organic soil which is a good start. But how can we have any chance of actually growing some veggies and herbs without using fertilizers which contain some harmful chemicals? Whitney Farms® is a brand of organic plant food that can help your garden flourish without adding all that icky stuff. I didn't realize that such products even existed until recently, and to be honest, that has been one of my main reservations about even attempting to do organic gardening. It just sounds SO hard to be successful against various pests without the strong chemicals that commercial farmers use! But at the same time, seeing how such products and other pollutants can literally make the space in which you dwell too dangerous to live in also gives me pause. I'm so glad that this option exists so that we can have success with the garden this year and not do so at the cost of future gardeners! Be sure to check out the $3 coupon Whitney Farms is offering on its website so tyou can try it out for a discount!
What about you? Are you trying your had at growing any organic produce this year?
Has the soil been tested in a lab