Soil Testing 

We test everyone's soil before planting to make sure it's safe to do so. The only red flag across the board was lead in amounts of 25 parts per million (ppm) through 135 ppm. The state of Minnesota says that 100 ppm of lead is acceptable while the federal government says that levels up to 400 ppm of lead is acceptable, and those stats are looking at bare soil of a children's play area. Multiple researchers at different institutions have been asked about the safety of growing food in small amounts of lead, in addition to the reading of research. Everyone has concluded that it's safe to garden in these small amounts of lead that are naturally occurring in the soil. However, in my opinion, we still want to be extra careful with children, and in our Green Zone communities, lead poisoning in children is a big concern. So our Macalester College soil Professor Anna Lindquist had her 2020 fall class do research on how we can garden safely with lead, and we have brochures we can distribute to the community on how to do this. Huge shout out to Professor Lindquist's class for working on that for us! In this photo, you can see one of those ways: cover your soil with mulch so that the soil isn't exposed.