coal clay soil ??? bit stuck need some help if possible

[4390evans]

Hey everyone Im new on here.

My name is jen and I moved into a house with a massive over grown garden, over the past 3 year ive been busy just doing the basics taking the gravel up continuously taking out weeds and making the grass wider for the kids Ive added some pics below. So what im wondering is is it safe to grow fruit and veg where there is coal and clay in the ground? We live in a old mining village so its rife we are in the middle of digging out a tree where we are going to put certain veg and there is loads of coal, Ill prob go through and sift it all before I plant anything but Im wondering would coal remnants be harmful xx



This is when we first moved in


This is after a year of work then a year of not toughing it as I was preg and couldnt do anything


This was took a few days ago but it has changed since as ive widened the grass

[veggiechicken]

Hello jen and welcome! I can't help you with your coal question - just wanted to say Hello!!
It would help us if you put your approximate location onto your profile - as mine says South Wales.

[4390evans]

yep no probs ill have a look about see how I do that, nice meeting you x

[veggiechicken]

Go to Settings / My Profile - You'll find it on the left
Its just because advice/weather in the south differs so much from the north - and we have a number of overseas members too

[4390evans]

fab I think its saved in the profile now. Its been quite sunny up here for a while but you know what british weather is like very hit and miss, although Im out there in the garden come rain or shine x

[boundtothesoil]

So what im wondering is is it safe to grow fruit and veg where there is coal and clay in the ground? ...... Im wondering would coal remnants be harmful

The clay is fine. I guess you aren't talking about either a slag heap or a former coal storage site, but rather a soil with various sized bits of coal in it? If this is the case, then growing fruit and veg shouldn't be a problem.

The potential dangers from sites contaminated with 'coal ash' and other mining/industrial residues are primarily the heavy metal elements left in the soil, notably lead, cadmium and mercury, plus arsenic. These elements can all be absorbed by plant roots. Hence, where their concentrations in the soil are very high, you can potentially get higher than advised safe levels accumulating in plants. However, although unburnt lumps of coal do contain these elements, they are, by definition, going to be present at much lower concentrations. Further, because they are inside lumps (which don't dissolve in the soil very quickly!) they are not significantly available for uptake by plant roots.

So, If it were me, I wouldn't worry about toxicity here.

Two further points to lessen any worries:-
1) Your diet almost certainly won't mainly consist of food grown on this site.
2) For many of the heavy metal elements (e.g. lead), most of what is absorbed by plants remains in the roots and is not transported up (translocated) to the shoots. This means that leafy crops and fruits will contain lower levels of the metals than root crops. So, if you were still really, really worried (unjustifiably so), then don't grow root crops like carrots and parsnips.

These days, I'm pretty sure that former industrial sites have to be tested for contamination with toxic levels of metals and cleaned up before houses are built on them.

[SarzWix]

I think if it were me, I'd try and pick out as much as possible, and then stick slightly raised beds on top of it with some compost/topsoil/manure. The worms will eventually incorporate the good stuff in with the clay-y soil underneath. A straw/cardboard/shredded paper mulch will add to the organic matter too and also keep weeds down between plants.

[KittyColdNose]

Hi Jen and welcome to the vine.

If you are at all worried still after reading the advice above then as Sarz says, go for raised beds.

[iam]

hello Jen, and welcome. If you have doubts about the safety of your soil you could make raised beds, but first cover the area you are going to build them on with a polythene sheet to stop contamination then make you raised bed make it at least 50cm. high ( two scaffold boards) and a minimum of 160cm. wide by 240cm. (the length of a scaffold board) the reason for the width is that if you are in a high rain fall area the rain water reaches the bed and so cuts down the need for watering, the usually recommended width of 140cm when planted up deflects quite a lot of rain my own raised beds are built on a concrete base and are three scaffold boards high by that width and you can make it what ever length you want over 160cm. I filled mine with whatever organic material I could get with plenty of manure and course sand and the bed has been going for four years and I rarely need to water (lot`s of rain)

[4390evans]

fab thanks all x