Soil contaminated with oil, petrol, deisel etc

[Jax]

As above really, the in laws have got a lot of land and a mass of cars. Hes ended up chucking petrol and deisel over all of it at some time or another. Can they grow anything in it or not? I said I would ask but I doubted it but wasnt a hundred percent.

[Pumpkin Becki]

Jax, I can only tell you my experience.
When we bought our plot to build our house on, we were advised that a previous interested party had had some borehole samples taken which had revealed various contaminants ie: lead. The official recommendation was that whoever bought the plot would need to scalp off the soil to a depth of 60cm to be safe (for anything, not just growing edible on).

[Flummery]

A friend of mine moved to a house on a farm and their garden had been used to 'fettle' machinery. Nothing grew until they tried raspberries. They thrived!

[Jax]

hmmm, I wonder what to advise then. Thanks both for your replies. I wander if I tell them to dig down abit (not sure how deep) and mix in compost and well rotted manure. Do you think that would work?

[Bigmallly]

There may be hope using lime.

IngentaConnect Remediation of soils contaminated with petrol and diesel using li...

[Jax]

looks interesting bigmally thanks

[lindyloo]

i think that they should get a soil sample of the likliest spot. then if it is not too bad, add in compost muck and extra soil, as mentioned above. if it is very contaminated, then why not do raised beds, even without sides, would be an option, if you dug drainage around all borders, and added the soil, compost and muck on the top where you grow; i think it would be fine. ( cant help thinking that before we were so worried about contamination, people grew veg in all sorts of contamination, and still survived; i think any contamination would be reletively harmles with raised up beds.