Urban Vegetable Garden Soils and Lay Public Education on Soil Heavy Metal Exposure Mitigation

Abstract

Twenty-two urban community vegetable gardens in New York State were selected to find out the relative accuracy of the application of a lay-person protocol in estimating soil properties useful towards demarcating potential heavy metal contamination hot spots. Results suggest that non-expert field pH tests and colour identification is sufficiently accurate relative to lab-based analyses. Colour determination aligned significantly with soil organic matter estimates based on known correlations, although the field procedure may necessitate more initial training and supervision of lay persons. The lay-person protocol formulated for this study could be useful in enabling urban gardeners to identify and avoid garden areas with higher potentials for heaviest metal phytoavailability and contamination risk.