Q. Dear Umbra,

Regarding the urban gardening that is blossoming out in cities around the country, I wonder how safe the soil is for growing food.  It would seem that it would be severely polluted from decades of applied chemicals, the casual dumping of anything and everything associated with urban households, and even the fallout from local industry. Is there any attempt to determine the safety of the foods derived from such sources?

Best regards, John Bader

A:

Mary, Mary would have been quite contrary if lead or other toxins had made her garden grow. And so should we all be, John. Food grown in soil with lead and other toxic heavy metals is definitely something to be avoided. But it’s not just urban farms whose soil might be soiled.

“You can’t assume what you buy at the grocery store is any safer,” Edie Stone told The New York Times. Stone is the executive director of GreenThumb, a division of the New York City Parks and Recreation Department that supports urban gardening.