Grow Your Own Magazine

Dear all,

I am about to start cultivating the other half of my allotment and have found when starting to dig it over lots of charred glass, old metal and plastic. The soil is discoloured with red looking "sand", ash etc.

When asking other allotment members why this would be, I was told that someone years ago use to burn doubleglazing etc to "harvest" aluminium !!!

If this is correct or not, I do not know - but there is a rather large area where there is evidence of burning stuff that has left glass, metal etc in the ground (nails, screws etc has also been found).

For the winter I was planning to sow Winter Tare as a green manure to enhance the soil on this area as it has not been touched since we got the plot 2 years ago.

My question is - will it be "safe" to grow here next spring when the green manure has done its duty, or could this piece of our allotment be toxic in anyway.

What should I do???

Kind regards,

LotteHD
Wing
Beds

My question now is

I had a similar area on my last lottie which had been a communal burning area for the whole site. I, like you, found a load of burnt soil, reddy colour and high in potassium. I dug it over and planted Spring Cabbage! The cabbage thrived and it was the only area on my plot that didn't have clubroot. Must have been burnt out!

If its from a while ago the pollutants should have washed out by now and you will be able to tell by how well your green manure crops grow if the soil is ok.
Personally I wouldn't worry about it and along with the green manure, add any other organic matter you can spare before planting something like broad beans or other legumes in the spring to give a successional crop!

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Hopefully it won't be toxic, but you will need to remove the broken glass, nails etc. Good luck.

Any bonfire worth its name will leave red coloured soil behind, it is the burnt remains of the (in)organic matter plus the effect of heat on the soil.
As Rustylady says get rid of the sharp bits, you don't want to be grubbing for a spud in loose soil and get a screw/nai/shard-of-glass up under your fingernail.

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been there, done it and got the tee-shirt

when i first took over my plot, i found a chain link fence about 8 inches below the surface, running the whole width of the plot, along with a huge area of burnt ground, still find the occaisonal burnt bramble prickle in the end of my finger. lets you know your alive!!! anyone else find the prickles are virtually indestructable?

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