Category Archives: Horticulture

Readers’ Questions: Arsenic from pressure-treated wood, Part II

Welcome back, everyone, and in case you just tuned in, we’re talking with Jen about her vegetable garden and the unpleasant possibility that she may be growing toxic vegetables and feeding them to her family.

Unfortunately, the best place for the garden turned out to be right by an old telephone pole, which was probably treated with the wood-preservative copper chromate arsenate (CCA), and we all know what that means: it means that arsenic (along with smaller quantities of copper and chrome) could be leaching from the pole into the soil, where it would get taken up by vegetables. Which are eaten by her children. That’s pretty scary.

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Readers' Questions: Arsenic from pressure-treated wood, Part II

Welcome back, everyone, and in case you just tuned in, we're talking with Jen about her vegetable garden and the unpleasant possibility that she may be growing toxic vegetables and feeding them to her family.

Unfortunately, the best place for the garden turned out to be right by an old telephone pole, which was probably treated with the wood-preservative copper chromate arsenate (CCA), and we all know what that means: it means that arsenic (along with smaller quantities of copper and chrome) could be leaching from the pole into the soil, where it would get taken up by vegetables. Which are eaten by her children. That's pretty scary.

Continue reading

Readers’ Questions: Arsenic from pressure-treated wood, Part I

(My most recent absence can be attributed at least in part to the fact that I, along with most of Bozeman's Symphonic Choir, got up at an appallingly early hour on Saturday morning to catch the bus to Billings for a joint concert. We acquitted ourselves honorably (three standing ovations, though one being for Bach's 4th Brandenburg Concerto which features not a note for singers, it's hard to take credit for all three. I'll give it a try, though: we were eloquent even in silence? No? Anyway, after the reception some of us sang all the way home, arriving at those homes about nineteen hours after we'd left them. Such excursions require a day or two to catch one's breath.)


Last week Jen in Maryland left the following comment on my January post “Compost vs. Arsenic: And the winner is–compost!” about dealing with arsenic in garden soil:

As a gardening novice, I placed a small veggie garden next to an old telephone pole in my backyard. It then dawned on me that maybe the soil could be contaminated with whatever they treated the pole with. The house is 60 years old, so I don’t know, but now I’m tempted to give up, for fear of contaminating my family. Advice?

The stuff we are talking about here is the copper chromate arsenate (CCA) that was used as a wood preservative from the 1930s on. By the 70s it had became the outdoor wood-treatment of choice across the United States until concerns that matched Jen's led to its being banned by the EPA, save for a few rare exceptions, in 2003.

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Readers' Questions: Arsenic from pressure-treated wood, Part I

(My most recent absence can be attributed at least in part to the fact that I, along with most of Bozeman's Symphonic Choir, got up at an appallingly early hour on Saturday morning to catch the bus to Billings for a joint concert. We acquitted ourselves honorably (three standing ovations, though one being for Bach's 4th Brandenburg Concerto which features not a note for singers, it's hard to take credit for all three. I'll give it a try, though: we were eloquent even in silence? No? Anyway, after the reception some of us sang all the way home, arriving at those homes about nineteen hours after we'd left them. Such excursions require a day or two to catch one's breath.)


Last week Jen in Maryland left the following comment on my January post “Compost vs. Arsenic: And the winner is–compost!” about dealing with arsenic in garden soil:

As a gardening novice, I placed a small veggie garden next to an old telephone pole in my backyard. It then dawned on me that maybe the soil could be contaminated with whatever they treated the pole with. The house is 60 years old, so I don't know, but now I'm tempted to give up, for fear of contaminating my family. Advice?

The stuff we are talking about here is the copper chromate arsenate (CCA) that was used as a wood preservative from the 1930s on. By the 70s it had became the outdoor wood-treatment of choice across the United States until concerns that matched Jen's led to its being banned by the EPA, save for a few rare exceptions, in 2003.

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So—what exactly is an Heirloom, anyway?

Back by popular demand! Part II of the appeal on behalf of Garden Organic, in its effort to save rare and endangered vegetable cultivars. Part I appeared yesterday–technically, the day before yesterday, but I refuse to call it that, since I've only slept once since posting that part. Onwards–

Gdn. Org. endangerd vegies #2

Source: Garden Organic, on-line newsletter, Endangered Seed Appeal, March 2009.

So, you want to know what heirloom vegetables are? Sit down nicely, children, and granny will explain.

Once upon a time back at the green dawn of the world, all seeds were open-pollinated by wind, gravity, or insects. Horticulturalists (once they came along) developed a particular flower or vegetable strain by painstakingly selecting plants that had the look or smell or taste they liked, saving and planting their seeds, and when they sprouted, discarding seedlings and plants that did not have the desired traits and saving seeds from those that did.

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