MBTA public hearing, Waltham

For those who might want to be able to say something about the proposed cuts and who are near or in Waltham tonight:

Public Hearing

March 1
6-8pm
Government Center
119 School Street in Waltham
(at intersection of Lexington & School St., one block from Main St. & City Hall)

Much of the yard has medium amounts of lead

According to results I got today from the soil testing lab at Umass Amherst.

Not, interestingly, the shady back part of the yard, so food plants which can handle shade well will go there.

I've been investigating pytoremediation methods for pulling the lead out so that we can eventually plant food plants in the rest of the yard. So far, it seems that plants store the least heavy metals in their fruiting parts, most in their leaves, and inconsistent ammounts in their roots. So leafy things are the best possibility. Specifically, it seems that Indian Mustard and regular sunflowers do a decent job at it, although most studies also use something which makes heavy metals bind to the soil less and be more available for plant uptake more (chelating agents). The problem here is that the chemicals in question too easily allow the lead to get into the water table. So, definitely not using that part of what people have done in their minimal studies so far.

So, in the immediate term, for places that are not the lawn, I will be trying to plant - and later remove and put in the trash - sunflowers and, once I get some seeds, Indian Mustard in non-lawn parts of the garden.

Another possibility, since I would really like to not have many plants in pots for watering requirement reasons, is hugelkultur. Or, I suppose, a more typical raised bed. But it seems like it would be a waste of the lovely brush and also more work later.

We have a bunch of brush from around the yard last year, and it would be lovely to be able to use it in a useful way. It seems helpful to stick those in the ground, along with other lovely things to decompose, and let them capture water for us and make whatever we grow easier and healthier. It does, however, mean that we'd need to get rid of the top layer of dirt and replace it with some sort of non-lead topsoil. I do, of course, still need to verify that this is not going to be problematic for galaneia or metahacker.

So, yard. Darn heavy metal...