Leave It Better Kids Garden!

The Leave It Better Kids Garden is going to get healed up this summer!

There is lead in the soil of our garden, so we currently build raised beds and bring in healthy soil. The remediation is taking place on the ground in the rest of the garden. Our approach to lead remediation will be a hybrid approach. Our main strategy will be to add phosphorus, and then landscaping fabric- to cover the old soil, and then to put a six inch layer of new clean woodchips and soil. This will be for the heavily trafficked areas of the garden. Along the fenceline of the garden we will use phytoextraction - by planting plants that are effective at extracting lead from the soil: sunflowers, alpine pennycress, geraniums, and vetiver grass. When they are finished growing, and pulling lead out of the soil, we will extract them from the garden. 

Step 1- (End of July) We will clean up the garden and make measurements necessary to purchase all of the plants and materials for our renovation. Take samples of soil and send away for initial lead content. 

Step 2- (Beginning of August) Order materials with longer lead time for delivery

Step 3- (Mid August) Order materials with short lead time for delivery

Step 4- (Late August/Early September) Put in the shrubs, phosporus, landscaping fabric, woodchips, and lead remediating plants. 

Step 5- (Early October) We'll take a new sample of soil and test for lead. 

Step 6- (Spring 2023) We'll lead remediating plants again, and retest soil for lead again. 

We have a lot of kids come through our garden. We already plant in clean soil, but we want to take the next step- we want our entire garden to be lead free. Join us to provide a beautiful, green, healing space that is devoid of toxic chemicals. 

We've been hard at work in the Morris Heights neighborhood for more than 12 years, and we're ready to fix the garden this summer and keep it that way for a long, long time.