Repairing chemical sprayed soil(part rant)

I F*****g hate the chemical sprayers. If i ever find them in action i will unplug their machine and give them a mouthful. I have found where I live evidence of chemical spraying from the council workers that they have been spraying wasteland, which i intend to use for my geurilla planting of stuff. So what can i do to repair it before i plant, they usually spray round the edges of land, but I have found out why part of my raspberry patch has died! they have sprayed next door and killed the grass right next to it! i called next door to inform my neighbour i will be using pots of flowers round the edges to stop the spraying. (as its council land)

is their a way of repairing the damage to the soil? how long will it take?

fiona. mad as hell

Find out what they sprayed if possible. It's hard to say how to help the land recover without knowing what was used, but mostly fungi seem to be the way to repair anything like that.

Remember you catch more flies with honey - better to wait until you calm down to talk to them, it's possible you can get them to stop spraying some of the areas if you ask the right person nicely. I've seen people get the mowers to stop mowing their roadsides where they had flowers or other stuff planted, they just had to agree to keep it weeded and not too high. If they are spraying for a particular pest (weed or bug) you might be able to stop the spraying by volunteering to hand weed or monitor the area for whatever thing they're worried about.

You can also make signs and put them up, "Organic farm - no spray zone", "No Spraying - Sensitive Wildlife Area" or something like that in case the workers are not informed. If you make it look official, in a bureaucracy it can often work for years before they figure out it wasn't someone in another department that put the sign up. LOL!

You can also plant a buffer zone on your land to protect the inner plants from spray - something hardy and inedible. Raspberries are hard, tho, they can be damaged by 2,4 D sprayed even half a mile away, as can blackberries and grapes.

Holy s***. my grapes and blackberries are also nearby, the blackberries have took a beating too, but my grapes seem ok as yet.

time for action methinks. signs are a good idea. thanks.

i have just noticed my alpine strawberries have spread next door, and are coming up on the sprayed verge. good news for sundays! they must be pretty hardy little blighters.

Wood chips. The best way to get that soil remediating fungi to flourish is to put down about 6" of wood chips everywhere and collect every mushroom you come across and use it to inoculate your chips. Keep your wood chips well watered (daily sprinklers?) to have optimal growing conditions for the fungi.

And come over to the fungi forum to talk about mycoremediation with us.

Funny you should mention mushrooms john, I was reading about them last night in bed!! just gotta love the syncronicity!

so, I will fight them with the mushies'

fiona, armed and ready!

Denis Huel wrote:herbicides like glyphosate (Round up, but many versions) affect plants they come in contact with but are largely inactivated on contact with the soil. Land intended to grow virtually ALL conventional cereal and legume seed crops are sprayed in the hours or day prior to sowing with no ill effect.

I stongly dispute this pro-pesticide perspective. Poison is poison, and it kills things. Please dont try to tell us that 'appropriate' use of toxic chemicals is not destructive to soil life, and all life on this wonderful plantet.