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PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2004 11:01 am 
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Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2004 10:57 am
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Location: Holly Lake Ranch, Texas
The only place to put my vegetable garden and get the appropriate amouant of sun is on a location where a house burned to the ground. The fire was extinguished with water - no chemicals. However, the house was built in the 1970's and I do not know how it was treated for termites. How might I amend the soil to remove toxicity and plant my garden?


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 Post subject: old house site
PostPosted: Sat Feb 07, 2004 8:54 pm 
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Joined: Sat Jul 26, 2003 10:18 pm
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I assume it was a frame, pier and beam construction and all you have is asshes and no concrete foundation... I would scrape off as much as possible and then just go with a raised bed.. the more the better.. three feet deep if you can put a border around it with rock or something like that... I guess the higher above the burned out level the better just in case.... that seems like it would ease any problems....


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 8:58 am 
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Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2004 10:57 am
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Location: Holly Lake Ranch, Texas
The house burned about 6-7 years ago so there are no ashes. There is a cement slab that I am having removed. I am concerned that there might be DDT in the soil since this house was built in the early 70s.


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 3:26 pm 
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Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2003 3:45 pm
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Location: San Antonio,TEXAS
Personally I wouldn't worry about it. A house built in 1970 should not have had termites. My house was built in 1939 and has never had termites (knock on wood...what was that crunching noise :wink: ), but if you want to make sure you have no -icide issues, you need to spread activated carbon on the soil. The best one there is is by NORIT. Unfortuately I have no idea where to get it. You can read about it at www.norit.com. The carbon will 'adsorb' all the chemicals on your lawn in just a few seconds of exposure. It really is instantaneous. If you want another absorbant material in there, H-E-B sells a generic (Hill Country Farms) brand of kitty litter containing 100% Zeolite. You can spread that stuff out and there should be no chemicals getting through. Zeolite also is a great place for microbes to live.

After all that you can apply a thin layer of compost and the soil will be ready to go. I would not till anything to take advantage of the fungus and bacteria living in the soil currently.

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