NL FR CONTACT HOME Home Info Products Quality Information BDBnet BDB box Search Conditions of sale Healthy vegetables in healthy soil Vegetables from your own garden are often assumed to be “healthy”. They come from our own cultivation: you have seen the seed or plant evolve into a tasty vegetable. Often you do not know from which soil they got their nutrients, just think of contamination with pesticides or heavy metals. Healthy vegetables are only really healthy when they are grown in healthy soil. For pesticidesit is necessary to only use products with an approval. In addition, the dose and waiting time must be respected so that no residues remain on the vegetables. Some active substances from the past could remain in the soil for a long time and cause damage, such as atrazine, simazine or diuron. You will no longer find these substances in the trade. Most weed killers used today break down so quickly that often nothing is found in a laboratory. Our experience is that in most cases no residues are found and the analysis of pesticides is expensive. Preferably, you always rinse the vegetables well with water before consuming, so that you minimize the risk of ingesting residual pesticides. Heavy metals are a group of elements that are often harmful to human health in too high a concentration in vegetables. This group includes elements such as cadmium, chromium, copper, mercury, lead, nickel, zinc and arsenic. Very low levels of heavy metals are naturally present in any soil. Higher amounts can be detrimental to human, plant and animal health. In a vegetable garden, cadmium (may come from the metal industry) causes the greatest health hazard. This element is well absorbed by leafy vegetables (lettuce, spinach) and some root vegetables (salsify, winter carrots, celeriac) without visible plant damage. The elements copper and zinc are necessary for humans and are also essential trace elements for the plant. In some cases it is even necessary to top up with copper or zinc. Lead and mercury can be present in the soil, but are poorly absorbed by the plant. Most lead and mercury contaminants are caused by precipitation on the plant. Again, it is advisable to always rinse your vegetables thoroughly with water before consuming. The uptake of heavy metals by the plant mainly depends on the soil pH, the clay content, the humus status and the plant species. It is often said that liming would reduce the heavy metal content. This is a misunderstanding: with liming, the availability of heavy metals for the plant decreases, so that they are less well absorbed, but over-liming often results in other deficiency diseases. To know whether liming needs to be done, the standard soil analysis of the Soil Service of Belgium is the starting point. In this soil reclamation, the soil type, pH, carbon, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium and sodium are analyzed in our laboratory. TIP: have your garden analyzed with the help of our garden box and, in addition to the standard soil analysis, have the heavy metals decomposed. This way you know immediately whether your healthy vegetables actually come from healthy soil! Sofie Maes Click here for an order garden box or for questions about this . Copyright 2009 BDB Sitemap Webmaster Visitors today: 1559 Number of visitors currently online: 39