*[Enwl-eng] Researchers Use Rain Gardens to Grow Vegetables

[ENWLine]

Tuesday, April 09, 2013 11:55 AM

*Grazing in the Rain Garden*
By: Kaspersen, Janice: Stormwater Editor Comments

Rain gardens are now a common sight in many cities, but finding the
right mix of plants to include in a rain garden can be challenging. For
the people whose homes or businesses they occupy, the plants'
attractiveness is usually a priority. In some areas, you need to make
sure the plants can withstand dry spells; you don't want to end up
irrigating your rain garden.

It's been suggested that rain gardens be used to grow vegetables, and at
first glance this seems to be a good two-birds-with-one-stone solution:
growing something useful with a resource we've saved from going down the
drain. But some have raised an alarm about the dangers of eating what
we've irrigated with urban stormwater. One purpose of a rain garden or
bioswale, after all, is to help filter pollutants from runoff; in
high-traffic urban areas, pollutants might become concentrated in the
soil, and plants uptake many of them, so do we really want to eat what
grows there?

Yes, some Australian researchers say, we do. An ongoing experiment at
the University of Melbourne is using roof runoff to irrigate two rain
gardens planted with vegetables. Two conventional vegetable
gardens---irrigated from the public water supply---are located nearby,
and all four are heavily monitored.

In fact, the researchers say, nutrients that commonly enter runoff from
landscape fertilization are actually beneficial to the plants. And other
pollutants like metals haven't been a problem so far; according to one
researcher, "The filter layers in the rain garden are also doing their
work by preventing heavy metals from urban water runoff entering our
waterways, while also remaining at safe levels in plants. In contrast we
revealed that crops irrigated by tap water actually contained higher
levels of copper due to the pipes used."

Granted, the Melbourne experiment is using roof runoff rather than
street runoff as the source of irrigation. But it's this type of
experiment---rather than speculation or guesswork---that we need to see
more of.




http://www.stormh2o.com/SW/Blogs/1640.aspx


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Subject: News: Researchers Use Rain Gardens to Grow Vegetables


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