Has anyone else had to go through this? My garden is pretty close to my road (long story of heavily wooded area, tiny small town - it's not as weird or unhealthy as it sounds...except now). Late last summer, my town re-did my road in chip seal. The gravel is asphalt, and it never seemed well stuck in there to me. I was worried last year when a few stray bits got in (picked them out), but now I'm quite sad/upset.

The snow plows must have made a mess of it. (Lots of snow plows - I live in New Hampshire.) The snow's finally melting, so today I went out to gaze on my years worth of soil building and think happily of the gardening season to come. Unfortunately, lots and lots of the asphalt gravel is in the garden. My darling husband lovingly suggested carefully scooping out the top inch or so of soil, plus going down to the packed earth in the paths (they are bark-mulched - hard to get it out of that). It's only a 200 sq ft garden, but that's still going to take a huge amount of time.

My worry is that even if we do all that, the soil will still be too polluted. My local extension can test for cadium, copper, lead, nickel, chromium & zinc - I'll have to research & find if that covers me. I also wonder if it's a losing battle - might be OK for this year, but an increasing problem. Loose gravel still comes off underfoot, even after the snow plows this winter. Are these types of roads supposed to do that?

I'd love to hear from others who have had to deal with this kind of thing. I'm thinking it might be time to switch to container gardening, but I don't really want to. It would be a fortune to get a decent amount of space, for one thing.