A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Sprouting Roof Shingles

Hello, all,
I'm preparing a vegetable garden at the side of the house, and in my digging I've come across a number of buried asphalt shingles (scraps from 10 years ago that the roofers didn't clean up after they were finished, I presume). Is it possible that the shingles have leached something into the ground?? Is it worth attempting a garden here?

Apparently there is a small amount of leaching from a road into surrounding soil of contaminents from bituminous road products, but then there is a lot of road. I personally don't think a few shingles would be a problem. You could always have a soil test done. I googled ' bitumen contamination food crop ' and similar to find some reading on this. Or look in the yellow pages for 'environmental consultants' and make a few calls.

Thanks Longy, I think I will get a soil test done ... just to be on the safe side.

Frann