Whats the best way to deal with degraded or corrupted soils that seem beyond repair?
The best way to know the extent of damage to the soil is to have the soil tested. The best way to tell when the damage has been corrected is to have the soil tested again. Soil organisms have the capacity to clean up just about everything including toxic waste. (See B.03.04 on Bio-remediation.) They do, however, work by their own schedule and clean-up of seriously corrupted soils may take several years. In those situations where the damage is limited to a relatively small area and there is no good way to garden around it, it may be more realistic to simply dig out the problem soil and to replace it with a good garden loam. In most cases however, the problem soil can be cleansed by simply digging in an abundance of well composted organic material, keeping the site well watered and giving the soil organisms the time to do the job. The extra organic material and the extra water are to help build stronger populations of the soil organisms.
