Gardening in an area with air pollution?

[zbigi]

So I live in an area where air pollution gets moderately bad for a couple months per year (mostly during winters). A lot of that pollution is particulate matter from badly burned coal/wood/(sometimes)trash. Obviously, some of that eventually ends up landing on soil and plants. Does anyone know how much of a health hazard is that? Is it smart to even garden (with the intention of eating the produce) in such conditions?

[ertyu]

Your other option, if you're not going to garden, is to purchase produce. How certain can you be the produce originates somewhere with less particulate matter pollution? My guess is, not very. Some of it will probably come from the area around you, in which case it shares the same particulate matter issues. A lot of it is probably indistrially farmed, and even if it comes from areas with low particulate matter pollution, issues with pesticides as well as other soil pollution aren't guaranteed. Gardening is still your better option if your goal is healthy produce. I guess you could build a greenhouse and shield some patches of soil over the winter -- but with particulate matter, having an air filter running will probably be more important when it comes to health than worrying about it falling on soil.

[zbigi]

Air pollution is mostly limited to areas with houses. When you go 500 meters into a forest or fields, the air is clean. Hence, even when buying produce from Poland, there's a good chance that it wasn't from an area with air pollution. Also, a lot of the produce is imported, and Poland is European king of air pollution - basically all other countries have cleaner air than us.
Your points about pesticides etc. are valid, but I'm wondering what is the magnitude of risk of eating produce from soil covered with such cancerous dust? Only knowing that I can try to weight it against pesticides and other risks.

[zbigi]

Just had an idea: I could perhaps just cover the ground for the winter? Some people do it anyway to protect against wind, cold etc.

[7Wannabe5]

Plants don't have lungs. It's unhealthy for a human to live in a closed environment where wood is being burned, but wood ash is often added to gardens as a soil amendment. Even substances such as lead in the soil can be remediated. The fruiting part of a plant is generally the safest to eat in any situation, and most substances that are dangerous when ingested by humans can be removed for the most part with thorough washing. IOW, if you, for example, ingested lead from eating garden produce, it is by far most likely that this was due to the fact that you actually ingested some of the contaminated soil along with your produce.

OTOH, if you were to attempt to live on nothing but produce from your own garden plot, there is a moderate possibility that you will end up suffering from some variety of mineral depletion malady, if you don't test and correct soil for adequate mineral availablity and balance.

[Western Red Cedar]

Air pollution and particulate matter has been a growing problem in the western United States as a result of more severe wildfires. There are often multiple weeks or even months where air quality standards are worse than the most polluted cities in the world.

Local health departments have said that locally grown produce is generally safe to consume after a thorough washing. They suggest a vinegar solution if someone is particularly concerned. I've personally seen debris on produce like kale or plums from my parents' garden, and it usually washes off.

Agriculture is really big business in the western US. It represents the largest sector of the economy in Washington State (a state with Boeing, Microsoft, and Amazon headquarters to demonstrate the scale). The smoke and particulate matter has started to impact the wine industry in California, Oregon, and Washington - causing vineyards to dump entire crops because of an acrid, smoky aftertaste.

It doesn't seem like there is a good practice for dealing with this at a macro scale, but it seems manageable at a micro scale.