City dwellers across the country are picking up shovels and burying seeds, part of a burgeoning movement to bring fresh, local produce back to urban areas. But before you join their ranks, stop and check your soil. It might be flecked with dangerous lead. On today’s episode of Distillations we look at the challenges of urban agriculture and the innovative ways to solve them. First producer Charlie Mintz visits West Oakland to reveal how an EPA-funded program is leeching lead out of backyard gardens using hundreds of tons of discarded fishbones. Then we sit down with Graceful Gardens‘ Alice Edgerton and Fair Food Philadelphia‘s Alex Jones to learn about how to best make an urban garden grow.

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