Will the recent eruption of the volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland affect my garden or my vegetables? The simple answer is that it could do, bit I personally think it is a long shot, in other words it is something unlikely to affect your vegetable garden.
Let's start by looking at the facts. A volcano has erupted in Iceland. An ash cloud is currently drifting towards Europe and has caused the UK, Belgium, Sweden, Ireland, Finland, Norway and Denmark to close their airspace, something not even 9/11 did. The ash is being driven eastwards by the upper atmospheric winds, the jet stream, which aircraft use to fly in to gain speed and fuel economy. The eruption is still continuing.
OK, those are the basic facts, and remember here that I am a gardener and not a scientist so everything that follows is my view and not scientific fact.
The volcano has erupted and is still continuing. There is also worry that this eruption could cause a far larger volcano which is nearby to erupt which could make the situation much worse. Well there is nothing we can do about this. If it is going to happen it will and we can do nothing about it and if this does happen there will be even more ash ejected into the atmosphere.
Whilst this ash maybe causing problems for jet aircraft as is shown by the fact that a lot of European airspace has been closed will it cause problems for my garden? Well you may think the ash is in the atmosphere but remember that this will eventually fall to the ground. We have all seen disaster movies on the TV which show choking ash falling and collapsing the roofs of buildings but this ash is dispersed high in the atmosphere and when it does fall to the ground it will dispersed on the ground.. We will not have a covering of ash inches thick covering everything as happened locally when Mount St Helens erupted in the US several years ago. What we may have is covering of ash which is not noticeable and will lie on the top of your soil. However, will this cause problems. We all know that volcanoes are linked with toxic chemical such as sulfur, but I have some sulfur powder which I use to dust bulbs with when storing them over the winter so this should not be a problem. As for the ash it is unlikely to be thick enough to cause problems.
Indeed it will probably not be noticed when it finally falls to the ground. I have also read some research which shows it may even be beneficial to your garden. Everything in your garden is growing in soil, or something which is derived from soil. OK, so you may be growing something in peat but that has grown in soil as has whatever your peat free compost may be made of. All the soil in your garden is derived from molten rock at sometime. At one stage the earth was a molten ball of liquid rock and the crust has developed from this. You may argue that your soil is very sandy, and sand is from the sea. Yes, but it only got to the sea bed by being weathered from rock made, at some stage, by volcanoes. So somewhere down the line, your soil is derived from volcanic rock. I have even seen it stated that volcanic ash is a better additive to clay soil than sand. This is due to the surface area of volcanic ash as opposed to sand and it helps break up the clay quicker and more efficiently. It is also good at retaining moisture, much better than sand. I have also read that because volcanic ash is made from burst bubbles of molten rock it is effectively small pieces of glass and slugs hate crawling over it. I want some, and I want some now to help deter my slugs.
The two final points to note are that it depends on where you are as to whether there may be an effect on your garden. In the US it looks like you will escape the effects of this eruption. Western Europe will be affected but it does not look like this will be a problem. Further east there will be little or no effects. My brother lives in Australia and I doubt he will notice anything as he is a long way from Iceland and also in the opposite hemisphere.
Finally there could be some change to the weather but at this stage it does not look likely. When Krakatau erupted in 1883 it was a massive eruption which could be heard over 2000 miles away and was the largest eruption in modern history, (I think). The affect on the weather was noticeable for 5 years with temperatures being lower. So this eruption could also block out some sunlight for a while. Note the use of the word some, but if it does it shouldn't be much.
On the whole, I do not think it will have any noticeable effect on your garden so you can forget about worrying about any large or long term effects from this eruption.
You can learn more about growing your own vegetables by checking out http://www.highdensitygardening.com/home.html which also has free downloadable worksheets on building hotbox compost bins. There isn't any advice on dealing with volcanoes though as this is not a normal gardening hazard.
Ric Wiley is an internet writer and gardener. His website about High Density Gardening can be found at http://www.highdensitygardening.com/home.html and his latest ebook is High Density Gardening
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