You will need to take your own samples and send them to Dr. Gabriel Filippelli, who will then send your results back via e-mail, with some suggested guidelines for planting. You will need only things you already have in your house to conduct the sampling!

Items needed:

1. Ziploc bags (1 quart or less)
2. Permanent marker
3. Trowel or scoop

What you should do:

1. Take five samples from in and around your planting area
   Identify three sites either where your beds are now or where you plan to plant. Also identify one site in the front yard or near the street. Finally, identify one site near your house, preferably below the dripline of your gutter. At each site, use the trowel or scoop to scrape up soil down to a depth of about five inches. Place this soil sample in a Ziploc bag and seal it. Don’t worry about grass or sticks or rocks—we will remove these. Label bags with a permanent marker (Sharpie preferred), starting with the street address and zip code. Additionally, label the street bag as street, the house bag as dripline, and the other garden soil bags in a way that makes sense to you (i.e., north, south, or tomatoes, cukes, whatever works).
2. Put all sealed sample bags in another bag—one gallon Ziploc would be ideal, but could also use a plastic grocery bag
3. Place in a mailing container and send to:
   Gabriel Filippelli
   Department of Earth Sciences
   Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
   723 W. Michigan St.
   Indianapolis, IN 46202

What IUPUI will do:

1. We will log in your samples, sieve to remove large debris, analyze the sample for lead content
2. We will return the results to you, along with a recommendation table focused on your garden soils.

Don’t worry about the sampling—it does not matter if you dig down to four inches, or six, what type of trowel or scoop you use, or what brand of bag you use. Lead doesn’t go away because of its geochemistry, so it is nearly impossible to take a “bad” lead sample. I will make sure to get you good results from my end.