gas spilled in soil.

last year there was grass where I am getting ready to make a vegetable garden well when I was filling the lawn mower there I spilled some gas last year well I tilling up the ground in the spot yesterday and smelled the smell of gas shouldn't it be gone by now is it safe to grow vegetables there.

My take on this: if you can still smell the spill, don't plant anything you would eat in there. I would endeavor to dig out the spot where the spill occured until a point where the soil has no odor anymore, replace the soil with fresh soil, dispose of the polluted dug-up soil properly (hazardous waste disposal) and not plant anything edible in there for a few years.


Sylvain.

Ditto Sylvain.
Plants won't grow well, and I sure would not trust edible plants in that spot.

Theres a difference between SOME gas and a whole full can of it, I would go with Sylvain's advice and remove the soil, as you dig down and out, keep smelling the removed soil as you go, a small amount of gas spillage should be easy to remove either width or deep HOWEVER, a full container of gas is a lot more work, soil removal and prep work.

IF you reach the stage where you have been able to remove ALL the infected soil, dig another spade depth deeper and wider, use a thick sheet of polythene and line the empty hole, refill with good quality soil and leave to settle down, get rid of contaminated soil as soon as, this soil will spread the contamination wherever you leave it for storage.

Within that soil filled hole, you need to use garden fork to make a few drainage holes in the plastic, and when the weather is at it's warm spring temp, I would plant something like Potato's, these take up a lot of moisture, and are a good plant for cleaning soil, DONT EAT the Potato's, dont even use any tubers to sprout for next years crop. your only using them as a sponge to remove any left over contamination AND it will allow you to get on with the planting close by with other Veg.
Hope this gives you some food for thought and you feel better about the gas spillage.

You may have to change the soil in the hole over a couple more years after you keep checking for the gas seepage but it's better doing it slowly and making sure you have safe soil for growing any food crop, personally, after a few months I'm surprised you still have a strong smell unless you spilled way more gas that your describing.
Best of luck for your future Veg patch.
Kindest Regards.
WeeNel.

In my opinion, I wouldn't really worry about it if it wasn't that much. Garden implements leak oil and gas anyway so it's not like there's none of it present in the other soil anyway. Most commercial pesticides and insecticides nowadays contain much worse than petroleum so you know a little gas can't hurt that much. If you spilled a full 5 gallon can in one small area, there might be a problem but from what you've said I expect you spilled a gallon or less. I would work the soil well to mix it up and dilute it over a bigger area. As temperatures warm and spring breezes and rains come, it should get rid of any gasoline left near the surface. It might affect plant growth some, but I doubt it would fully inhibit life. Just my opinion, but I wouldn't want to put that much effort into digging out soil when you know there's no way you can get rid of 100% of the contamination no matter how much you dig out.

Gasoline both evaporates into the air as the soil is disturbed, and is also broken down by soil organisms, as are other hydrocarbons:

http://www.rsdynamics.com/texty/pdf/340064.pdf

I also wouldn't worry about it. Digging the area up a little to loosen the soil and allow any remaining gasoline (likely very little after a small spill a year ago) to evaporate is about all I'd bother doing.

My take on this is, you spilled the gas LAST YEAR, I also assume this was perhaps summer because you said you were going to cut the grass, Therefore because we are into spring the following year AND you still smell the gas YESTERDAY, your soil MUST be still contaminated to a greater extent than I would consider possible after all this time.
I hate disagreeing with people who love gardening BUT, IF you can still smell the gas months later from when the spillage happened, I would suggest it would constitute as a health hazard to eat food plants from that site until you retest the soil after treating it. As I mentioned above, it may take a few cleaning projects and tests to be free from the contamination BUT it wont take rocket science to know you should NOT eat food that has been near any gasoline, even in storage, but then again, some folk might have discovered a new use for the stuff that MOST gardeners would steer well clear of.
Try NOT to worry about it as mistakes happen all the time, I have to agree there are lots of chemicals used for amateur gardeners to help with troubles BUT they come with a warning NOT TO USE OF FOOD CROPS or fruiting crops when flowering is happening as fruit begins to develop. BUT that's a whole different subject.

Just keep cleaning the soil or get rid of it till tests come clear.
Good luck and Kindest Regards.
WeeNel.