There's been concerns this growing season over plants from the newly expanded section of the Okotoks Community Garden.

Some produce from the section were showing signs of leaf curl leaving some gardeners to speculate it was due to herbicides still in the soil from previous years.

Christa Michailuck, parks manager for the Town of Okotoks, says they performed testing with Health Canada that came back with a different conclusion.

"It was the health evaluation directorate from Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency that made the statement that based on everything we provided them, information and herbicide spray records and photos of the leaf foliage, that it does not appear herbicides would be a major factor in the leaf curl on the vegetables."

She adds it is possible there's trace amounts left in the soil that are so small they're unable to be detected that certain species of plants may be susceptible to.

Michailuck says they looked at everything they could and don't feel the soil they mixed in this year is responsible.

"We used the existing soil but we also imported soil. We don't feel that there was any issue with the imported soil because we used it in some of the old plots as well and there was no leaf coil effected with the new soil in the older plots so we do think it was something to do with the existing soil that was there."

She says there's no plan on replacing the soil in the garden for next year but they will be adding more organic matter.

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