Rock Salt in the Garden!

[robinb]

I have a very small vegetable garden, about 2.5' x 16'. It's a 1' raised garden with plenty of drainage and I top dress it every year with a couple bags of manure & compost combination. I'm usually able to grow a couple of tomatoes, some peas, beans, and a couple of green peppers and some other stuff. My peas and radishes were planted last week.

A few weeks ago, right after the soil thawed, I caught my 5 year old DD and her friends putting a small handfull of rock salt from the bag on the back porch into the graden. I told my DD at the time that salt would kill the plants and not to do it again.

Well ... 2 days ago I hear a stange scooping noise and I go out to find my DD and her friend about carrying about 1/2 cup of rock salt in a bucket over to my garden. It wasn't the first such application of salt. I found salt scattered on top of the soil and my DD's friend ran over to the garden to bury a pile when she found out she was in trouble. I also found at least a 1/4 cup poured directly on my oregano. My guess is there is about 2 cups total in the garden, but there could be more.

So ... I know that the salt is NOT good for my garden. The question is, should I just water, water, water until the salt is disolved (good drainage, remember) or do I have to remove the top couple inches of soil and top dress again?

 

[shrubber]

The solution is dilution.
water,water,water.

 

[Mamu]

I would first try to dig out as much of the salt as I could. Next there is a product called gypsum (calcium sulfate) that can be put in the soil to neutralize the salt. Finally water, water, water.

Because some of my flower gardens are near the road and get salt spray in the winter I always use gypsum and it works great.

 

[shrubber]

Gypsum will actually help increase or maintain acidity in the soil. Gypsum is sulphate of lime and is roughly 1/4 calcium oxide. It used to be considered a good source of lime for soils, but it's sulpher content tends to make soils more acidic.
A few cups of salt in the garden is not that big a deal. Many people use rock salt at a pretty heavy rate to control weeds in the garden. Salt can also help make potassium more available.
I would just water the area well and skip the gypsum and the digging.