Gardening Report: Smoke Safety

With last night's rains, the dense smoke that has been constant over the interior for the past week is now lifting, but not quite gone. ​

In tonight's installment of Gardening Report, Julie Riley talks about the air quality and it's impacts.​

Man, this smoke has really been bad this week. Thankfully we've got some rain and Mike tells me the smoke is gonna let up a little bit but it could still be a smoky summer.

So gardeners, who have to be outside taking care of the plants, need to know a little bit about protection. I'm seeing a lot of people around town wearing these dust masks and these don't really filter out the really small particles. And so, if you're not in a high risk group, and you need to do some gardening and you'd like a mask, what you need to look for is the designation N-95 or N-100 and your mask should be approved by Niosh, the National Institute of Safety and Health. And you find those on the boxes.

So the ash that is falling down on plants also reduces photosynthesis. But it's been so warm that everything is growing like great bounds and the rain will wash off the particulates that fall on the leaves. But there are '...' in wildfire smoke that also effect the growth of the plant's cells.

You might see some spots on leaves from ozone, there are other materials in wildfire smoke and thankfully we're not to close, most of us aren't too close to it so there's a difference in the distance you are from the smoke.

I'm Julie Riley, join me next time for Gardening Report when we'll be talking about the lawn.