If your garden flooded during the rainfall last week, your produce may not be safe to eat!

After flooding has occurred, the best way to ensure that your produce is safe is to not consume any of it. However, it can be very difficult to throw away a lot of produce that still looks okay.

• If your garden was flooded by rainwater that just didn’t soak in as fast due to the amount of rain, most of the produce is probably safe, if you are sure there were no likely contaminants in the area (fecal matter, industrial chemicals, etc).
• If your garden was flooded by water coming out of ditches, rivers, ponds, or other sources, you should assume that the produce is contaminated. All ripe produce should be harvested and discarded, especially anything normally consumed raw.
• For complete details on safety of produce after flooding, please refer to this fact sheet: Safely Using Produce from Flooded Gardens