Atmospheric deposition is an important source of trace metals to surface environments, but knowledge about plant bioavailability of recently deposited metals is limited. We performed a fully factorial soil and atmosphere exposure experiment with three vegetables (radish, lettuce, and soybean), which allowed to effectively distinguish impacts of recently deposited metals (<1 year) from longer-term metal exposures in soils. Results showed that recently deposited Cu, Cd, and Pb accounted for 0.5-15.2% of total soil Cu, Cd, and Pb pools near emission source, while they contributed 15-76% of Cu, Cd, and Pb concentrations in edible parts of vegetables. The soil retention of recently deposited metals (52-73%) presented as higher mobile fractions than these previously present in soils (7-42%). These findings highlight a preferential uptake and high rates of bioaccumulation of deposited metals in vegetables and implicated that quick and potentially stronger reduction can be achieved by reducing current atmospheric source loads.