Pioneering urban farming in Pittsburgh’s leaded soil
To get the land safe for growing food was a multistep process. The general idea was to “dilute the lead levels by adding wood chips,” Gallagher explained
By Kenedy Sanchez
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Mar 8, 2026
Excerpt:
She started by adding 8 to 10 inches of wood chips over the growing area and then inoculating them with a Korean natural farming ferment. The ferment jumpstarts the decomposition of the wood chips, allowing the soil to reach healthy levels of plant fertilizers like nitrogen and increasing microbial growth.
Then the fermented wood chips were incorporated 24 inches down into the existing soil using an excavator. Mixing the fermented wood chips into the soil introduced lead-free media while also “locking up the lead and making it less bioavailable to the plants,” reducing the risk of lead exposure to growers and consumers.
By deeply digging into the soils, they were able to “remove all the treasures you find in urban soils.” These treasures included large chunks of foundation stone, bricks, a carburetor and chunks of fencing. Removing these large pieces of debris improves the soils by permitting root growth deep into the ground and reduces the risk of injury to people, tools and machinery as they work in these soils.
After the mixing process, Gallagher wanted to plant profitable cover crops. Cover crops improve nutrient cycling in soil and help prevent erosion and weeds. Gallagher said she “was curious if there was a cash crop that was nonedible that could grow” while waiting for the lead levels to lower and general soil health to improve.
Read the complete article here.
Source: https://cityfarmer.info/pioneering-urban-farming-in-pittsburghs-leaded-soil/
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