Pittsburgh Garden Experiment

Hey guys and girls. Great News.  This blog journal will continue!  We have found some property that we can farm on.  The owners have agreed to let us farm in exchange for a share of the harvest.  It's really the perfect set up. 

The farm's located in West End, so we've appropriately named it West End Farm.

Here's a summary of the land setup:

Our annual veggie beds will be about 30'x50' area in the back yard.  The land was not previously built on, and the soil biology is great.  We'll also have herbs out front of the house and fruit and berry plants.

There is some concern for drainage, and the closest water source is at the house.  The property is located on a hill, so I'm hoping to find a way to capture the flood water and filter it into the garden using a plant filter. 

So far we've stripped the sod and piled it for composting.  We planted some early season crops in about half of the beds.  Since my overall concern is for healthy biology and not short-term production, we will plant a number of support crops on the farm.  I want to experiment with leguminous bushes. 

Does anybody have any advice on species to incorporate into a farm for muclching and nitrogen fixing?

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