Planting organic crops on rooftop gardens

Discussion in 'Small Space Gardening' started by amiraziham, Jul 11, 2006.

  1. amiraziham

    amiraziham Member

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    I am part of a group that is doing on the promotion of organic food as part of our curriculum. As part of our project, we are suggesting to plant organic crops on rooftop gardens. Can anyone share their insights on this idea, whether it is feasible and whether it would actually encourage you to buy organic food and even eat the organic food grown on the organic rooftops? Any other suggestions and comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
     
  2. terrestrial_man

    terrestrial_man Active Member 10 Years

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    Rooftop gardening is a challenge if you do not have much time to attend to your garden. This has been the issue for me in my efforts at rooftop gardening. My reason for trying growing vegetables on my backporch roof was simply a matter of not having any significant or secure ground space that had the amount of sunlight needed for a good crop.
    I have grown Bok Choi and even radish for sprouts on the roof.
    The Bok Choi was in 1 gallon pots and the sprouts in a WalMart
    plastic planter box. (See images). Last year (2005) I was able to be diligent enough to climb up a ladder to attend to the plants and so was fairly successful in accomplishing my objective of an eatable product. But this year my efforts have been feeble partly due to the fact that some of my outdoor cats discovered the convenience of having dirt on the roof!!! Needless to say my rooftop gardening efforts went to s _ _ t!!!
    I did finally clean up the messes and replanted with hardware cloth coverings but the demands on my time just made my effort a waste and the plants have met their fate at the hands of the hot sun and no water!!!
    I definitely want to try again but would want to set up a drip irrigation system on the roof that would feed each of the containers and see how I can work that out to where it is satisfactory. The question again is time to do it.
    Check my images from last year on what I had done.
    If a person has the time and possibly can set up an irrigation system that will make watering easier than I would recommend it if ground space is at a premium!
    (Note: my little varmit Jake discovered that the 5gallon pot that had a yellow tomato plant in it was a great place to snooze! Needless to say the tomato plant became mulch!)
     

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  3. Equilibrium

    Equilibrium Active Member

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    Would you please post a link to the images of what you did last year?
     
  4. terrestrial_man

    terrestrial_man Active Member 10 Years

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    Thanks for the inquiry! I do not have a web-journal up on the
    2005 garden. But I will gladly work on one after I get my 2007 calendars done. The images above are basically it.
    I tried to get something started in 2006 but I ran out of time and I let it dry up. I will need to work out some kind of watering system set up on a clock so I am not stuck with having to water from a ladder!! Anyhow check back by year's end to see if the
    journal is up.
     
  5. terrestrial_man

    terrestrial_man Active Member 10 Years

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  6. Equilibrium

    Equilibrium Active Member

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    Where did you buy those long troughs in which you planted?
     
  7. terrestrial_man

    terrestrial_man Active Member 10 Years

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    WalMart!
     
  8. Equilibrium

    Equilibrium Active Member

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    I love WalMart! Thanks for answering my question.
     
  9. stoneangel

    stoneangel Active Member VCBF Cherry Scout

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    http://www.cityfarmer.org/subrooftops.html

    This is a site for city farmers. Last time I checked it out there were quite a few projects in Singapore.
    I am also quite interested in rooftop landscape. There should be a link for a condo building in Vancouver called 'Freesia'. It also sells garden plots on the rooftop with the condos. I haven't checked it out personally, but sounds like a step in the right direction.
    Keep us informed about your discoveries!
     
  10. Equilibrium

    Equilibrium Active Member

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    I loved your link. I support greenscaping of roofs in any shape or form for a multitude of cultural and ecological reasons. Reduction of heat islands created by large cities comes to mind first. Every structure we have built eliminated wildlife habitat. The air we breathe is cleansed by vegetation so common sense dictates the more vegetation, the better our air quality. Our ability to manage our watersheds has become seriously compromised. As our population increases, so will our need for recreational space. What better place than our roofs to create parks.

    http://www.greenroofs.com/pdfs/newslinks-TechnologyCenturyMagazine6706.pdf

    http://www.nw.org/network/pubs/brightIdeas/documents/issuesandideas_000.pdf

    http://www.greenroofs.net/index.php

    That being said, I have one flat roof here that is about 16 x 24' and I was long ago eyeing it for plantings but knew it would not be cost effective to redesign the roof to be able to accommodate plantings by structurally reinforcing it at this time. The darn roof is only 4 years old and I didn't know that almost all vegetables would grow well in containers and I didn't learn about the benefits of greenscaping roofs until after this home was built. Regardless, I can certainly container garden on that roof. I've got easy access to that rooftop from windows on the second floor of my home which makes the concept all the more appealing to me. WalMart began stocking their gardening center this past weekend and vegetable seed packs have begun to hit the shelves!
     

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