Growing Food on Roofs - Rooftop Permaculture Can Help Feed the Urban Core

Green Roof Mat with Swale Pads For Food Growing - Roof Permaculture

Growing food on the roof makes sense.  With hundreds of thousands of acres of otherwise wasted space available for planting in the Urban Core, city dwellers are now more than ever planting their rooftop spaces to help offset high food prices.

The rooftop permaculture systems we work with generally employ some type of three dimensional weave to allow plant roofs the chance for anchoring.  These are the same systems we just successfully tested in the hurricane simulators - where, once installed the plants and soils stay embedded in the mats under 120 mph winds.

Soil embedded three dimensional netting, though not essential, is important in sub tropical climates influenced each summer by cyclones and hurricanes, helping hold both soil and plants in place.  The weave also allows for steeply sloped rooftop areas to be taken advantage of for agricultural purposes.

Green Roof Mat & Soil Added For Food Growing - Roof Permaculture

Low cost and organic alternatives to the polypropylene weave include hemp and burlap fabric, fowl or hail netting, twine weave and any other system allowing inter-connectivity of plant roots to underlying roofing systems.

Importantly, growing food on the roof creates economic opportunity.  Many small cafes and restaurants will purchase locally grown organic produce.  Moreover, rooftop gardens  reduce heat island effect, produce oxygen and sequester carbon, provide habitat and offer many other benefits.

One of the first suggestions a friend offered was to take the multi-dimensional mat and fold it under in certain areas, creating a swale-like structure - a technique successfully used in permaculture practices, one with a focus on water efficiency maximization.

Judy's Spring Mix Ready for Green Roof Planting

The folds were added after the fact because the mat had already been installed.

A lightweight roof soil mix was added to the mat and seedlings Judy had grown - a spring mix - were planted.

Growing food on roofs and walls in the Urban Core opens many economic, ecological and social doors.  Elimination of food transportation costs can even help reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

Green Roof Food Garden - Roof Permaculture

Florida Biodiversity & Permaculture Green Roof Project - Getting Started, Breaking Ground Contracting

The Green Roof for the Breaking Ground Contracting project in Jacksonville has begun!

Today the roofing contractor will be finishing the edges of the TPO.  Once the edges are sealed and the gutters up the drainage stabilization mat will be attached to the TPO.

The TPO is 80 mil and has a 2" drainage slope from the center towards the east and west edges.

Roof level view of BGC Green Roof Pad

The Breaking Ground Contracting green roof will support rooftop permaculture, native wildflowers and grasses and other endemic species and Florida Friendly Landscaping (drought tolerant) plants.

BGC Walkway to Green Roof, Solar & HVAC to left

Recall wind and light are the two most significant green roof design variables.  We call them primary design variables.  The wind and light summary chart is as follows.

MV GreenRoof Primary Design Variable Chart

Following the design principles we've been discussing here, the wind exposure is primarily from the south.  The following roof grid summarizes wind and light exposure.

BGC Green Roof Primary Design Schematic - Wind & Light Impacts

A green roof and rooftop permaculture mission statement is in development progress and plant layout proceeding based on design parameters.  Follow us as we proceed through the rood assessment into design and then installation.

Feel free to email us with your questions and we are always happy to receive comments.

Foggy Morning Green Roof Garlic Photo

Quick green roof update photo.  The Allium sativum is growing rapidly!  I've tasted a few of the garlic greens and they are delicious.  Fed some to the rabbits, too who quickly devoured the strong sulfur flavored and medicinally important, allicin containing leaves.

Medicinal & Food Green Roof for Rabbits

Recall, the greenroof system is constructed with a 50mm recycled and structural polypropylene frame embedded with a non-woven geosynthetic fabric and compost for a nature irrigated, hydroponic-type planting bed.  The structural characteristics of the roof allow for spanning between the wooden rabbit side braces and a 20 mil HDPE liner keeps the rabbits dry.

Cost-effective, lightweight, nature irrigated green roofs are becoming more popular as understanding of water shortage crises spreads.

Rooftop food production also is increasing in popularity and importance as open space diminishes and rooftop acreage proliferates!

As always, we welcome your comments and emails and Happy Green Roofing!

Kevin

Sustainability, Florida Green Roofs and Living Walls, Urban Permaculture - A Rambling Editorial

Sometimes I think I am truly evolved into a sustainability expert.

Then my eyes are opened and I wonder "why am I still so 'plastics' oriented?

Saw Palmetto 'Living Wall'

We are building a chicken coop.  The twelve Rhode Island Reds are about ready for the coop and I am about tired of them being in the kitchen.

The chicken coop is all wired in and ready to go except for the shade cloth I thought about hanging shadecloth over the nests and ends of the coop for relief from the hot Florida sun.

Plastic covered the wire frame to keep the rain out.

Saw Palmetto 'Green Roof' for Chicken Coop

Saw Palmetto Interior View Living Wall

Shade cloth is woven from petro-based chemicals and contributes to peak oil issues, and ultimately is expensive - costing about $200 to cover the coop.

However I ams so trained to think 'industrial'.

Amazingly, nature has presented me with numerous opportunities, year after year of my life to learn recycling and sustainability.

Something in my mind is programed to always say - 'Go to the Home Improvement store, Kevin! There is a plastic gadget you need for this project!".

I know I should recycle.  I think constantly about how the Green Roof Industry can move away from industrial plastic and complicated layer after of layer of 'things' on the roof just to grow plants.

And I have this 'plastics is better' concept drilled into my head s o often, I am almost fearful of exploring alternative methods and natural materials.  "Organic' and 'Natural' are a bad deal and at best will not last but a year or two then fail and create massive liability.  Best go with multiple layers of plastics.

It is as Krishnamurti says about requiring a 'mutation of the mind' to change, yet my mind is molded into channels of 'plastics' and 'petro-based products'.  In the rush to push what I believe to be very important for food supplies in the Urban Core - Green Roofs and Rooftop Permaculture - I fall trap to the 'petro-based systems.

Besides my Biology degree, I am trained as a lawyer and quite 'tort' alert and though I everyday hear negative and questionable comments from the industry about natural materials, I am more concerned about what I am doing with my plastic consumer mannerisms than I am about failure from natural materials.

You see, despite what I've been brainwashed with about how much better plastics are, I can look around and see green roofs and living walls and structures made from natural materials many years older than the relatively new 'plastics' based systems in vogue today.

The argument about natural material based systems requiring annual or periodic maintenance and replacement comes into mind.  However, all green roofs and living walls require  periodic maintenance.  I've yet to see a green roof or living wall be maintenance free - in fact many are maintenance intensive!

How do I change my plastic mindset?  Have I truly gone so far redemption is improbable?  Will it really take a major mutation of my thought process?  I think so.  We are hopelessly lost to plastics.

Unless we can step back, and as Khrishnamurti says:

"It is only when the totality of the mind is still, that the creative, the nameless comes into being."

My problem is I am too Type A, always too busy building a green something or other.  My mind can never be still and so will always probably be thinking first, 'Plastics!'  But I have learned to listen.

When talking about the chicken coop shadecloth Judy said simply, 'use Saw Palmetto - it is free, sustainable and will work better for not only is it providing shade but the insects attracted to it will provide food for the chickens!.'

We have lots of saw palmetto at the back of our lot.

Though not truly a green roof in the sense of living plants (though I could create a supportive argument :)) the living wall and green roof of saw palmetto is quite sustainable!  In fact, I never should have covered the coop with plastic in the first place - just used the saw palmetto.

Tell those gone on before us who used saw palmetto for centuries it is not an appropriate or traditional building material.  Unfortunately I doubt if there is a Saw Palmetto lobby in Washington to compete with the plastics lobby.

I think we've really gone too far with rampant disregard for nature.  May be too late for the major mutation to occur so we are working here and across the Urban Core with Green Roofs and Rooftop Permaculture to make as soft a landing pad as possible.......

Growing Veggies and Feeding the World from the Green Roof

Photo here of veggie transplants becoming established on cyclone mats.  Once the plants are established the mats will be placed over green roof soil media and grow in to create a hurricane resistant rooftop permaculture garden.

We can feed the cities from the rooftops!

Green Roof Permaculture Veggie Starts!

Green Roof Expansion for Rabbits - Mat Down, Soil Time!

More photos soon - the mat is a Colbond mat - they have many - if you are planning on using a Colbond mat for an extensive Green Roof, send me an email and I'll share with you what has been tried, works good, works better and works best. :) 

The mat is taped to the tin roofing with double sided roofing tape and scrap copper pipe serves as the stop piece.

Going to use straight Suwanee River Organic Compost (wondering just really how organic it is...) and might put down a layer of oak leaves first.  Many people say organic matter is bad for green roofs because it prevents drainage and clogs up the downspouts.  Vogue now to use expanded clay or rock or large grained sand, pumice or perlite.  All of those items have a very high carbon footprint.  And the last laugh is - although the roofs are designed and constructed with less than 15% or so organic matter, the maintenance and landscape staff add volumes of slow release or fast release fertilizers to compensate for the lack of organic matter.  Then algae blooms very quickly and clogs up the drains and downspouts anyway. :)

I like to amend the home made compost or Suwanee River compost with coir (always treat your coir with Epsom salts first) and peat to lighten up the mixture.  Add some local sand too, just make sure it is not infected with nematodes.

A spring mix, ala permaculture, for the rabbits will be planted.  With the moon in the right phase now I am guessing the arugula et al will be sprouting in a couple days. 

Will post more photos then.

P.S. The system is set up to where the rabbit pellets fall down through a special -easy to walk on floor into the composting leaves below where the worm farm is.  Chickens are going down at the end of the ex-greenhouse - am designing a radius type green roof for the coop that is super lightweight and provides food too. :)

As always - email your comments and questions and Happy Green Roofing!

Kevin

Green Roof Rabbit Hutch

Green Roof expansion with Colbond Mat & Compost

Feed the Rabbits Off the Rooftop Permaculture Style!

Sunshine for Dinner

Beautiful greens grown on the Green Roof for dinner.

The veggies seem to flourish better on the roof than on the ground level garden.

Could be the additional sunshine, but they were delicious!

Green Roof Vegetables

Rooftop Permaculture - Bulbine - Medicinal Plant Also!

Green roof plants can provide many benefits.

Earlier today we posted a photo of a group of Bulbines making up a small green roof.

The green roof was constructed as an erosion control feature.  Prior to the green roof installation, roof stormwater runoff would collect on higher adjacent roofs and then flow down the shingles at high speeds and hit a section of the front porch roof.

The cumulative effect of stormwater hitting the porch roof resulted in chronic erosion of the asphalt shingles and roofing - allowing for eventual leaks.

Once the 1 meter by 1 meter vegetated roofing mat, comprised of a woven synthetic mat, a low VOC adhesive, a waterproofing membrane, engineered soils and the plants, was installed, the Bulbines grew quickly to form an extensive root mat.

The engineered soil layer was less than 1" average depth.

Amazingly, all of the Bulbine root system have interwoven radially into other Bulbines, forming a thick, almost impervious root mat.

The stormwater flows into the Bulbine planting where the water speed and velocity is reduced and calmed.

Finally, in addition to the erosion control benfits of the Bulbine-based green roof - there are many ethnobotanical and medicinal traditions related to bulbines.  Click here for an amazing website detailing Bulbines many medicinal uses.

Happy Green Roofing!

Kevin

Green Roof Permaculture, Peak Oil and Survival

Never one to be an alarmist, I will remind all we are in the generation of peak oil.

As demands on petro supplies increase and supplies decrease we need to look to alternatives.

Lightweight Rooftop Permaculture Systems

Rooftop permaculture offers many solutions to food, cooling, habitat creation and wildlife integration, cleaning stormwater, carbon sequestration, oxygen production and more.

If people spent one hour per day working in their rooftop permaculture garden the world's population would be healthier, both physically and mentally.

Work with growing plants and food on the rooftop for six months, eating the greens and veggies you grow, watching the urban core wildlife come to the plants, experiencing intense nature first hand - do so and I promise you your blood pressure will drop ten diastolic and systolic points and you will loose twenty pounds. 

Your stress levels will be drastically reduced and your love and wonder of experiencing life will be regenerated.

You will go to your rooftop garden before you leave for work and soon after you arrive home, greeting wildlife visitors, breathing fresh oxygen and admiring how your plants grow.

Once you create a rooftop garden you will build another and another.

Dates, herbs, spices, yucca, parsley, rosemary, sage, cactus, alliums, succulents, plants requiring only nature based irrigation grow successfully, spreading across the lightweight green roof mat quickly and fully.

Because your green roof system is only inches thick it can be installed practically anywhere.

Try your metal shed in the backyard or garden shed in the courtyard.  Add vegetation to your main roof, small or large and even across the tops of large apartment buildings and community structures.

Because your green roof is mat based the plants will move themselves over time across the mat to the ideal exposures and micro-climates on a roof.

You will learn of fog nets, dew catchers and grey-water recycling.

Here in Jacksonville we are in a long and serious drought approximate 350mm behind in average rainfall for the year (14 inches),

We are in a seven week drought with no significant rainfall accumulation.

Yet the rooftop gardens thrive.

Understanding how to design these small, rooftop permaculture gardens has been our passion.  Sharing this information is our future.

Growing greens, herbs, vegetables, flowers and plants is a key and core element of long-term sustainability as we pass peak oil.

Growing food on the rooftop saves automobile trips to the grocery store.

Green roofs cleans stormwater, sequesters carbon and the green roof plants pump oxygen into the air every minute of every day.

Green roofs attract native wildlife, anoles, frogs and the hawks, kites and owl raptors, providing wonderful integrated pest management created by nature.

Your doctor visits and health costs will decrease as your fresh air intake, exercise and new diet of homegrown vegetables and greens becomes routine.

You will feel young again as you experiment with new plants, and feel, smell and taste new sensations.

Green roof permaculture.  Understanding sustainability in the post-peak oil environment.

Let us help you with your green roof permaculture and sustainability design.


Email us today with your requirements.

MetroVerde.  Arid, Dry Green Roof Permaculture for Post-Peak Oil Ecology.

Happy Green Roofing.

Kevin

Lightweight, Deeper Soil Rooftop Gardens for Permaculture

We planted flat-leaf parsley, Petroselinum crispum; and sage, Salvia officinalis on a small, 3' x 12' ( 0.9 M x 3.7M) green roof section this weekend.

However we incorporated two different design criteria.

Roof Permaculture System Design

1. We used multiple layers of the root mat to create a six inch thick soil-growing layer, and

2. We overlapped the mat to create permaculture type swales.

The system is on a sloped roof with a root and water-proofing membrane over asphalt shingles.

Organic flat-leaf parsley and sage was obtained from Judy's nursery stock and planted.

A well drained soil mixture was used.

Photos will be posted as the roof-top food crops continue to grow.

Roof Permaculture - Food Growing on Green Roofs

We are using our same system that has successfully passed hurricane wind simulation of 130 MPH.

As always, email your questions and Happy Green Roofing!

Kevin

Dew Catchers for Green Roofs - Nature's Irrigtion

Lots of information exists on creating air turbulence, humidity, condensation and collecting dew.

I'll post an article with links to more information soon however below are some photos of dew collection inspiration and then the actual construction and installation of a simple but effective dew catcher on a permaculture roofs - one with winter veggies planted.

As always - email your questions here and happy green roofing!

Kevin

Morning Dew is Often Everywhere

Morning Dew Collecting on Green Roof Plants

Designing a Green Roof Dew Catcher

Constructing a Green Roof Dew Catcher

Green Roof Dew Catcher Ready for Installation

Green Roof Dew Catcher Installed

Roof Clover Planting Update, Sloped Vegetated Roof & Roof Permaculture

Crimson Clover on Green Roof - Day Eight

Green Roof crimson clover's day number eight and the juvenile plants are thick with leaves. 

Roots are shooting down into the engineered soil and locking themselves into the underlying weave.

We planted the clover on another roof with a little more slope also during a three year maintenance program.  The roof contains agaves and is nature irrigated.

Agaves on Sloped Extensive Green Roof System

There is about 2" of structural soil on this roof and the agaves have acclimated themselves and their root development to the slope and shallow soil depth. 

During the maintenance work we cut out and removed the mat section from around one of the agaves. 

We thought we had left plenty of room by cutting out 12" from the outside diameter of the agave however when the section was removed we had cut through an extensive lateral root system.

It appears that under shallow soil conditions, agaves send their roots out horizontally rather than vertically.

Finally, following up with the permaculture posting from yesterday, the spring mix we planted in the swaled green roof are standing up straight and looking good!

As always, email us your questions by clicking here.

Happy Green Roofing!

Kevin