Growing Veggies On A Roof - Green Roofs For Urban Sustainability

Here is a pic of a marvelous little vegetable roof.

Rooftop Garden Growing Spring Mix Veggies - Urban Sustainability

The green roof is comprised of a waterproofing membrane of existing sloped (4:12) asphalt shingles, a layer of wind mesh, 20 mm of 96% inorganic soil media and lots of spring mix veggies!

The apparatus in the background is a vapor net installed to capture morning dew and hair water vapor.  The dew collector concept is quite simple but very effective and provides all the irrigation this little rooftop veggie garden needs.

Green roofs can be so simple is design yet so successful in contributing to urban sustainability!

Urban Permaculture & Rooftop Gardens

We can defeat hunger in the Urban Core - on the roofs, on balconies, in small yards and across patios! Food is so easy to grow in the harshest of places, with little of no soil and even when water supply is limited.  All it takes is a basic understanding of the important factors impacting growth, such as wind, light and available water vapor.

Though permaculture has always addressed simple food growing principles, most of the time this focus has been about ground level growing.

Growing food on walls, roofs, buildings, and shacks up off the ground is important in the crowded urban core, high rises and slums.  Ground level food production is many times impractical in cities because of the lack of open land.  But there are plenty of walls and roofs to grow food on!

We believe educating the young about how to grow 'rooftop gardens is a way to capture their interest, create economic opportunity for them, create habitat, restore ecology and bring peace to the world.

Harvesting Green Roof Seeds, Educating the children

It is really exciting to see students become interested in urban agriculture.

Young children's minds are so fresh and thinking so quickly!  They see opportunities to improve and enhance our green roofs, living walls and rooftop systems.

Offering the next generation hope through empowerment is what we need to be doing every day.  Placing control of their food and water supply into our children's hands is so important.

Making educational videos about rooftop permaculture to teach the children.

It is a path to world peace and freedom from those who may want to try and control other's lives through food and water.

And growing food and recycling water does not have to be expensive or difficult.  This is why education is so important.

But we have a fight ahead of us.  Large corporations see opportunity through control of food, water, seeds and the knowledge of how to grow food and collect water.

The 'I don't have a green thumb and can not grow food' storyline is often repeated and many of the world have come to believe they can't grow sufficient supplies of food in the urban core.

We must show our children the path to breaking reliance from those who would control our lives and souls in exchange for food and water.

A small living wall or rooftop garden can provide enough seeds in a growing season to grow five more gardens the same size the following year.  Seeds are free.

Systems can be designed to cheaply capture and store water and to grow food on even shacks made from rusty tin.

The students harvested a giant luffa sponge from the roof this week.  Organic luffa sponges cost five dollars or more in the store.  The enterprising young person growing luffa gourds across the roof of their inner-city barrio could earn hundreds of dollars each season.

Plants not only provide food but they provide security, shelter and medicine.

I love Lydia Cabrera's quote I use over and over, paraphrased "there are more spirits in the plants than in the sky".

Aloe growing out of walls and on roofs becomes the local doctor's office in many instances.

Low cost Barrio-type house with living walls, food roofs & water recycling

Structure walls made from wire with grapes abundantly growing provides fruit, sugar, vine and community opportunities.

Rooftop beans and peas can feed the masses, not only providing daily food but offering up the following years crop of seeds.

Reusing water and controlling flooding

Native wildflowers planted across window openings and on the roofs and walls bring in the pollinators, crucial for food production.  One must have native wildflowers growing side by side with food plants.

Collectively we have found a way to travel to the moon, harvest the atom and talk across the globe.

But this awesome generation has forgotten how to feed themselves.

Now is the time to relearn.  Now is the time to show our children how to break leashes and create freedom.

Give me one month and the seeds I can carry in my pocket, a few wiling youth from the urban core and  the plants of medicine, food, fiber and economy will be growing across the landscape.  It can be done in a desert or a wetland, hurricane or earthquake prone areas.
We've answered the critics who say it can't be done, designed systems withstanding cyclones, created highly productive food systems in 30mm of sand, implemented bee hives on roofs, built water storage systems for practically no cost and are working now on a rooftop chicken system.

Control of your food is the path to freedom and peace.  Reliance on the corporations for food is the path to bondage.

Florida Rooftop Permaculture, No Room for a Garden? No Problem

Rooftop permaculture may be the long term sustainable trend for green roofs.  Where as green roofs may have many benefits, including insulation, mitigation of urban heat island effect, cleansing of stormwater, support for biodiversity, educational opportunities and more, growing food within the city can save food fuel and transportation costs, create permaculture benefits, cool structures, save money and provide much needed sustenance within inner cities.

Florida Permaculture, Rooftop Gardens - Mustards & Garlic Chives

With advances in green roof and permaculture technology, cost effective and lightweight growing systems can be created and installed for food production across balconies, patios, rooftops and windowsills.

Self watering and systems employing fog nets, dew catchers and condensate reuse will take the place of non-sustainable potable irrigation water.

Florida Permaculture, Greens and Garlic Chives on the Rooftop

Additionally, there is so much permaculture information available on the great world wide web the need for fertilizers can be easily replaced with proper and informed design principles utilizing nitrogen fixing plant species.  Our rooftop tomatoes growing alongside legumes were so much larger than those in our ground level gardens.

Importantly here in Florida (and other places), rooftop gardening eliminates many of the soil borne plant root pests such as nematodes.  Nematodes can devastate garden vegetables, stunting their growth by as much as a severe drought would.  Nematodes generally cannot survive in the hot temperatures typical of green roof soil media.

Florida Permaculture, Clover feeds the Greens on the Roof

Food plants such as those shown above, will have the advantage of first view by pollinators.

Your roof will become alive with butterflies, dragonflies, moths, birds, bees and more.

Tree frogs and anoles will soon take up residence, creating a wonderful integrated pest management systems as they eat volumes of the common household fly, mosquitoes, roaches and other pests.

Consider planting veggies on your roof as the next permaculture project.

Finding World Peace and Defeating Hunger with low cost living architecture and green roofs

Food is so easy to grow in the harshest of places, with little of no soil and even when water supply is limited.  All it takes is a basic understanding of the important factors impacting growth, such as wind, light and available water vapor.

Though permaculture has always addressed simple food growing principles, most of the time this focus has been about ground level growing.

Growing food on walls, roofs, buildings, and shacks up off the ground is important in the crowded urban core, high rises and slums.  Ground level food production is many times impractical in cities because of the lack of open land.  But there are plenty of walls and roofs to grow food on!

We believe educating the young about how to grow 'rooftop gardens is a way to capture their interest, create economic opportunity for them, create habitat, restore ecology and bring peace to the world.

Harvesting Green Roof Seeds, Educating the children

This week we held a seed collection workshop atop the Breaking Ground Green Roof, teaching the next generation about how to identify seeds, how to collect them, how to resow the seeds and how to save them for the next season.

Young children's minds are so fresh and thinking so quickly!  They see opportunities to improve and enhance our green roofs, living walls and rooftop systems.

Offering the next generation hope through empowerment is what we need to be doing every day.  Placing control of their food and water supply into our children's hands is so important.

Making educational videos about rooftop permaculture to teach the children.

It is a path to world peace and freedom from those who may want to try and control other's lives through food and water.

And growing food and recycling water does not have to be expensive or difficult.  This is why education is so important.

But we have a fight ahead of us.  Large corporations see opportunity through control of food, water, seeds and the knowledge of how to grow food and collect water.

The 'I don't have a green thumb and can not grow food' storyline is often repeated and many of the world have come to believe they can't grow sufficient supplies of food in the urban core.

We must show our children the path to breaking reliance from those who would control our lives and souls in exchange for food and water.

A small living wall or rooftop garden can provide enough seeds in a growing season to grow five more gardens the same size the following year.  Seeds are free.

Systems can be designed to cheaply capture and store water and to grow food on even shacks made from rusty tin.

The students harvested a giant luffa sponge from the roof this week.  Organic luffa sponges cost five dollars or more in the store.  The enterprising young person growing luffa gourds across the roof of their inner-city barrio could earn hundreds of dollars each season.

Plants not only provide food but they provide security, shelter and medicine.

I love Lydia Cabrera's quote I use over and over, paraphrased "there are more spirits in the plants than in the sky".

Aloe growing out of walls and on roofs becomes the local doctor's office in many instances.

Low cost Barrio-type house with living walls, food roofs & water recycling

Structure walls made from wire with grapes abundantly growing provides fruit, sugar, vine and community opportunities.

Rooftop beans and peas can feed the masses, not only providing daily food but offering up the following years crop of seeds.

Reusing water and controlling flooding

Native wildflowers planted across window openings and on the roofs and walls bring in the pollinators, crucial for food production.  One must have native wildflowers growing side by side with food plants.

Collectively we have found a way to travel to the moon, harvest the atom and talk across the globe.

But this awesome generation has forgotten how to feed themselves.

Now is the time to relearn.  Now is the time to show our children how to break leashes and create freedom.

Give me one month and the seeds I can carry in my pocket, a few wiling youth from the urban core and  the plants of medicine, food, fiber and economy will be growing across the landscape.  It can be done in a desert or a wetland, hurricane or earthquake prone areas.

UF Hurricane simulator we've tested green roof system with

We've answered the critics who say it can't be done, designed systems withstanding cyclones, created highly productive food systems in 30mm of sand, implemented bee hives on roofs, built water storage systems for practically no cost and are working now on a rooftop chicken system.

Control of your food is the path to freedom and peace.  Reliance on the corporations for food is the path to bondage.

Awesome Video - New York Rooftop Permaculture Gardens

New York Farm City from Petrina TV on Vimeo.

Rooftop Permaculture - GMO, Brassica oleracea Root Architecture

"Gene manipulated corn fields feed people"

The above comment was a response this morning to one of my suggestions rooftop permaculture can help.  It is really sad because some truly believe this.

Fortunately - like the present Middle East changing of the old, stale guard and influx of new ideas, I believe rooftop permaculture and vertical permaculture is well on its way to replacing the old and becoming the new frontier in volumetric and rooftop green.

Green Roof Rooftop Permaculture - Brassica

Green Roof Vegetables - Broccoli

The broccoli here were pulled from the roof garden this week.  We had the Brassica growing in 4" of light weight highly organic composted and very well drained soil on a 4/10 slope.  You can see just how the vegetables became with no additional fertilizers and zero pesticides and herbicides.

Unfortunately, large corporations view rooftop permaculture and the citizens taking the task of feeding themselves back into their own hands as a serious threat to profits.

But I reject the above statement that "Gene manipulated corn fields feed people" as the only successful approach.

Many people may want to eat GMO corn products.  Yet I believe a large portion of the population may not want to.

So I see a grassroots movement arising to support rooftop permaculture, one where common people can make nutritional decisions for themselves rather than having the State or a Large Multi-national Corporation do so.

Check out just how big the Brassica grew.  Look at the root architecture.  We planted them close together to brace against wind issues and ate the greens daily. The plants adapted to the 4" soil (100mm) dispelling the myths of need for deep dirt to grow.

ECHO, see http://echonet.org is a great resource for rooftop permaculture practices, tips and design guidelines from a cost-effective approach.

Our $2.00 worth of seeds provided a daily bunch of organic greens and broccoli tops that would have cost US $ 5 in the store for six months.  As I see it the numbers work out to be close to $1000 savings in food costs, not to mention the health benefits.  That is just for organic broccoli alone.  Add the collards, mustards, sugar snap peas, pok choy, turnips, potatoes, tomatoes and the benefit of fresh air and gardening companionship and one can easily see the economic advantage.

No thank you to GMOs and to the outdated, stale industry guru's that are old news.

Green Roof Tale of Two Turnips, Rooftop Garden v. Ground Level Garden

Green and living rooftop gardens have important advantages over ground level gardens. Some of these advantages are important to the quality of the garden vegetables being grown and the amount of produce ultimately harvested.

A living and green rooftop garden can offer the following benefits;

• More light
• Certainly more direct access to dew, fog and rainwater
• and important one we will discuss today - if clean soil is used originally then there may be isolation from ground level pests on the rooftop.

The following photo was taken yesterday, February 9, 2011 in one of the many ground level gardens here on our Urban permaculture plot.  The turnip leaves are skeletalized by the feeding of an unknown pest - we suspect a moth worm of some type (diamondback).

First, it is important to note here;

• All native insects have a purpose and are beneficial
• Providing the correct garden conditions can greatly reduce the onset of insect attack, 
• Rooftop and green roof gardening provides important benefits to the soils and plants that help alleviate insect infestation, and
• Plants succumbing to insect attack may be dealing with a mineral, nutrient, air pollution or water quality issue.

Pest damage to the ground level garden turnips

We practice organic gardening on all of our ground level gardens and rooftop gardens.  We practice organic gardening because we have witnessed the massive quantities of chemicals standard agriculture methodology applies to soils and vegetables.  But we do live on an Urban Core lot, in the middle of one of the largest cities size-wise in America, and our neighbors may or may not treat their soils and gardens with the care we do and subsequently may or may not have pests looking to come feast on our organically grown gardens.

In preparation for growing, say turnips or mustard greens, many farmers and city gardeners apply massive amounts of herbicides to the soils to keep the native herbaceous plants down, followed by many different types of highly toxic dusts and powders to keep insect damage to a minimum.

Consumers do not witness the poison applications first hand as they got o the market and purchase, big, leafy greens pumped up with chemical fertilizers and saved from the insects, not by smart planting and soil health practices, rather saved from the insects through constand dousings of highly toxic killer substances. 

Then we wonder why we feel so tired and lethargic.  A substance that kills bugs will affect humans too, just takes a little more sometimes.

But the good news is green roofs and rooftop gardens make a difference!

The following photo is of the greens on one of our rooftop gardens, also taken yesterday.

Rooftop greens, extensive green roof garden, Jacksonville, Florida

As you can see, there is no pest damage.  The greens are spared from the insects.


Why?  We can offer up several reasons.

• Rooftop permaculture gardens are open to the birds for insect scavenging
• Rooftop garden soil media becomes hotter than ground level soils and may 'self-sterilize'.
• Green roof vegetable garden receive strong amounts of healthy sunshine
• Rooftops are high up off the ground and many soil insects may not be able to reach the rooftops.

Importantly, when constructing a green roof, it is important to use clean or sterile soil media to prevent the import of insects, fungi and other potential pest organisms.  Additionally, check the plants you use.  If you want to feed you and your family on chemical free vegetables then start your own vegetable plants from open-pollinated, non-GMO seeds.

Often, vegetable starts purchased at your local retail store are 'pumped up' with lots of fertilizers and other substances to make them look beautiful so they will sell easily.  Once you plant these steriodized young plants in the garden or on the roof they go through shock and many die.  So consider starting your own plants from seeds - they will grow better in the long run.

Rooftop garden requires some planning though as your vegetables will be subject to certain conditions not found on the ground.  We've discussed these in previous posts and will do so again, so stay tuned here.

Consider the possibilities! 

I believe we can feed the world with truly healthy food grown on the rooftops.

As always, we appreciate your comments and emails.

Happy green roofing!

Kevin

Why Living and Green Roofs are Critically Important as Urban Open Space Disappears

Habitat and green space are disappearing at alarming and exponential rates and living roofs along with rooftop permaculture are the answer to the dilemma.

Fact: The earth is not producing any additional new lands and open space.

Fact: The earth's population is increasing exponentially.

Fact: Open and green space is disappearing rapidly.

Fact: As buildings are built, hundreds of thousands of acres of rooftop are made available for reforestation and replanting of habitat and for food.

The Convention on Biological Diversity offers excellent information on just how fast habitat is disappearing and pressures endangered species face.

As Development Increases Habitat Decreases

Wildlife and plants need humankind to restore the habitat taken with development.  People need wildlife and plants for food, medicine, pollution and erosion control and especially for oxygen to breathe.

Without plants, our oxygen supplies dwindle and air pollution increases, creating potentially serious respiratory issues.

Smog is a term derived from the combination of two other words, ‘smoke’ and ‘fog’, reportedly coined by the Dr. Henry Antoine Des Voeux in 1905 referring to London’s fog.

Smog today can be attributed to automobile exhaust, coal burning and other industrial or combustion activities.  Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gasses make up a large part of smog.

Smog issues are important to green roofs and vice-versa.  Smog may hurt green roof plants or possibly may help green roof plants.  Some, like the David Bellamy suggest plants grow quicker in the presence of increased CO2 levels, thereby absorbing more CO2 and serving as a balance to increasing CO2 levels.  Some studies show smog damages plants.  Regardless, Urban plants are vital to life in the city.

A great resource aid for further understanding atmospheric CO2 is available from Purdue University.  Dr. Kevin Gurney spearheaded an effort to develop a Google Earth map showing CO2 levels across the globe.  The data and Google Earth map are useful, not only in developing large scale urban and regional carbon budgets, but in verifying green roof design data also.

Ultimately, living roofs and rooftop permaculture can serve as a starting point for the restoration of volumetric green in the Urban Core.

But there is much to learn.

Growing plants on roofs has many advantages, including;

• freedom from many soil diseases
• good exposure to sunlight
• plenty of CO2
• freedom from pedestrian and vehicular traffic
• direct exposure to rainwater, and more

However rooftop gardens and living roofs also present many new challenges.  Living roofs are subject to increased winds, higher temperatures and other potentially harsh conditions.  Choosing the right soil mixture and formulation can be a challenge.  Yet since Urban rooftops provide a new frontier for food growing, habitat, permaculture and biodiversity, green roof science should become a priority.

As time moves forward and development continues, available rooftop acreage will only increase.

Lets look to the roofs as the next frontier.  Lets perfect the art of rooftop permaculture, providing food for the cities, planting native species alongside food, providing habitat and strengthening biodiversity.

Urban Green - Roofs and Food in Overton - Miami - Revitalization

Check out the excellent Collins Center Article about Urban Agriculture here.

Happy Green Roofing!  Kevin