Showing posts with label small scale permaculture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label small scale permaculture. Show all posts

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Permaculture & DIY City Farming - Patio, Backyard, Roof & Walls

Over the past thirty years we've accumulated much hands-on experience with growing food, flowers, fiber and medicinal plants in the Urban Core.

City Farmed Permaculture Eggplant
Many approaches we tried turned out to be les than optimal.  However we considered even the failures to be successes for we knowing what doesn't work is just as important as knowing what does work.

City Farmed Permaculture Bell Peppers
City farming can occur anywhere where sunlight is available.

Of course, rain or condensate helps.  But we've successfully grown plants and seen plants grow in the most harshest of places, without soil and without additional irrigation.
City Farmed Permaculture Oranges
Growing lightweight food gardens on roofs has taught that even without massive roofing supports and even in cyclone prone areas, beans, tomatoes, herbs and greens can be grown.

Living walls can shade windows, provide habitat for wildlife, produce food, gourds and sponges.
City Farmed Permaculture Cilabtro
Patio space may be utilized to create highly efficient food gardens in self-watering containers.

Hens, geese, ducks, turkeys and rabbits all have a place on the Urban Farm.
City Farmed Permaculture Chives
Learn about rooftop gardening, how to build a low cost, highly effective chicken coop or seed starting greenhouse.

Understand biodiversity principles of plant selection.

Urban Farming - our best dreams and worse nightmares.

Know what you are geting into before the adventure of your life!

You can read the details in our approximately two hundred page City Farming book available on Amazon Kindle!

City Farming, Lovely Urban Insanity is available exclusively through Kindle by clicking the link here!

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Small Residential Green Roofs for Fun, Food, Stormwater , Permaculture and More!

It is always good to talk to other green roof and Urban Core green/permaculture enthusiasts.  Yesterday I was fortunate to speak to Alan Myers-Davis, a Senior Project Manager at Living Roofs Inc. of North Carolina.

Photo by Living Roofs Inc. of North Carolina


Alan brought up the topic of small, lightweight green roofs for residential applications, sheds and garages.

There is a huge opportunity for America to green her Urban Core, small rooftop section by garage by shed by small rooftop.

Alan reminded me that our focus doesn't always have to be on mega-sized projects to make an impact.  Take Rob Overly's small one meter square green roof section that intercepts and cleans almost three hundred square meters of rooftop runoff (See a photo of Rob's green roof here).

Kudo's to Alan and Living Roofs Inc. of North Carolina!  See his note below the photographs.

Photo by Living Roofs Inc. of North Carolina

Photo by Living Roofs Inc. of North Carolina

by Living Roofs Inc. of North Carolina

by Living Roofs Inc. of North Carolina



Homeowners are extremely interested in green roofing and are always interested to know if they can transform their own roof into a living, breathing system.  

Unfortunately, buildings in the southeastern United States are not built for the same structural load capacity as northern buildings simply because we do not receive as much snow.  

Sometimes, the cost to retrofit an existing structure for increased load capacity can outweigh green roof advantages and homeowners are sent back to the drawing boards.  

Living Roofs, Inc., a green roof design and installation company based in Asheville, NC, has recently launched SHELTER to give homeowners another creative option for greening backyard space.  

These architectural drawings contain all of the necessary information required to build a DIY green roof garden shed…or art studio…or children’s playhouse…or even a man cave!  

The plan sets contain construction and green roof details, a complete materials list, and a very useful green roof resource list.  These are professionally rendered documents, so load capacities have been taken into consideration, and they have been designed small enough to bypass building codes.  Whether you wish to build the exact design or use the plans to modify and tweak your own design, they are a perfect introduction to back-yard green roofing and offer homeowners an outlet for some green creativity.  

There are two designs:  a more traditional gabled roof and a single-sloped, more contemporary roof.  The single-sloped roof comes in a 4” inch version and a 6” version, which allows for a more diverse plant selection of flowering perennials and grasses.  

Contact Alan Myers-Davis, Senior Project Manager at Living Roofs Inc., with any questions, and go to their Small Green Roof page on their website to view similar projects.  Cheers and keep on greening!