Category — Roof Garden

Rooftop Garden Project, Montreal, Canada

“After five seasons of gardening and experimenting, the Rooftop Garden project team is happy to share the fruits of its labor with you. The Guide to Setting up Your Own Edible Rooftop Garden comes from our wish to see new gardens and partners take root in the fertile soil of Montreal but also in other parts of the world.

“The guide is divided into six chapters that cover the main factors to consider when developing a rooftop garden project: project definition, choice of site, setting up the garden, coordination of gardening activity, health choices and a detailed technical guide on rooftop container gardening.

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“Planting was completed in Spring 2002 and the garden is now well established. In an area of 200 m2, over 120 species of perennial plants from around the world thrive in soil only 30cm deep. The garden supports a range of layers, from roots, through small shrubs to our miniature version of a canopy layer. Most have multiple uses: food, medicine, fuel, fibre, construction, dye, scent.

“The garden demonstrates many ways we can all reduce our environmental footprint. Features include: composting of kitchen waste from the Global Cafe, irrigation using harvested rainwater pumped by renewable energy from a solar array and wind turbine, use of recovered soil and recycled newspaper, wood, stone and plastic in its construction.”

Link to roof garden here.

New York Times article. March 19, 2008
By Allison Arieff, the former Editor in Chief of Dwell magazine
132 comments on this article already.
Photo: Marion Brenner

“Not long ago, any visions of an agrarian return would have been chalked up to nostalgia: today, such conjurings don’t seem so far-fetched. And indeed, the purposeful reclamation of urban and suburban lands is serious fodder for artists, architects and academics alike.

“Creating open space where others wouldn’t think to look for it is a trademark of architect David Baker, who, for Curran House, an affordable housing project in San Francisco’s gritty Tenderloin neighborhood, designed roof gardens with small individual container garden plots allowing residents to cultivate their own crops.

See article in the New York Times here.

“This past summer, my friends (Art and Heidi) and I tried to grow heirloom vegetables on our respective rooftops in Chicago using homemade Earthboxes. Heidi would come over every few weeks and take some photos of my plants, which she then sent me along with some shots from their roof garden.

“We’re trying to figure out how to automate the watering of all those tubs on my garage roof without spending a lot of money. Here’s what I’ve got so far: Out of a reservoir kept full with a Hudson valve, I’d run supply lines to each of the boxes. If I suck all the air out of these lines, the siphon/water level effect should keep all the tubs watered as long as the vacuum seal isn’t broken.”

See all their photos and more on Earthboxes here.

Shannon Walsh-Wrightson, Executive Chef at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel in downtown Vancouver, gives Janine and I a tour of this rooftop herb garden, which has been used by the professional kitchen staff at the hotel for over 10 years. Learn how he and his fellow cooks incorporate fresh herbs and fruit from the garden into their dishes. City Farmer TV.

Link to City Farmer TV.