Roberta’s already grows about 20 percent of its needs, in a good week, in a small roof garden in back of the restaurant and in a backyard garden several blocks away.

Michelle Knapik
Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Blog
March 10, 2010

Excerpt:

Once inside the unassuming entrance of Roberta’s, if you can cast your gaze past the wood fired stove and pizza gurus, let your olfactory senses take in something beyond the sweet aroma of ricotta pancakes sopping up maple syrup, and put down your mason jar of local beer, you will see, hear and experience the backyard urban oasis – a farming oasis that is. But don’t look out, look up. There is where you will find the first of the rooftop greenhouses.

The hoop greenhouse is built on top of a shipping container that is fitted out as a radio station. The semi vacant lot next door is also being transformed into greenhouse space that will tie into a fledgling compost operation. Look closely as the construction of this greenhouse and you will find yourself peering into salvaged factory windows.

Wait, before you think that this is this some urban warrior plot to cut out the rural farmer, you need to take in the full story. This enterprise is about connecting people to food, and people to people. It is about creating community assets and efficiently using local resources. It is about transforming underutilized urban hardscapes to grow food, while building better relationships with rural farmers to supply the elements that cannot come easily from the urban farm

See the rest of the blog posting by Michelle Knapik here.

Roberta’s locavores farm an acre of rooftop.

Roberta’s pizzaria website here.

Brooklyn Grange working with Roberta’s to build a one acre rooftop farm

Brooklyn Grange aims to build on decades of rooftop farming best practices and establish a one acre farm that operates as a sustainable small business. The farm will sell fresh, organic and affordable food to the local community, contributing to the health and economic development of the neighborhood.

Seeds Sown! March 5, 2010

A couple of nights ago we planted about 5,000 seeds (tomatoes, eggplant, onions, herbs, etc) so that we’ve got an army of seedlings ready to transplant on the roof once the last frost is passed in mid-April. Thanks to the dozen or so volunteers who came out to help get the little guys in soil, and to Roberta’s for letting us use the army tent.

Visit Brooklyn Grange website here.

Hoping for a Rooftop Farm in Brooklyn.

By designboom

Bacsac was born when french designer Godefroy de Virieu met landscapers Louis de Fleurieu and Virgile Desurmont. Together they searched for an alternative solution to avoid the constraints of creating a roof garden in town (taking into consideration difficulties of transport, excessive weight, etc).

The idea of planting in bags emerged from the desire to change habits and valorize what should be, the plant itself. They then started the manufacturing of bags made from permeable/porous geo-textile that prevents asphyxiation of the soil.

See more photos at designboom.

See bagsac website here.

Hear From Our Founder from AeroFarms on Vimeo.

Meet Ed Harwood, Founder & CEO of Aero Farm Systems

Aerofarms – The future of urban agriculture

From their website:

AeroFarms provides aeroponic technology and comprehensive business expertise to those pioneering the future of urban agriculture. The world’s current food system is unsustainable economically, environmentally and socially. Today’s rural and centralized food production uses a vast amount of resources—land, water, transportation fuel— which will become increasingly scarce and expensive as world populations grow and continue to urbanize. At the same time these resources diminish, demand for food will increase, requiring current food production levels to double by 2050 to support the world’s population. We need a better way.

AeroFarms believes that we can transform our food system to be more sustainable, efficient, and secure. We envision a system of decentralized, urban farms that produce fresher and safer food at the point of consumption. While this movement has started gaining traction, in order to make great change, we need to expand beyond community and rooftop gardens into commercial growing. We have dedicated ourselves to developing the technology to realize this vision.

In the days and weeks to come, we’ll be blogging about a wide range of topics, from sustainable agriculture to innovative salad recipes. We believe in the open exchange of ideas and welcome any questions or suggestions. Please join us in pioneering the future of urban agriculture!

See AeroFarms raises $500,000 from venture capital investors.

See Aerofarms website here.

Farmscape woven into the Urban Fabric

By Trevor Boyle and Justin Fong
Email: boyletrevor@yahoo.com

“The site was directly across from a park that during WWII was used for victory gardens, and so that idea was brought into it as well. The elevated ‘walkway’ is used as a growing surface, translating the urban stacked density into a farming notion, instead of the sprawling countryside that’s usually seen.

“Southern facing walls on the buildings are also plant walls on the exterior, with a modular steel frame. The actual fruit/vegetable growing floor space is only around 30% of the total for the building; it’s more about introducing the idea back into mainstream daily life. The square footage is enough to be able to feed 200 people throughout a year, so it’s more about growing for the community around the site than being able to mass produce and feed the whole city, though that would be possible with another iteration.

“The Urban Farm project was designed after a trip to Manhattan, where the urban condition has basically taken completely over the entire island, with only a couple parks existing as protected areas. As the human population expands and urban density steadily increases, the natural environment becomes further and further detached from daily life. Nature becomes a contained condition, with small pockets of protected plant life that form within the overbearing mass of the city.

Larger image here.

“Instead of fighting back the continuous creep of the city edge, the Urban Farm project suggests a co-habitive measure, where commerce and nature can exist within the same space. Instead of the complete domination of the built environment over the natural landscape, the two can weave together. This creates a more harmonious space, one that provides for the needs of people without sacrificing the benefits of plant life. It is a space which is commercial and garden all at once.

Larger image here.

“There’s an elevated walkway that’s made for 10′x10′ planting plots, and vertical plant walls that weave throughout a commercial office space site. These also meet the needs of the community, since the site is surrounded by residential zones. It’s an area for people to embrace nature while being able to get done what they need to.”

Larger image here.

Vancouver farmer’s rooftop and backyard gardens are being heralded as the next generation of agriculture in the city

Frances Bula
Globe and Mail
Jan. 03, 2010

Take one Saskatchewan farm boy and move him to the big city. Add a Vancouver condo building’s unused rooftop garden and several vacant backyards.

The result is urban farmer Ward Teulon, also known as CityFarmBoy on his website, a 45-year-old former agrologist who has put his farming skills to work in the middle of some of Vancouver’s densest neighbourhoods.

He produces $30,000 worth of vegetables, herbs and fruit a year on 8,000 square feet of land in garden plots around the city.

Mr. Teulon, an understated man, said it all began as a lifestyle choice, so he wouldn’t have to work for a big company. He was encouraged because people seemed to be looking for quality food.

“People are interested because it’s local and it’s fresh,” said Mr. Teulon, who had 30 families sign up last year to receive shares of his produce and is planning to add 20 more spots next year.

While his operation may seem modest, many people in the food-policy field see Mr. Teulon as someone who is showing the way for what they call “next-generation urban agriculture.”

“I really think what Ward is doing is a trend,” said Janine de la Salle, the director of food-systems planning at the sustainability consulting firm of HB Lanarc. “It’s moving out of the community-allotment garden and into business models.”

See complete article here.

See Teulon’s web site here.

Blue Sea Developments and BrightFarm Systems

The Blue Sea Development Corporation has a reputation for integrating emerging environmental technologies into high quality, affordable housing developments across New York City.

Their new state of the art affordable housing complex planned for the South Bronx, NY, will feature a 10,000 square feet (930 sq meters) fully integrated rooftop farm, designed by BrightFarm Systems.

The greenhouse will use left-over heat from the residential portion of the building and water harvested from the greenhouse roof. The farm will be used to provide fresh, perishable vegetables to a local non-profit food cooperative.

The rooftop farm will be able to supply enough produce to meet the annual fresh vegetable needs of up to 450 people. Like many inner city, low income communities, the South Bronx suffers from food deserts, where residents lack access to fresh vegetables at affordable prices.

The rooftop farm will make a significant contribution to food access and public health in the neighborhood.

See website here.

At Seattle’s Bastille, the garden goodies are on the roof

Bastille in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood offers lettuces and other fresh menu items grown right on the restaurant’s roof.

By Valerie Easton
Nov 15 2009
Seattle Times

From all the fuss over Bastille restaurant’s new rooftop vegetable plots, you’d think that gardening on top of a building is a brand new concept. All over the world, people in urban areas take advantage of the sun-drenched space up top to grow food and flowers. Apiarists are even keeping bees on the rooftop of the Opera House and the Eiffel Park Hotel in Paris. But here in Seattle we’re just getting used to urban density, and owners James Weimann and Demming Maclise are out front putting a commercial rooftop to work growing fresh herbs and lettuces for their restaurant.

“We wanted to pioneer this idea,” says Weimann. The weight calculations were a shock, however, and the lovely old Ballard building needed extensive retrofitting to support a 2,500-square-foot working garden. “You could park a tank up there now,” jokes Maclise. “We’ll break even in about 20 years.”

The owners’ vision is an ambitious one: They hope to list “Rooftop Salad” on their menu every day of the year. Chef Shannon Galusha looks forward to snipping greens for sandwiches and salads, as well as herbs for savory dishes and made-to-order sorbets and glacées. Plans include growing garlic, peppers and tomatoes.

Enter Colin McCrate of Seattle Urban Farm Company, hired to come up with a scheme for growing a year-round garden on a windy, glaring hot roof. These less-than-hospitable conditions won’t daunt the basil and lavender, but tender greens suffer, even bolt, in such intense sun and heat.

McCrate designed clever, boxlike raised beds, each with its own little roof that can be easily raised and lowered. In the heat of summer, the lids are outfitted with shade cloth and overhead spray to create an encouragingly cool environment for arugula and lettuces. In winter, McCrate plans to fit lids with glass for a greenhouse effect and thread the soil with heating coils to push the greens to keep producing.

See the rest of the article here.

Seattle Urban Farm Company prepares for display garden for the Northwest Flower and Garden Show

In the greenhouse we are “forcing” some vegetables to grow out of season (corn, tomatoes, cabbage, everything else we could think of).

Follow the Seattle Urban Farm Company on Facebook here.

By Kate Spinner
Herald Tribune
January 4, 2010

SARASOTA – In an industrial park about a mile from Main Street, mechanics repair cars, cleaners launder draperies and Vincent Dessberg grows crops on the roof of his old glass shop.

Dessberg used to fuse glass into colorful windows. But after the economic downturn he turned from the kiln, seeing better opportunity on his 3,000 square-foot roof.

“Nobody needs glass. Everybody needs to eat,” he said.

His lettuce is selling at the Sarasota Downtown Farmer’s Market. Other fruits and vegetables — cauliflower, okra, goji berries — are bound for dinner plates at some of the city’s best restaurants.

With about 6,000 plants, this new small farm is by far the most urban in the county. Crops grow vertically in 180 hydroponic planters that stand about six feet tall.

Another 114 pots border a shaded chain link fence that keeps people and plants from plunging to the asphalt below.

While big cities such and New York and Montreal embraced rooftop agriculture a few years ago, Dessberg is setting this green trend in Sarasota on a commercial scale.

Pipes transport water and fertilizer above a dizzying maze of green. Clusters of ripening strawberries and fat green tomatoes dangle from hearty vines. Heads of lettuce and leaves of broccoli and arugula burst from a soil of coconut husk and perlite.

The list of crops seems endless: cucumbers, broccoli, squash, peppers, mustard greens beans, cauliflower, herbs.

Interest from restaurants is growing, said John Matthews, founder of Suncoast Food Alliance, a business that connects area restaurants with fresh produce from local farmers.

“A little bit of it is the novelty,” Matthews said. “Restaurants can use that as an enticement.”

The hydroponic set-up, including plants, cost $25,000. If sales go well, Dessberg plans to expand to other roofs. Already, he said, he has an offer of roof space from a neighboring business.

He is also considering opening a small restaurant himself in the shop space.

The farm began as a home experiment. Dessberg bought about 50 hydroponic stacks last year and learned growing techniques. He had enough success that he planned to expand horizontally on a neighbor’s three acres, until the deal fell through.

Later, he logged on to Google Earth, the computer program allowing people to zoom in on satellite images globally. His farming inspiration came from the colorful rooftops of Tokyo.

Now, he wants everyone with a flat roof to follow his lead.

“If it’s a flat roof it should have farming. If it’s a slanted roof it should have solar panels,” Dessberg said.

Although the rooftop approach is unique, Dessberg is not in uncharted territory.

Hydroponic farming can be a profitable businesses, said John Lawson, owner of Hydro Harvest Farms in Ruskin.

After “a six figure expenditure” in the business five years ago, Lawson expects a profit this year or next.

Lawson has volume on his side. He grows 25,000 plants on about an acre — an amount that would take six to seven acres on a conventional farm.

He turned to hydroponics because of limited space and to conserve water. The method demands just 20 percent of the water a traditional farm needs.

Rooftop hydroponics also appeals to Lawson. He is partnering with Florida Aquarium in Tampa to build a hydroponic farm on the roof there next year.

Those rooftop vegetables will not go to restaurants, however. Instead, the crops will feed fish.

See article here.

By Ellen Depoorter
For The Buckminster Fuller Challenge

Population growth is leading to an ever accelerating urbanization. Densely built cities are very effective in providing housing, transport, work and culture since they are shared by a large population. Concentrating population in cities leaves land open for nature: O2 creating and CO2 absorbing plants.

While providing numerous benefits, cities don’t provide food or energy for their population. Energy is mostly carbon based and needs to be transported into the city. Food production as well is based on carbon: chemical fertilizers, pesticides, farm machinery, modern food processing, packaging and transportation. Processed food is also rich in fat and sugar and has less useful nutrients like vitamins and minerals, contributing to an obesity epidemic.

URBAN PLANT © integrates clean renewable energy and food systems into new and existing buildings and reduces carbon emissions. URBAN PLANT © is demonstrated on an existing high rise housing development.

FOOD

A glass enclosed private terrace is annexed to the apartment. 2500 sf of ceramic planters provide sufficient space for a family of four to grow the vegetables that they need for a healthy diet year round. The terrace also provides outdoor space, shades the building and thereby reduces the heat load on the building.

Existing windows are enlarged to allow for more daylight and air and single glazing is replaced with double. Automatic solar shading and operable windows provide the appropriate temperature for growing plants.

At the top of the façade a light shelf provides solar energy and projects light deeper into the terrace. Greenhouses on the roof provide space for commercially operated urban farms. Chicken runs provide fresh eggs and help in composting of green waste, which is redistributed to the planters.

See more about Urban Plant at The Buckminster Fuller Challenge website here.

2007 – Winner of the 2nd International Competition for Sustainable Housing by Knafo Klimor Architects and Town Planners, Israel

Excerpts from Living Steels’ competition design website.

Agro-housing, the winning design for construction in China, blends urban and rural living by creating vertical greenhouse space within high-rise apartments. Designed by Knafo Klimor Architects, the Agro-housing concept allows tenants to produce their own food, reducing commuting needs and providing a green neighbourhood.

Knafo Klimor Architects developed this concept with concern for predictions that 50% of China’s one billion people will live in its cities, a trend mirrored in many developing countries in the world. The architects observe that massive urbanisation displaces communities, dissipating existing traditions and heritage, as well as placing a strain on energy resources and infrastructure.

The Agro-housing concept presents a new urban and social vision that addresses this chaotic urbanisation problem by creating a new order in the city and, more specifically, in the housing environment. The idea behind Agro-housing is to create a space close to home where families can produce their own food supply according to their own abilities, tastes and choices to promote independent living, freedom and potentially provide additional income. In addition, these greenhouse spaces become a natural gathering place for the community to interact. Agro-housing is a place for living, but in essence, it is a model for a new urbanity, contributing to the preservation of traditions and community values and diminishing the trials of rural migration.

Agro-Housing is composed of two parts: the apartment’s tower and the vertical greenhouse. The greenhouse is a multi-floor structure for cultivation of crops such as vegetables, fruits, flowers and spices, equipped with a drip irrigation system that re-uses grey water. The greenhouse climate is controlled through natural ventilation and a heating system. A roof-top terrace garden offers open-air green space for recreation and informal gathering. A sky club on the roof is designed to host social gatherings and celebrations, and a kindergarten on the ground floor keeps young children close to home and family. The individual apartments allow maximum flexibility to arrange interior spaces to accommodate family changes over time, including integration of a work space. The building has a minimal footprint in order to free the ground surface for gardening and rainwater harvesting. Paving is limited and made of recycled materials.

With Agro-housing, Knafo Klimor Architects envisions a community that can provide its own food, jobs and saleable goods right where the people live, gifting residents with the resources for self-reliance within an urban setting.

The roof-top terrace garden provides additional garden area, as well as grassy areas for community activities. The roof-top sky club provides a location for community celebrations and social gatherings. The sky club’s roof houses solar energy panels and a rainwater capture system while providing shade for the spaces beneath.

Agro-housing’s inner vertical space in the building functions as a thermal chimney, ventilating the apartments in summer months and circulating heat during the winter months. In summer, the roof-top windows are opened to allow the apartments to benefit from the natural cross ventilation, and the balconies and shades reduce heat absorption. The greenhouse floors with their vegetation act as vertical screens and shades for cooling the inner part of the building. South facing apartments have shaded balconies to block the summer sun. In winter, the roof-top windows are closed, trapping warm air inside the building. The low-angle winter sun penetrates the building and heats the high mass elements during the day, which in turn warms the apartments at night. A solar heating system delivers heat energy from the collectors on the roof to each apartment through a forced circulation system. The greenhouse’s glazed walls further warm air that can circulate through the thermal chimney.

See the complete Agro-housing concept in this 6MB PDF.

See the architects Agro-housing web page here.

Competition website here.

By Mr. Brown Thumb of Chicago Garden
See more great urban agriculture stories by Mr. Brown Thumb by following the ‘reading more’ link.

Excerpt:

The last place you expect to see a vegetable garden is behind tall fences topped off with razor wire, but at the Cook County Jail there is a 13 thousand square-foot vegetable garden grown by inmates. This vegetable garden is a joint effort by The Cook County Sheriff’s Department of Community Supervision and Intervention and The University of Illinois Extension. The inmates who work the garden are non-violent offenders serving time under county sentencing guidelines for cases involving drugs or a DUI.

Mike Taff wrote this letter to the Brown Thumb blogger.

My name is Mike Taff and I have been the garden coordinator for the last 7 seasons. Seven years ago I volunteered to take over this garden not knowing anything about gardening. I attended the same classes in horticulture as the inmates do, I received my Master Gardeners certificate and have loved every minute.I will give you some short facts. All the food we harvest is donated to soup kitchens, homeless shelters and food pantries throughout Cook County.Since the inception of this garden back in 1993 we have donated over 52 tons of produce.The national recidivism rate is about 54%, The recidivism rate of inmates graduating from our garden program is 17%.Quite a savings of tax payers money. Every year we try to grow something extra ordinary. Last year it was peanuts this year it was giant pumpkins. As you shown in your video we do have a pumpkin that we believe will make it to 400 LBS.Today we broke ground for our new greenhouse. I believe it will be the first of its kind.The greenhouse will give us an opportunity to extend this program all year round.We hope to graduate double the amount we are doing. We also plan to package and sell what we grow to Chicago restaurateurs. Charlie Trotters has agreed to start purchasing our product next spring. Our goal is to make this program self sufficient and not use tax payers money.

See photos and article about the jail garden by Mr. Brown Thumb here.

More great posts by Mr. Brown Thumb in Chicago

An Uncommon Rooftop Farm in Chicago

To see Chicago’s first certified organic rooftop farm you’ll have to look up. This urban farm is situated on the roof of Uncommon Ground, 1401 W. Devon Ave.

You would think that with a 2,500-square foot organic rooftop farm to look after on a full-time basis Natalie wouldn’t want to spend her free time playing in the dirt. She lives on the second story of an apartment building just south of Wicker Park that has no garden, so she farms the two fire escapes outside her kitchen and bedroom windows.

Link to the organic rooftop farm story here.

Potager: French Kitchen Garden

When I asked Mayor Daley why Chicago didn’t place an emphasis on Victory Gardens, like the rest of the world did this year, he mentioned that we had one in Grant Park. Unless, I’m completely mistaken; he was talking about this garden. The kitchen garden in Grant Park, really a mini-farm, is a project by Growing Power, a national nonprofit organization and land trust that focuses on urban agriculture.

Link to the kitchen garden story here.

Hull-House Heirloom Urban Farm on UIC campus

Steps away from the Hull-House Museum and the Hull-House Soup Kitchen, where Re-Thinking Soup is held every Tuesday, an urban farm dedicated to growing heirloom crops for the soup kitchen grows.

Link to the heirloom urban farm story here.

Rick Bayless’ Urban Edible Garden

The garden, really more of a working urban farm, produces $20,000 worth of crops that are used in Mr. Bayless’ restaurants. To grow that much produce they spend $3,000 on seeds every year. The urban edible garden sits on three city lots in the Bucktown neighborhood, but the area used for agriculture is a pretty standard-sized backyard in Chicago, at least compared to the ones I’ve seen. Bill Shores takes advantage of the garden’s microclimates to plant lettuce three times a year. It gets planted pretty close to one of the houses that provides shade and cool surroundings during the summer heat.

Link to the edible garden story here.

Also see this Chicago networking group – Chicago Advocates for Urban Agriculture – here.

The artist, Diz Jeppe, comments on what inspired her to create this work.

This is – obviously – a Soviet influenced poster. Stylistically, it was inspired by a Soviet Art and Architecture history course, but the artwork is from an original drawing of mine. As far as I can tell, rooftop gardens didn’t exist in early Soviet years, but had they been there they might have helped supplement the needs of the urban population during crippling food shortages.

I study architecture and I also garden and cook as much as I can. I get great satisfaction from all three activities, which increasingly influence each other. Emphasis for architects is always on sustainability, and what is more sustainable than composting and growing your own food?

BRITISH COLUMBIA
Marketwire
November 13, 2009

“Real estate – the one thing we’re not making any more of,” reports Time Magazine. “That might be good news for landlords but not for the world’s farmers, who have finite cropland to feed a growing global population. The answer: build up by farming vertically. Valcent is pioneering a hydroponic-farming system that grows plants in rotating rows, one on top of another. The rotation gives the plants the precise amount of light and nutrients they need, while the vertical stacking enables the use of far less water than conventional farming. But best of all, by growing upward instead of outward, vertical farming can expand food supplies without using more land.”

Valcent pioneered a vertical farming technology, developed in their El Paso, Texas research facility, which was further honed and refined in Europe. “We are honored that our vertical farming technology is recognized as a top invention by Time Magazine,” says Chris Bradford, President, CEO, and Director of Valcent Products Inc. “Vertical farming is no longer a pie-in-the-sky concept dreamed up by academics in Ivory towers. We have entered a new era of urban agriculture where we can deliver locally grown crops that provide a nutritionally superior product that is healthier for the people and animals they serve.”

More videos here – 5 part series.

“VertiCrop, a commercial high-density vertical growing system, is being employed in controlled environments such as a glasshouse, polytunnel or warehouses, which increases production volume for field crops up to 20 times over but requires as little as 5% of the normal water supply,” adds Bradford. “It is a non-GM solution to food problems, using trays on a looped dynamic conveyor belt and automatic feeding stations to grow plants efficiently. It can be adapted to the needs of vegetable, herb, fruit and flower producers.”

See more about Valcent and VertiCrop here.

And more here.

And photos of the system here.

Animal park makes plant history – VertiCrop System used

Paignton Zoo Environmental Park is making high-tech horticultural history by installing the first of a new generation of innovative plant growing systems.

The VertiCrop sustainable hydroponics installation will be the first of its kind in Europe and the first in a zoo or botanic garden anywhere in the world.

The Zoo is teaming up with the developers of VertiCrop, Valcent Products (eu) ltd., based in Launceston, a company at the forefront of global efforts to find new ways of growing plants in a world of rapidly-diminishing resources.

Paignton Zoo Curator of Plants and Gardens Kevin Frediani said: “We are making history here. Installing VertiCrop at Paignton Zoo means we can grow more plants in less room using less water and less energy. It will help to reduce food miles and bring down our annual bill for animal feed, which is currently in excess of £200,000 a year.”

To begin with, the Zoo will grow a whole range of herbs such as parsley and oregano, as well as leaf vegetables like lettuce and spinach, plus a range of fruits such as cherry tomato and strawberry. Reptiles, birds and most of the mammal collection – including primates and big cats – will benefit from the production of yearround fresh food. Paignton Zoo animals crunch their way through about 800 carrots a day and approximately £8,000-worth of fruit per month. Herbs are used as enrichment for many species.

Chris Bradford, Managing Director of Valcent, explained: “The world population is growing, food supply is shrinking, water supplies are becoming more limited, food production is competing for land with housing and the production of fuel crops. We have to make better use of available land.

“VertiCrop is the latest in plant growing technology, meeting the needs of the human population while reducing the pressure to clear precious habitat to grow crops. This technology could usher in a new era of urban horticulture.”

A zoo seems an unlikely location for this ground-breaking project, but Kevin explained: “Valcent wanted to promote their technology to the public as well as to growers, and we have over half a million visitors a year. As a botanic garden, Paignton Zoo is keen to educate people about all aspects of horticulture, particularly new, environmentally-friendly inventions like this.”

VertiCrop is a commercial high-density vertical growing system which increases production volume for field crops up to 20 times over but requires as little as 5% of the normal water supply. It is a non-GM solution to food problems, using trays on a looped dynamic conveyor belt and automatic feeding stations to grow plants efficiently. Installation of the system near the Zoo’s education building is expected to be completed by late June.

See the project here.

The Rooftop Garden Climbs Down a Wall

By KEN BELSON
New York Times
November 18, 2009

IN most ways, the Barthelmes Manufacturing Company is a typical sheet metal fabricator. Five days a week, machines here stamp out thousands of computer cases, electrical patch panels and other items for companies like United Technologies.

Yet a growing part of the company’s business is being devoted to something decidedly unindustrial: edible walls — metal panels filled with soil and seeds and hung vertically.

They may sound like a piece of Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory. In fact, they are the latest development in green roof technology. Like green roofs, edible walls include a thick layer of vegetation on the outside of buildings to provide insulation and reduce heating and electricity costs.

But unlike green roofs — and their vertical cousins, green walls — edible walls also produce fruit, vegetables and herbs in far less space than typical gardens. That’s why advocates of urban farming have embraced them as a way to lower food costs, increase nutritional quality and cut fuel consumption and carbon emissions by using fewer delivery trucks.

“The traditional metal fabrication industry is shrinking, and green is an emerging area,” said Larry Lehning, the chief executive at Barthelmes, whose sales of green products have doubled this year and make up 15 percent of the company’s revenue. Edible walls — descendants of espalier, or trees grown against walls that were popular during the Middle Ages in Europe — are just one small attempt to grow food in cities. For instance, Valcent Products builds greenhouses filled with hundreds of trays of hydroponic vegetables stacked on conveyor belts. Sky Vegetables hopes to build commercial farms on the flat roofs of hospitals, schools and food banks.

Photo by Michael Levenston. City Farmer’s GLT metal edible walls ready to be hung vertically.

Dickson D. Despommier, the director of the Vertical Farm Project at Columbia University, envisions entire skyscrapers turned into indoor farms capable of growing 100 different crops.

All of these solutions, though, require large investments and considerable technology. Edible walls, by contrast, can be built for a fraction of the cost, do not need computers or greenhouses and require far less maintenance.

The rest of the article can be read here.

No information about this garden. Perhaps a children’s hospital. (Mike)

Eco Pod: Pre Cycled Modular Bioreactor For Downtown Crossing

Taking advantage of the stalled Filene’s construction site at Downtown Crossing, Eco Pod is a proposal to immediately stimulate the economy, and the ecology, of downtown Boston. Eco Pod (Gen1) is a temporary vertical algae bio reactor and new public Commons, built with custom prefabricated modules. The pods will serve as bio fuel sources and as micro incubators for flexible research and development programs. As an open and reconfigurable structure, the voids between pods form a network of vertical public parks/botanical gardens housing unique plant species a new Uncommon for the Commons.

Micro algae is one of the most promising bio fuel crops of today, yielding over thirty times more energy per acre than any other fuel crop. Unlike other crops, algae can grow vertically and on non arable land, is biodegradable, and may be the only viable method by which we can produce enough automotive fuel to replace the world’s current diesel usage. Algae farming uses sugar and cellulose to create bio fuels and simultaneously helps reduce Carbon Dioxide emissions, since it replaces CO2 with Oxygen during photosynthesis. While the bio reactor process is currently in an experimental phase, recent advances in single step algae oil extraction and low energy high efficiency LEDs make the algae bio reactor an extremely promising prospect on the renewable energy technology horizon.

In addition to being an active bio reactor and local source of renewable energy, the Eco Pod is also a research incubator in which scientists can test algae species and methods of fuel extraction, including new techniques of using low energy LED lighting for regulating the algae growth cycles. The central location of the Eco Pod and the public and visible nature of the research, allows the public to experience the algae growth and energy production processes. As a productive botanical garden, it also functions as a pilot project, a public information center and catalyst for ecological awareness.

An on site robotic armature (powered by the algae bio fuel) is designed to reconfigure the modules to maximize algae growth conditions and to accommodate evolving spatial and programmatic conditions in real time. The reconfigurable modular units allow the structure to transform to meet changing programmatic and economic needs, while the continuous construction on the site will broadcast a subtle semaphore of constructional activity and economic recovery. This is anticipatory architecture, capable of generating a new micro urbanism that is local, agile, and carbon net positive.

This proposal envisions the immediate deployment of a “crane ready” modular temporary structure to house experimental and research based programs. Once funding is in place for the original architectural proposal, the modules can be easily disassembled and redistributed to various neighborhoods around Boston, infilling other empty sites, testing new proposals, and developing initiatives with other communities. Designed with flexibility and reconfigurability in mind, the modularity of the units anticipates future deployments on other sites. An instant architecture, designed with an intention towards its afterlife(s), this is a pre cycled architecture. In our ongoing, synergistic scenario, the growth of the algae propels, and is propelled by, technologically enabled developments that literally and metaphorically “grow the economy.”

Höweler + Yoon Architecture is a multidisciplinary practice specializing in the integration of architecture, new technologies and public space. Their work has been widely published, exhibited, and awarded. Their recent books include: Expanded Practice, a monograph published by Princeton Architectural Press; and Public Works: Unsolicited Small Projects for the Big Dig published by Map Books. Eric Höweler is a Design Critic in Architecture at Harvard Design School. Meejin Yoon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Squared is a digital design laboratory producing work across the fields of architecture, industrial design, online interactivity, and film. Among a variety of projects, they have been serving as design and visualization consultants for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City since 2003. Co founders Josh Barandon and Franco Vairani graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with degrees in Architecture, Design, and Computation.

See Höweler and Yoon Architecture website here.

by Willi Galloway
DigginFood
“West Coast Editor of Organic Gardening magazine and the Garden Expert on eHow.com.”

This is a must-see new rooftop food garden. See the excellent story on Willi Galloway’s website. (Mike)

“A couple of weeks ago I found myself standing on the roof of Bastille—an exquisite new restaurant in Seattle’s historic Ballard neighborhood. A blue sky was overhead, a sea of salad greens were at my feet, and the smell of freshly fried frites was in the air.

“Colin custom-built a series of wooden raised beds fitted with pitched panels covered in shade cloth. To make harvesting easy, the panels hinge open. They are also interchangeable, so when the weather cools this fall, Colin plans on switching the shade cloth panels out with ones covered in plastic, effectively turning the beds into mini-greenhouses.”

See photos and story here on DigginFood.

Seattle Urban Farm Co. which built the roof garden

“An urban farm will provide you both tangible and intangible rewards. Our goal at the Seattle Urban Farm Company is to provide your family with a wide variety of vegetables every week throughout the growing season. Depending on the time of year, you may receive a basket overflowing with tomatoes, peppers, beans, and salad greens or a box full of butternut squash, Brussels sprouts, celery and leeks. In addition to the supply of fresh produce, an urban farm will add beauty to your landscape. The flowers and vegetables of all colors and sizes will make your yard an even more desirable place to spend your summer days. We believe that an urban farm can help foster a connection to our food, environment and community.”

See Seattle Urban Farm Co. website here.

by Mike Lieberman (Canarsiebk)

My goal of having this site is to inspire you to start gardening and growing your own food. If I’m doing it, why can’t you?

Don’t have the space? Check out my fire escape garden. Not much room there, but I’m getting it done.

I have my vegetable garden on my fire escape set up with 3 self watering containers and 3 hanging herb planters.

Here’s what in the containers:

Kales, swiss chard and lettuces
Cherry tomatoes and lettuces
Jimmy Nardello’s sweet pepper and Chile Releno
The herbs that I have planted are
Apple mint
Greek oregano
French tarragon

See Mike’s site, Urban Organic Gardener, here.

This is a roof of a warehouse in Greenpoint, which is now covered with 200,000 pounds of soil, 1,000 earthworms, and an abundance of vegetables, herbs, and flowers.

By Wendy Goodman
New York Magazine
June 21, 2009

“There are 1,000 worms in here,” Annie Novak says, cracking the lid on a box filled with scraps of newspaper and small squirmy things. The earthworms are about to be relocated to the soil spread across this warehouse roof 50 feet above the Greenpoint sidewalk, where, Novak hopes, they’ll get to work aerating the soil. Urban gardens are nothing new, but the scale, location, and imagination of Rooftop Farms—the name of this project—is stunning.

Rooftop Farms got started in December 2008, with Chris and Lisa Goode, who run Goode Green, a green-roof business, with their partner, Amy Trachtman. They approached Gina Argento, who owns several Greenpoint warehouses, with the idea of farming her rooftops. In the meantime, the Goodes had met Ben Flanner, a former E*Trade marketer turned would-be farmer, who’d heard of Goode Green and was keen on starting an urban-farm business; Flanner brought in Annie Novak, who works at the New York Botanical Garden, for her hands-on planting expertise.

After a building engineer signed off on the weight-bearing limit this past March, the Goodes hauled over 200,000 pounds of soil up to the roof. “It’s a special rooftop mix,” explains Flanner, with compost already mixed in. “An expanded shale is 50 percent of the volume. Feel how light that is.” The roof has sixteen four-foot-wide beds irrigated by rain (a particular boon to the city, Goode points out, since it takes stress off New York’s overtaxed sewer system).

Flanner, Novak, and an army of volunteers have planted corn, salad greens, radishes, herbs, nasturtiums, and peppers, to name a few. The soil will be composted with a mix that will come from scraps from local restaurants. And so far the yields are promising. “The radishes are perfect,” says Novak. “Totally gorgeous. The greens came up in almost 100 percent germination, which also surprised me.”

The Brooklyn restaurants Marlow & Sons and Anella are already buying the produce; Joseph Leonard and Applewood are interested. “The idea is to keep it in the community,” says Flanner, meaning nearby restaurants and schools. “Greenpoint and Long Island City. Maybe a trip or two into the city for friends.”

See the New York Magazine article here.

See Brooklyn Supper’s blog about the Rooftop Farm here. Excellent photos.

See a Rooftop Farm in Brooklyn Overlooking Manhattan Skyscrapers here.

See A Rooftop Farm for the Future here.

See Rooftop Farms website here.

By Dickson D. Despommier
Op-Ed Contributor
New York Times
August 23, 2009

If climate change and population growth progress at their current pace, in roughly 50 years farming as we know it will no longer exist. This means that the majority of people could soon be without enough food or water. But there is a solution that is surprisingly within reach: Move most farming into cities, and grow crops in tall, specially constructed buildings. It’s called vertical farming.

The floods and droughts that have come with climate change are wreaking havoc on traditional farmland. Three recent floods (in 1993, 2007 and 2008) cost the United States billions of dollars in lost crops, with even more devastating losses in topsoil. Changes in rain patterns and temperature could diminish India’s agricultural output by 30 percent by the end of the century.

What’s more, population increases will soon cause our farmers to run out of land. The amount of arable land per person decreased from about an acre in 1970 to roughly half an acre in 2000 and is projected to decline to about a third of an acre by 2050, according to the United Nations. With billions more people on the way, before we know it the traditional soil-based farming model developed over the last 12,000 years will no longer be a sustainable option.

Irrigation now claims some 70 percent of the fresh water that we use. After applying this water to crops, the excess agricultural runoff, contaminated with silt, pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, is unfit for reuse. The developed world must find new agricultural approaches before the world’s hungriest come knocking on its door for a glass of clean water and a plate of disease-free rice and beans.

Imagine a farm right in the middle of a major city. Food production would take advantage of hydroponic and aeroponic technologies. Both methods are soil-free. Hydroponics allows us to grow plants in a water-and-nutrient solution, while aeroponics grows them in a nutrient-laden mist. These methods use far less water than conventional cultivation techniques, in some cases as much as 90 percent less.

Now apply the vertical farm concept to countries that are water-challenged — the Middle East readily comes to mind — and suddenly things look less hopeless. For this reason the world’s very first vertical farm may be established there, although the idea has garnered considerable interest from architects and governments all over the world.

Vertical farms are now feasible, in large part because of a robust global greenhouse initiative that has enjoyed considerable commercial success over the last 10 years. (Disclosure: I’ve started a business to build vertical farms.) There is a rising consumer demand for locally grown vegetables and fruits, as well as intense urban-farming activity in cities throughout the United States. Vertical farms would not only revolutionize and improve urban life but also revitalize land that was damaged by traditional farming. For every indoor acre farmed, some 10 to 20 outdoor acres of farmland could be allowed to return to their original ecological state (mostly hardwood forest). Abandoned farms do this free of charge, with no human help required.

See the complete article here in the New York Times.

Sky’s the Limit from Newsy

August 25, 2009

A new idea in agriculture is sparking conversation in the media: vertical farming. But are skyscraper farms a brilliant solution or an expensive pipe dream?

Newsy.com videos analyze news coverage of important issues from multiple sources. Its unique method of presenting how different media outlets cover a story gives context to complex global issues.