Plants, People and Food on an Urban Rooftop

This is the Claire-Morissette rooftop garden of the Design Building at the University of Quebec at Montreal. Sub-irrigated grower boxes have been gracefully integrated into this space connecting people and personal food production. In the lower left photo, they could be eating fresh vegetables right out of the grower boxes later in the summer.

We already have enough pretty picture painters working in urban horticulture here in the U.S. What we need are more gardeners in touch with the real world of personal food production and the use of modern technology such as sub-irrigation grower boxes. We certainly don't need any more clay pot and saucer thinkers.

Today's newsletter from the Rooftop Gardens Project in Montreal triggered this post. It is a call for volunteers at the Claire-Morissette garden and they will no doubt find them. Thanks to the dedicated people of the Rooftop Garden Project, there is community awareness of rooftop vegetable gardening in Montreal.

Where is our horticultural leadership for projects like this? It seems as if they're only interested in painting pretty pictures.