New York City Rooftop Vegetable Garden

These white buckets may look familiar. They're the same recycled bucket planters used by Art and Heidi on their rooftop garden in Wicker Park, Chicago.

There's one significant difference however. These are not sub-irrigated planters. Laura the owner of this New York City rooftop garden installed a drip system rather than sub-irrigate.

What's the difference? Who knows but it's worth a comparative study. For sure, sub-irrigation and drip irrigation will out perform manual overhead watering.

The problem of course is that our institutions have failed us. Individuals like Laura, Bruce and Heidi to name a few are doing the heavy lifting both literally and figuratively.

Our horticultural, gardening and botanical institutions are stuck in an outdated farming paradigm that's inappropriate in densely populated cities. .

At a time when food production, water shortages and ominous predictions about the future dominate the news, our institutions practice primitive methods of urban agriculture that waste water, resources and time along with taxpayer dollars.

Remember that the majority of these institutions are funded with public or donated money. We should expect a lot more than we are getting.

Comments

[GRG]

Good report, Bob. We'll be curious to see how Laura's garden grows and how the drip irrigation works out. Good for her!

[GRG]

Good report, Bob. We'll be curious to see how Laura's garden grows and how the drip irrigation works out. Good for her!

[Laura]

Hi! Thanks for posting about me =) Since the post you linked to, on June 6th, I have actually installed a new drip irrigation system that is working wonderfully. My old system was sort of thrown together with bits and pieces. I finally sprang for a commercially designed drip system, Toro Blue-stripe drip. It's working great! A tube runs from my kitchen sink pipes, along the floor in my apartment, and out my window! I'll have to pull it back in when winter comes. Please visit again!
-Laura