This is the first of a two-part video about one of the most innovative urban agriculture projects in the United States. Brick City Urban Farms (prior posts) is located in Newark, New Jersey. The video features co-founders John Taylor and Lorraine Gibbons along with Newark Mayor Cory Booker.
There are many unique aspects of this project. The most significant is the use of portable EarthBoxes (prior posts) on land with a temporary use agreement. This approach could be used in every city in America. Sub-irrigated planters will produce more food per square foot than any other method while saving precious water and time. This is a demonstrable and provable opinion.
When and if the time comes to relocate the farm it will be a relatively simple matter to load the boxes on a truck and move them to a new location.
The Center for Urban Greenscaping (CuGreen) will do everything within its power to get projects like this started here in New York. It is an idea whose time has come and a major CuGreen business priority.
It you are interested in starting a project similar to Brick City Urban Farms (blog) here in New York City, no matter the size, please contact me.
Where is the invention in American consumer horticulture? Other than a plethora of poorly thought out green wash gadgets, it isn't very visible.
Tom Friedman wrote an op-ed column in the New York Times titled Invent, Invent, Invent. The piece spoke to me and I hope it speaks to you as well. Not to worry, it’s only a matter of our future economic welfare, food supply and careers.
Consumer horticulture hasn’t gotten to the first invent, no less the second and third. What of significance is there beyond the AeroGarden and the EarthBox invented by Blake Whisenant?
We can thank Blake for the EarthBox (prior posts) but where is American ingenuity hiding relative to the field of horticulture? Is everything horticultural cast in stone or in a bronze plaque from the past? From what I read on a daily basis, it seems that way.
OP-ED COLUMNIST Invent, Invent, Invent
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: June 27, 2009
I was at a conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, a few weeks ago and interviewed Craig Barrett, the former chairman of Intel, about how America should get out of its current economic crisis. His first proposal was this: Any American kid who wants to get a driver’s license has to finish high school. No diploma — no license. Hey, why would we want to put a kid who can barely add, read or write behind the wheel of a car?
Now what does that have to do with pulling us out of the Great Recession? A lot. Historically, recessions have been a time when new companies, like Microsoft, get born, and good companies separate themselves from their competition. It makes sense. When times are tight, people look for new, less expensive ways to do old things. Necessity breeds invention. Therefore, the country that uses this crisis to make its population smarter and more innovative — and endows its people with more tools and basic research to invent new goods and services — is the one that will not just survive but thrive down the road.
It’s been a while since the last post and perhaps some of you are wondering if I’m still on the planet. I am. I just needed to take a time out. Anyone who has blogged on a daily basis knows about blogger burnout. It is a reality, particularly if you’re a solo blogger as I am.
During my blogging hiatus I’ve continued to research the subject of urban gardening, urban agriculture, what I call urban greenscaping. While our institutions are still stuck in a prior century, there is a growing buzz on the Internet. It’s in the blogosphere, on Facebook, in forums and people are twittering about it.
I sometimes wonder if our horticultural institutions have web connections and if they do, do they use them? You really have to be living under a rock to not know that sub-irrigated (aka self-watering) boxes, beds and buckets are a vastly superior way to grow food in the city.
I have a ton of information to support this claim and will be blogging about it. Stay tuned!
Zach Gass, 17, of Ross, right, plants a tomato in an Earth Box in the courtyard of North Hills Junior High School. Kayla Kennedy, 14, (in green) and Julia Shelton, 15, both of Ross, assist. The garden grew from Zach's Eagle Scout service project. He planted a butterfly garden in the back of the school and is now helping teacher Heidi Kohne create a vegetable garden in the courtyard.
What a great story this is. North Hills Junior High School is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We need more young people like Zach Gass and teachers like Heidi Kohne here in New York City.
NOTE:The video shows sprinkling water with a can. This is done only to water in seeds or new plants. Other than that, water is never poured from the top. Water rises by capillary action from a reservoir at the bottom.
It was good to read in an EarthBox newsletter (see below) that the EarthBoxes are moving from the entrance steps of the Museum of Science and Industry to the Smart Home itself. That is where they should have been last year.
Thanks to the Growing Connection and the master gardeners working with them, the planters will be integrated into the living environment of the Smart Home. With this accomplished, the home will be a lot smarter than it was.
Also, think about the fact that the kids from the Bret Harte Elementary School are going to know something that most horticultural academics seem to be missing.
These students are learning at an early age that sub-irrigated planters like the EarthBox will produce plentiful and delicious vegetables with no need for tilling the land. They’ll know they can grow food anywhere in the city where there is six or more hours of sunlight. All of this is hopeful for the future if we can just get them to teach their parents.
This is from a current EarthBox newsletter.
This past Earth Day (April 22), the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois brought in a group of 40 fifth-grade students from Bret Harte Elementary School to help upgrade an exhibit called "Smart Home: Green + Wired, Powered by ComEd." This modular three-story home is located literally in the Museum's backyard. It showcases the various ways that green living can easily be integrated into the typical household, and is touted as the city's "greenest home." Well, the kids from Harte Elementary helped make it greener, as they assisted master gardeners in planting 80+ EarthBoxes with vegetables, herbs and flowers. The EarthBoxes will green the patio rooftop, as well as the garden on the ground. The plan is for the students to maintain the planters and care for the plants over the next few months. The students will be connected with kids from a sister school in an underdeveloped country by means of The Growing Connection, where they'll track their progress, and exchange gardening stories and growing tips.
This was the ribbon cutting ceremony at the inaugural Greening the Ridge festival on the 69th Street Pier in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Don't miss this year’s festival coming up this Sunday from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Here are all the details.
I'll be there again this year but this time under a canopy as the Center for Urban Greenscaping (cuGreen). Stop by and hear about our new workshop program and the launch of the first portable box, bed and bucket neighborhood garden in Brooklyn.
As usual, we’ll be demonstrating how to make sub-irrigated (aka self-watering) pop/soda bottle planters along with tote box and utility bucket planters. Stop by and we’ll help you get started growing some delicious heirloom tomatoes this summer, no tillable land or rototiller required.
Watch this video that few have seen. It features a Google chef and a local master gardener from Santa Clara County. Their presentation of the benefits of EarthBox gardening is persuasive.
If you have an open, inquiring mind, you will likely wonder as I do why the news about EarthBox gardening and sub-irrigation (aka self-watering) is virtually ignored by the mainstream media, USDA extension program agents and urban botanical institutions.
It is a testimony to our antiquated horticultural education that is stuck in an out-of-date dirt gardening paradigm inappropriate to urban living. It is quite amazing that we have so many academics with master’s degrees and doctorates that apparently do not understand the fundamentals of capillary action and plant physiology, no less urban living.
If you think I have some connection to EarthBox, you are mistaken. They just happen to have the most commercially visible product at this time. I have no connection whatsoever to EarthBox. My advocacy is simply about growing food and feeding people in the city using the most environmentally sound and productive methods available.
Anyone can easily prove the following for themselves, no institutional help required. Simply plant one or more SIP boxes or buckets this season and you will see with your own eyes.
Benefits of sub-irrigation planter (SIP) gardening including the EarthBox, Tomato Success Kit, Garden Patch Grow Box, EarthTainer and all other properly made DIY SIP planters. There is no patent on capillary action.
Increased production – SIP vegetable gardening will out-produce all other methods including in-ground and raised beds with drip irrigation.
Safe food production – Sub-irrigation box, bed and bucket planters will produce contaminant free food. Unlike dirt gardening in the city, there is no exposure to native soil contaminants.
Water conservation – All of the water (and nutrients) go directly to the plants. There is no wasteful drainage.
Portability – SIPs can be located anywhere there is adequate sunlight regardless of access to tillable land. Personal, neighborhood and community gardens can be located temporarily and easily moved when necessary.
Sustainability – SIPs and the soil mix in them is reusable season after season. Yes, there is an initial cost but they are not consumables. Currently, there are business plans based on a 7-year useful life. Time will tell whether this is an accurate useful life.
It was uploaded to YouTube three weeks ago. Few people have seen it. The video speaks volumes as does the lack of media attention to the participation of the Growing Connection in this significant event.
This article from the Bayview Compass tells the story of the Future Green (prior post) rooftop garden in much greater detail. It is a comprehensive article and well worth reading.
The sweet musk of potatoes. The earthy tang of carrots. Red strawberries plump on the vine. The senses delight when a gardener’s labor transforms sun, water, soil, and seed into homegrown produce. What’s growing in Swee and Lisa Sim’s garden could be found in any backyard, but what makes their garden special is that it’s not in their backyard. It’s on their roof.
With the help of volunteers and a bit of inspired experimentation, the Sims, owners of the organic and fair trade retailer Future Green, installed a rooftop garden above their 2352 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. business May 4. The sense was, “Let’s try this and see what happens,” said Lisa Sim, who hopes their project will inspire other business and property owners to consider using their flat roofs for growing space.
The Sims are starting small, planting strawberries, leaks, peas, carrots, and other vegetables in six rooftop growing stations, with a total of 12 planned. Each growing station is a blue 55-gallon barrel sawed in half lengthwise, split apart, and set on a wooden pallet with the two round sides down. They look a little like makeshift rafts or tankers, floating above roughly 1,700 square feet of Future Green’s black rubberized roof. Read the rest of the article.
Used 55 gallon barrels were modified to be self watering earth boxes. These 55 gallon drums used to contain vegetable oil for my homemade biodiesel.
I believe this photo from the Future Green website is of planters made by the Rooftop Garden Project in Montreal.
Future Green has created a new rooftop garden project in Milwaukee that is evocative of the Rooftop Garden Project in Montreal. It appears that they made some of their sub-irrigated planters based on RTGP designs. That is something more people should do. These planters have proven to work well over many growing seasons.
From JS Online Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel
The owners of Future Green had been researching the possibility of growing vegetables on the roof of their eco-store. An introduction to Lindberg and a trip to his upper-level farm one cold March day solidified the plan, said Lisa Sim, who owns the Bay View store with her husband, Swee.
The Sims found some 50-gallon spice drums, cut them in half and put feet on them. A volunteer bucket brigade carried the drums and some organic mushroom compost to the 1,800-square-foot roof, Lisa Sim said.
Now, the turn of a faucet sends water to all 14containers through PVC pipe with strategically placed holes. The Sims are considering a solar panel to fuel a water pump.
"We're mainly doing this to show we have all these flat roofs we should use, and hopefully we'll get other businesses or residents excited about this," Sim said.
Where is the invention in American consumer horticulture?
Where is the invention in American consumer horticulture? Other than a plethora of poorly thought out green wash gadgets, it isn't very visible.
Tom Friedman wrote an op-ed column in the New York Times titled Invent, Invent, Invent. The piece spoke to me and I hope it speaks to you as well. Not to worry, it’s only a matter of our future economic welfare, food supply and careers.
Consumer horticulture hasn’t gotten to the first invent, no less the second and third. What of significance is there beyond the AeroGarden and the EarthBox invented by Blake Whisenant?
We can thank Blake for the EarthBox (prior posts) but where is American ingenuity hiding relative to the field of horticulture? Is everything horticultural cast in stone or in a bronze plaque from the past? From what I read on a daily basis, it seems that way.
Posted by Greenscaper on June 29, 2009 at 12:15 PM in Editorial Comment | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)