Inside Urban Green

Holgalicious' Rooftop EarthBoxes in 2009

Flickr member Holgalicious had fresh tomatoes on her Chicago rooftop again this past summer. What she has done can be easily replicated on city rooftops all across the country using sub-irrigated planters (SIPs, aka "self-watering") like these EarthBoxes.

All that is needed is better education about the benefits of urban gardening in SIPs of all kinds. Ask your local botanic garden and extension program educators why they are not offering workshops about SIPs. Their reply would be of interest to all of us. 

A prior post about this rooftop garden.

36th Annual Third Avenue Festival in Bay Ridge Goes Green

There is an abundance of high quality performing talent in this festival.

The popular Third Avenue Festival in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn has an environmental green theme this year and CuGreen will be there to celebrate it this coming Sunday, October 4th.

We have been invited by NYC Councilman Vincent Gentile to co-locate our booth in front of his office at 8703 3rd Avenue. We are honored by this invitation. The festival runs along Third Avenue from 69th Street to 95th Street. Festival hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Our plan is to conduct a series of mini-workshops each half hour. These will be a preview of the more extensive workshops planned for this winter.

Subjects to be covered are; sub-irrigation planter (SIP aka “self-watering”) basics, recycled pop/soda bottle planters and propagators, SIPs from recycled materials, seed sowing in SIPs, growing herbs in SIPs, the modern way to water houseplants, indoor light gardening, Ficus pruning and cuttings propagation and basic hydroculture.

There will be many containers of fall salad greens to demonstrate how much easier it is to grow fresh food in the city using SIPs. Anyone can do it, no green thumb or tillable land required. All you need is some space in the sun.

Excerpts From the Merchants of Third Avenue (MTA) website:

Festival Manager Chip Cafiero says he is getting a “big hand from the M.T.A. officers and members who are really breaking into new territory by dedicating this festival to ‘going green’.

All the merchants and vendors I’ve talked with are excited about the green concept,” says Chip. “It’s really a creative moment for all of us!”

“Since this is our first ‘green’ festival we’re looking at a lot of options,” he added. “Right now it’d be nice to get solar-powered hot tubs and cell phones along with energy-generating bicycles”

“Especially important in any green gala is that selected vendors and sponsors come up with ways to distribute more fresh and locally grown produce.” says the newly minted environmentalist.

Universal Sub-irrigation Planter Construction Method

Update: March 3, 2010 - This post shows this type of planter made with recycled milk containers and a more clear photo-illustration. 

A very simple arrangement of recycled plastic containers emulates all sub-irrigated (aka “self-watering”) planters (SIPs) such as the EarthBox, Tomato Success Kit and Garden Patch Grow Box among others.

This method has the potential to become the most generic way to sub-irrigate plants in any watertight planter including tote boxes, utility buckets, decorative ceramic containers, wood planters and raised beds. Wood planters require the addition of a sheet plastic liner to make them watertight. 

Please understand that this is a beta test product. I am confident that it works but we need people to try it and report their results under varying conditions. I'll be glad to help anyone who has questions about making them this way.

There are basic components to all SIPs: 1. a watertight container (in this case an 18 gallon Rubbermaid tote box), 2. a platform to create a water reservoir (air space) at the bottom, 3. a soil wick or wicks, 4. a fill tube. 5. overflow drain holes at the height of the reservoir. These are for outdoor use only to handle rainfall. 

This simple arrangement requires no power tools or purchased products other than the tote box. You might even find a watertight container to recycle (ex. recycling box, food shipping box, wash tub, etc.) and avoid this expense as well.

The platform is formed in a unique but simple way. All you need is a collection of recycled plastic containers. In this case, it is a combination of one milk container (1/2 gallon) and a nursery flat turned upside down. It could be any combination of recycled containers including aluminum beverage cans as well as plastics. This configuration creates a reservoir of about two and half gallons.

The objective is to fill the bottom of the watertight container with reservoir containers of a reasonably uniform height. Kids can make a game of it. It’s like a logic puzzle. You might also think of this as analogous to “composting” the containers that flow through your kitchen, many of which end up in our land fills.

There are holes poked in the tops of the reservoir containers to provide aeration and drainage in case of rainwater intrusion. The bottoms of the reservoir containers need to be open to water flow. In this case, there is a large slot cut in the underside of the milk container to allow water to enter. The nursery flat is open at its top and therefore requires no cutting to allow water access.

The fill pipe is made from two small size recycled water bottles. They could be any small size bottles such as for juice or soda. Simply cut the bottom off and sleeve them together to make any length fill tube. See this prior post.

You may be wondering where the wick is. There is no need to add a container (such as a pond basket, yogurt cup, etc.) to form a soil wick. The spaces all around the reservoir containers form the soil wicking with no need for a separate soil wicking container. 

Your comments and questions will be most helpful to other readers. There is usually some ambiguity and confusion about written instructions. Your questions will help clarify this text. There will definitely be a video as soon as I can get into YouTube mode. It is long overdue.

Welcome to the PS 102 Garden

The PS 102 garden was open for parents and neighbors to visit last Thursday. It was great to be a part of this event and be among so many enthusiastic parents.

Parent coordinator Margaret Sheri along with a core group of parent volunteers deserves much credit for organizing it. She reports that fourteen more parents signed up for volunteer work in the garden. School principal Theresa Dovi paid a visit and was obviously pleased with the rebirth of the garden.

This is just the start of something big. There will be many more parents and teachers participating in this project along with students over the coming school year.

See the PS 102 photo set on Flickr. It now has many more photos including those from the garden open house. We can thank Sarah, a new friend of the garden for taking the pictures.

EarthBox Balcony Magic

Flickr member PandaMagic has performed some balcony gardening magic with EarthBoxes. This photo of a fresh picked Ambrosia cantaloupe was uploaded to Flickr just today. See a very informative photo set on Flickr that documents progress over the 2009 summer. It's quite amazing. 

The question remains. Why aren't more urbanites performing their own balcony magic with sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) like the EarthBox? 

Sub-irrigation Planter Fill Pipes: Recyled Water Bottles

There are those who would prefer not to use PVC pipe or vinyl tubing when making sub-irrigation planters (SIPs aka “self-watering”).

Recycled water/juice bottles are an environmentally friendly alternative. It's very easy to make fill pipes from recycled water bottles and help the environment by keeping them out of our landfills.

Simply cut off the bottom with a box cutter and stack them for any length fill tube. Small bottles of the one pint + size take up the least room inside the SIP.

I would encourage everyone to use this method. It's practical, cost effective and green.

SIP Salad Makers

These are the next steps for the recycled pop/soda bottle “SIP salad makers” shown in the portable potting tray. The seeds sprout under fluorescent shop lights hung on one of the shelves of a light garden rack. The clear plastic covers are 16-ounce deli containers that just happen to fit perfectly on top of the 2-liter soda bottle SIPS.

The light garden is an InterMetro style rolling rack from Costco (6’h x 4’w x 1 ½’ deep). InterMetro racks and copies are widely available. They are easy to move around and the shelves are adjustable in one-inch increments. The ordinary daylight fluorescent lights are on daily for 16 hours.

The next temporary home for the SIP salads is on my fire escape. Some of them will go into 5-gallon utility bucket SIPs. Others, containing basil and other leafy greens will grow on windowsills in the neighborhood including PS 102.   

Portable Potting Tray Avoids a Mess in the Kitchen

This portable potting tray is particularly useful for urban greenscapers. It helps to avoid a mess for those of us who live in apartments. I do not remember where I bought it but they are available online at Gardener's Supply (read reviews) and elsewhere. 

Here you see it full of SIP pop/soda bottle planters. I've been propagating seeds in them for fall SIP salads.

PONGs: The PS 102 School Garden Planning Ahead

Garden Coordinator Margaret Sheri & parent Edwin Andrade - Photo by Greenscaper
Parents Chris Sichler & Edwin Andrade - Photo by Greenscaper

Portable Outreach Neighborhood Garden (PONG) PS 102 Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

Yesterday was a beautiful and productive day in the PS 102 PONG. A group of interested (and interesting) parents met in the garden and we had a sub-irrigated planter (SIP, aka "self-watering") workshop among other activities. How nice it was to meet at this picnic bench under a shade tree on such a nice day.

In the top photo we see garden coordinator Margaret Sheri and parent Edward Andrade working on a plan view of the current garden. Measuring what is here now and documenting it is perhaps the most important step in developing this neighborhood treasure. It is nice garden now and the future potential is awesome.

Led by parent Chris Sichler, some very beneficial cleanup work was also accomplished. Chris did a yeoman’s job in sorting stuff and cleaning out the tool shed. We know what we have now. He also cleaned out the rotary composter that has been standing idle. For sure, we will have a school composting program along with rainwater harvesting in the coming years.

It is such a pleasure to be a part of this PS 102 parents “green team”. I was amazed at what was accomplished. A somewhat sleeping garden is now wide-awake. What a future!  

See the complete PS 102 photo set on Flickr and view a slideshow.

EarthBox Corn is Higher Than an Elephant's Eye

 
Click on the photos for a larger view from the JHWMSU Picasa album

If you told most dirt gardeners that you could grow corn, tomatoes and hot peppers in 2.5 cubic foot boxes on a concrete patio, they wouldn’t believe you.

These photos from the Picasa album of JHWMSU tell the story. The concrete patio “gardens” are EarthBoxs or sub-irrigated planters (SIPs, aka self-watering). Locate them anywhere in the city where there is adequate sunlight and security.

You can buy SIPs like the EarthBox, Tomato Success Kit, Garden Patch Grow Box or make them yourself from water tight containers such as utility buckets and tote boxes. All of them employ a very basic system of reservoirs and capillary action wicks.

The best way that I know to learn how SIPs work is to grow some windowsill plants (herbs for example) in recycled pop/soda bottle planters. They are a great teaching aid because unlike clay pots everything is visible.

The hundreds of photos in my pending file clearly show the significantly more widespread use of SIPs in the summer of 2009. Thanks to the Internet and bloggers, the growth in this market is exponential.