Rooftop Garden Deluxe [ABC Nightline]
via ny.eater.com
This rooftop garden atop the new Bell, Book & Candle restaurant in Manhattan is one of the most impressive I have seen. It has been featured in the NY Times and this video is from ABC Nightline.
The aeroponic units are called Tower Gardens and are from a company in Florida named Future Growing LLC. Each Tower Garden unit sells for $499 per the website. This is probably a bit pricey for the consumer market but who knows what it might be if there was volume demand .
This is without question a spectacular rooftop garden and the plants look they were grown in a greenhouse, they’re that good. It appears however from the slideshow (click on The Manhattan Project) that they were actually grown in place on the roof. That is most remarkable to me.
It will be very interesting to see how this system progresses in the marketplace. It most definitely looks to have a place in the field of modern urban agriculture. I would love to have a rooftop micro-farm like this and will continue to track these Tower Gardens. Stay tuned.
These are really fantastic! But at $500 a pop, wow, who can afford that? It's a really novel idea though!
Posted by: meemsnyc | August 15, 2010 at 02:48 PM
Cabbage Hill Farm http://www.cabbagehillfarm.org in Mt. Kisco 30 minutes north of Manhattan has an impressive hydroponic operation using water from fish tanks (fish raised for local restaurant chefs) filled with nutrients from the fish droppings. It's totally self contained and self sustaining, with similarly wonderful results as Bell, Book & Candle's rooftop. It's also featured in my book Hudson River Valley Farms http://tinyurl.com/2vr5ekn
Posted by: Rich Pomerantz | August 15, 2010 at 05:49 PM
Great story.. about the cost of the system: maybe somebody should collaborate more on building one of these on a DIY site.
Posted by: Adamo_Poeta | October 31, 2010 at 09:50 PM
Re: DIY ... consider all the options: It can't be ordinary PVC pipe. You're growing food.
Benefits outway the cost when you can have fresh, vine-ripened produce in 4 weeks most of the year is not all year when you think outside the box. Plus I've found a way to spread the cost over a 12 month period.
Posted by: Bobbi Dunn | October 20, 2011 at 08:45 AM
Glad to see the great coverage for these Tower Gardens! We are working with the designer's company, Future Growing, to provide these for residential gardening. They're amazing and lots of fun for the whole family!
Let me know if you'd like more info!
Sam Evans
Tower Garden Distributor
847-602-2533
samevans2009@gmail.com
Posted by: Sam | April 16, 2012 at 10:47 AM
$500? Guess I'll get to digging and do it the old fashioned way... :-(
Posted by: Mnyama | August 10, 2012 at 08:27 PM
go to http://branka.towergarden.ca - they have a monthly option for $43/month - very affordable.
Posted by: teri | February 18, 2013 at 01:48 PM