Fire Escape Salad Bar

There are millions of people living in cities who don't live behind white picket fences and have space for a kitchen garden.

This is a real world alternative. It isn't legal to do it but this "salad bar" sub-irrigated planter would fit on most fire escapes. You can grow a bunch of salad greens or herbs in a no-drip SIP like this. Read on and see how to make it. See the sources below.

The location is up on the roof at Slippery Slope SIP Micro-Farm in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Frieda Lim put the SIP together in no time, while I photographed what she was doing. It was late in the day after a reception for some media people and there wasn't much light.

This SIP is as simple as salad to make. The planter is a mortar box. The air and water reservoir is made from three one half round sections of 4" diameter perforated HDPE corrugated drain pipe. Note that the one with the fill pipe needed a quick-fix piece of duct tape to cover an errant cut. There is an overflow drain hole in the side of the box located at the top of the middle pipe.

The fill pipe is one recycled PET water bottle with the bottom trimmed off. It fits into a hole cut in one of the drain pipes.  

Add the soil mix to the box. Tamp it down between the pipe sections to ensure good capillary wicking action. Add the veggie starter plants (or grow from seeds) and you'll soon be eating delicious fresh salads.

Mortar box - 26"x20"x6" - Lowe's $5 and change
Perforated, corrugated (HDPE) drain pipe - 10' length - Lowe's $5 and change
Fill pipe - recycled (PET) water bottle - free
Media - Fafard Container Mix (or equivalent), no top soil -30 dry qt bag - $7
Vegetable starter plants - Silver Height's Farm, Union Square Farmer's Market, NYC

Comments

[Bryan Edwards]

Is there an overflow drainage hole in the mortar box the height of the drain pipe? Or does this design not require an overflow hole?

Thanks
Bryan

[Corey Rabinowitz]

fyi, here's the mortar tub
http://www.lowes.com/pd_19251-1569-AT2606_0_

[meemsnyc]

Awesome!!

[Georgia]

I am interested in building this planter. Can you highlight on the photograph where the overflow drain hole is located? Thank you.

[David]

I can see how water fills the pipe with water bottle filler, but how does water fill the other perforated pipes? The soil fills the void between pipes, wouldn't that block water flow and inhibit the filling the other pipe segments.

[Jan Dillon]

What about BP's?

[slim]

I built two of these today... still trying to figure out how the second pipe works. Also, I don't know if they make the mortar boxes that deep anymore - mine is barely taller than the perforated pipes, and they stick out the top unless I heap soil over them. We'll see if these work. I've made successful SIPs before, using galvanized steel basins or the two-pail method, but these I'm skeptical about.

[Ronyon]

I like this but I also want to know about how the water gets from one pipe to another.
I've built two-bucket SIP's and others and used them to good effect, but the only way I can see this working is layering the almost the entire bottom of the container with perforated pipe, leaving only a small area free to be the "Soil Wick".
Any clear answers would be great,thanks.