Inside Urban Green

A Kitchen Garden For Small Spaces In the City Or Surburbs

These spectacular tomato plants are growing in an EarthBox, a type of sub-irrigated planter system (SIPs)

The even moisture supply, and aeration provided by the SIP makes this impressive growth possible while using 80-90% less water and valuable time. Also know that there is no exposure to contaminated city soil.

There is no need to dig in the dirt to make fresh vegetable gardens in the city. All you need is a small space in the sun and a small supply of water.

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About.com Review: The Earthbox Rocks for Vegetable Container Gardening

Earthbox With Tomatoes - Photograph © Kerry Michaels

About.com is a widely read blog owned by the New York Times. Kerry Michaels is an About.com Guide who blogs about container gardening. Following is her very positive review of the EarthBox.

It should be mentioned that it is really a generic review of sub-irrigated planter systems (SIPs). It would be difficult to make a case that the EarthBox has some proprietary secret.

All properly designed SIPs employ a water reservoir, air chamber and capillary action to create what is essentially an ICU for plants whether edible or decorative. All you need is a watertight container and the addition of very simple SIP "plumbing".

Thanks to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and The Growing Connection, people in emerging economies around the world are using the basic principles of SIP systems to grow food while conserving precious water.

We are one of the only countries that have no national education program to encourage the use of these systems. In my view, it is a national disgrace.

When I read reviews like this (there are tons of them on the web) I also wonder about the quality of staffing at our urban botanic gardens. They represent the most immediate source of education about urban gardening and all they teach is antiquated dirt gardening. Do they have Internet connections? Do they read? Can they read? One wonders.

Via: About.com

The Bottom Line

Earthboxes are amazing for vegetable container gardening. They live up to their hype.

Sub-Irrigation Systems Produce Fresh Food In Jamaica

Peace Corps representative Curt Lindley left Idaho in the United States to make Manchester his home just over a year ago. As part of his Peace Corps duties, Lindley is assisting with a nutritional outreach programme. -Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer

This is about an open minded young man who is working with Jamaicans to grow fresh food in homemade EarthBox type sub-irrigated planter systems (SIPs). 

They are experimenting with indigenous materials to substitute for more expensive planter mixes. This kind of applied research is going on all over the world except in the U.S. We can thank our retrogressive horticultural and botanical educational institutions for that.

We desperately need new blood in the field of urban agriculture. We need people of all ages who have not been drinking USDA Kool-Aid, people who can see beyond dirt.

via www.jamaica-gleaner.com

Curt Lindley was present inside the award-winning Manchester agricultural village at the annual Denbigh Agri-Industrial Show, ready to provide details on how to make backyard farming easier for families without gardening space.

"Mandeville feels like home. I can only imagine what the reception is going to be like when I return to Idaho," he said.

Toledo: Sub-irrigated Planters Are Excellent For Public Spaces

Thirty-eight concrete planters line the two new islands. Coalition members celebrate Dorr streetscape

In my experience, most plants in public spaces are mediocre at best. Traditional drain hole planters are tricky to water properly. The problem is further exacerbated due to the typical turnover of maintenance personnel.

Not so, if the planters are sub-irrigated as are these lining a medial strip in Toledo, Ohio. Using SIPs with a built-in reservoir and overflow drain hole system, watering is consistent no matter who does it. These planters are nicely done and it would be informative to see progress photos in the future.

Sub-irrigated public planters (SIPs) will no doubt gain in popularity once city governments and business improvement districts come to understand their benefits.

There is a business opportunity here.

via www.thetoledojournal.com

Members of the Dorr Street Coalition gathered last week along Dorr to commemorate and celebrate two recently completed traffic islands on the boulevard.

Jimmy Gaines, executive director of Organized Neighbors Yielding eXcellence, said the concrete and brick islands represent the latest positive development in an ongoing effort to revitalize the Dorr corridor.

Tomato Farm On A Deck

Anyone, anywhere could be producing fresh tomatoes in a kitchen garden like this. All you need is enough sunlight and the desire to do it. These happen to be Garden Patch Grow Box sub-irrigated planters (SIPs). They could just as well be EarthBoxes, Tomato Success Kits or homemade SIPs.

SIPs produce more fresh vegetables per square foot than any other method (including in-ground growing) while saving water and time. Plus, you will have no worry about contaminated soil if you live in the city.

Sub-irrigated planter systems are the ecologically sound and smart way to grow food whether you live in the city, suburbs or even if you live in the country.

Video: Misha’s EarthBox Garden

Misha gives us a short tour of her EarthBox garden. It isn't in her backyard. It's on her concrete driveway. It could be anywhere there is adequate sunlight, be it a balcony, rooftop, patio or deck. 

Read the comments too.

via sport.i-mix.info

A short tour of my Earthbox with the plants at a 1month stage. you will see: Ichiban Eggplant Patty Pan squash Tomatoes: Sweet100, yellow pear, purple cherokee, and celebrity. Bell Peppers, yellow, orange, purple, big boy, red and green.

Everett M. Dirksen Middle School Goes Green With EarthBoxes

Click here to see the video on Facebook.

Props to CBS EcoMedia for giving the Everett M. Dirksen Middle School an EcoZone Green My School award that included an EarthBox Garden. The Rosa Parks Elementary School in San Francisco was also a Green My School winner.

These EarthBox sub-irrigated planter (SIP) school gardens should get much more publicity than they do. They offer a much better way to create school gardens rather than breaking up concrete to make in-ground gardens.

SIP gardens are much more versatile than land locked gardens. Their portability allows them to roll inside the school during the winter where they become part of the science program. SIPs are year round gardens rather than just warm season. They can also roll home if the school chooses to have an outreach program over the summer recess.

In most cases dirt gardens are an unnecessary waste of money, particularly with the state budget crises we are currently enduring across the country.

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The Green Team from Everett M. Dirksen Middle School in Calumet City, IL made this slideshow/video to document their experiences with their EarthBox garden.

PS 107 Sunshine Garden: EarthBoxes And Custom Planter Boxes

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This is part of the “Sunshine Garden” at PS 107 in Park Slope Brooklyn. It is an interesting story of how EarthBoxes became a part of this concrete jungle garden. PS 107 is much like the contest winning Rosa Parks Elementary school garden in San Francisco. Like so many city schools across the country, it’s all about cement.

There was no intent originally to create the garden with EarthBoxes. It was originally designed for wood planter boxes. The school found the money for custom planter boxes and they were actually built. You can see one of them on the right.

As often happens in city schools, unexpected construction intervened. As happened at PS 102 in Bay Ridge, scaffolding needed to be erected, in this case for window replacement. This had a major impact on the “built-in” planter box garden. The solution was the acquisition of portable, productive EarthBox sub-irrigated planters (SIPs).

Rosa Parks Elementary Gets Greened With EarthBoxes

CBS EcoMedia (click and watch this video too) gets a big cheer from me for picking a school like Rosa Parks Elementary in San Francisco as its Green My School contest winner.

I see far too many public schools in higher income neighborhoods with trendy dirt gardens getting much more recognition than they deserve. Designer gardens cost far more money than they are worth and add little to the educational content of the school. 



Why waste significant money breaking up paved surfaces when it is not necessary. Misguided parent activists and school principals should be called to task for their folly.

Plants in sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) like the EarthBox will grow anywhere there is enough sun. Add water and kids and you have a highly productive edible garden. In fact, it will be more productive than in-ground growing. Kids will also learn some good science and water conservation while experiencing the joy of eating fresh vegetables.

What you see here in this video is representative of city schools all across the country. Schools with lots of paved surfaces and courtyards like Rosa Parks are generic here in Brooklyn and the rest of the New York boroughs.

Thanks primarily to The Growing Connection (a UN organization) we have a significant number of schools with EarthBox SIP gardens like the one at Rosa Parks School. However, the local media, foodie bloggers and horticulture community ignores them. There is little or no news coverage for anything other than dirt gardening. Is this ignorance or personal bias?  

I do not know of one local institution including our vaunted botanic gardens that offers a class or course on the subject of modern food production methods like SIPs. If you want to talk about food injustice, start here.

CBS EcoZone Green My School Contest

Sub-irrigateed Planters (SIPs): A Backyard Tomato Garden Or Business

Here is a look at our tomatoes in EarthBoxes this spring, well, almost summer

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It would be interesting to know the fresh vegetable production (and street value) of this back yard garden, excuse me farm. What we see here could well be a family small business selling both vegetables and ready-to-grow sub-irrigated planter (SIP) gardens. Read about someone already doing it. 

Think about all the unemployed teenagers and college students we have in America who could produce some significant fresh food and income over a summer if they knew how. 

The key is education about modern methods of urban food production that does not require tilling scarce and often-contaminated land. Currently this information is not available and that is a national disgrace. Third world countries get better information (micro gardening for example) from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) than we do.

The USDA is not funded or mandated to teach you as an urban or suburban citizen how to grow your own food using the most modern productive methods. It is funded by tax dollars and supported by lobbyists whose sole interest is in promoting corporate agriculture. That does not include you.

Instead of modern up to date consumer information, the USDA through its Extension and Master Gardener programs spreads outdated information about dirt and drain hole gardening. Sadly, urban foodie and dirt hugger bloggers and writers drink their cool-aid and spit it out all over the Internet. The blind end up leading the blind.

Almost every day I see photos like this one about job training. Well intentioned perhaps but dumb and dumber. Working in a MacDonald's or Starbuck's is probably a better job than this. The expression "dirt cheap" isn't just about the dirt; it's also about dirt-cheap jobs that lead nowhere.