What an impressive fresh food-producing machine we have here in this well engineered backyard micro farm. The organic farmer is Flickr name mangrovefarms in the San Francisco Bay Area. It appears that mangrovefarms could produce enough fresh vegetables to feed many more than just one family.
The first time I saw this type of simple wood plank enclosure for sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) was Russ Cheatham’s rooftop garden in Chicago. It was featured in a Chicago Magazine article.
This simple box framing does wonders in concealing the SIP "plumbing" that is analogous to the plumbing in a kitchen or bath hidden from view behind decorative cabinetry.
Note that the plumbing also includes an auto-irrigation system. Incidentally the red covering is sheet mulch that eliminates weeding and helps conserve water.
Concealed SIPs can be commercial planters like the EarthBox or its clones such as the City Pickers (Home Depot), or DIY versions made from tote boxes, kitty litter containers, utility buckets or other recycled watertight containers. It does not matter. All they need is a place in the sun and a minimal amount of water.
Efficient portable micro farms like these, work just as well in any urban setting be it a row house rooftop, back yard, driveway or school yard. They will grow food on top of any sun-lit man-made surface such as concrete, blacktop or wooden decking.
Urban micro-farms like this would go a long way towards solving our widespread problems of obesity and hunger. A further benefit is that these self-contained gardens are hygienic. They can essentially eliminate exposure to contaminated soil which is much more prevalent in our cities than urban agriculture boosters acknowledge.
Toxic metals soil contamination is clearly a young child health issue not to be ignored. I can support that statement with a very signicant database of scientific papers and reputable media articles that I am accumulating in my research on the subject.
