Inside Urban Green

TEDxManhattan - Marianne Cufone - Recirculating Farms Coalition

This is Marianne Cufone's TEDxManhattan presentation mentioned in this prior post about her and the Recirculating Farms Coailition.

Keep in mind that sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) for consumer use have the same water-conserving benefit of a recirculating farm. You might think of them as cousins in their environmental mission. There is no runoff and waste of water in a closed-system SIP. Aside from a small amount of evaporation, all of the water goes directly to the plant's root sytstem.

Note the green TEDx logo on stage. If  you have not seen it, check out Frieda Lim's How to Cultivate a (TEDx) Logo video. The logo has a surprising secondary function.

via TEDx YouTube Channel

Marianne Cufone is the Executive Director of the Recirculating Farms Coalition. She is an environmental attorney, and long time sustainable food advocate. Marianne is a professionally trained health supportive chef.

She has worked in natural resources management, focused on oceans, fisheries and seafood, for over a decade, in which time she has challenged and helped write and pass many significant state and federal policies and laws.

She directed the fish and oceans program at Food and Water Watch (2007-2011), managed the Gulf, South Atlantic and Caribbean fisheries programs for the Center for Marine Conservation (1999-2003), and is the founder and managing partner of Environment Matters, a consulting group that provides legal, policy and communications support to non-profit organizations (2003-present).

Previously, as an adjunct professor in law and environmental studies, and currently, as a guest lecturer at various academic institutions, Marianne helps to develop future advocates.

 

Sub-irrigation (SIPs) = Simple Hydroponics

In a prior post about the TEDxManhattan How to Cultivate a Logo video, I called the TEDx logo planter a hydroponic lettuce grower. How come? As revealed in the video it is clearly a sub-irrigated planter aka SIP (prior posts).

Actually, it’s both. The logo planter is a SIP as well as a simple form of hydroponics without an air pump. If the public is confused by all of the terminology used for various forms of food growing systems it is no surprise.

We have an overabundance of names for a variety of systems for growing plants. Pared down to the basics however, just about all of them are variants of hydroponic growing even though we use different names for them. It is a language and education issue rather than the “engineering” of the methods.

Sub-irrigation (aka SIPs) is an accurate term for systems that use solid (i.e. soil) media contained over the top of a water and oxygen reservoir system. Up to now, I have refrained from calling it hydroponics in the consumer market for a couple of reasons.

1. Hydroponics implies complexity and the need for plug-in power for oxygenation. SIPs are simple to make and do not require power. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to understand how they work

2. In the past, hydroponics has been heavily associated with marijuana growing. I have shopped in many hydroponics retail stores over many years and observed the traffic and the conversation. It is mostly a male clientele and they’re not talking about growing lettuce. This will change over time and these stores will become more family and children friendly.

With the emerging popularity of aquaponics (prior posts), hydroponics is gaining a more family-friendly image. Millions of people will be raising fish and vegetables in home aquaponics systems in the future. Much like the evolution of personal computers and mobile phones, these systems will become more affordable, less complex and user-friendlier. Currently they are not a mass-market product, but I predict they will be.

Back to hydroponics SIPs. These photos reveal what is going on in the hidden zone of a typical sub-irrigated planter. It happens to be a window box SIP that grew lettuce on my fire escape. Obviously, this is a healthy and robust root system. The upper zone in the soil media contains a soil-media root system but look at the mass of white roots that were growing in the water/oxygen chambers. They are “water roots” that have a different cellular structure than "soil roots".

Plants roots are incredibly aggressive in finding water. It is a matter of survival!

Clear SIPs help immeasurably in understanding this. While capillary action is elevating water from the reservoir, the roots are making a beeline down to find it. This is why these systems work so well even when the physical height limitation of capillary action is exceeded.

Only time will tell how affordable aquaponics systems will become. At this time however, various forms of sub-irrigated planter hydroponics represent the best choice for millions of city dwellers around the world.

Photo reveals the inverted (recycled) nursery flat that forms the water & oxygen reservoir. Bottom of fill pipe (recycled water bottle) lower right. The window box is a typical planter found in big box stores. It is too small as demonstrated by the root mass. Wider and half again or twice as deep would be much better.

 

Dear Mr. President

Update: As of 9:05 am ET January 29 there are 3,967 questions about marijuana and only 1 about what I posted about. There are obviously a lot of people who are well organized (and funded) around pot growing but don't get it about urban food growing.

Is marijuana our national priority over new job creation, hunger, better nutrition, obesity and childhood lead poisoning? If it is, we have bigger problems in this country than I realized.

 Many of you may know that the White House sent an email invitation to post a question to the president on YouTube. I did! This is a screenshot (no live links) of my question to President Obama in 250 characters and spaces or less.  Both the "watch video link" and the bit.ly link go to the logo video on TEDxManhattan.

To find the question scroll down to the Search box on the right and search on the word SIPs or sub-irrigated. Please do yourself and all the children you know a favor by giving it a thumbs up, Tweet it and do whatever else you can do in the great big wide world of social networking to share the question with others.

I truly regret not having my social networkng act together yet, but I will very soon! The Dear Mr President question is only the start of things to come. A new activist web site to get modern methods into the so-called Peoples Gardens including the White House Lawn garden is in the very near future.

With no demonstration of a dirt garden alternative like SIP beds and boxes they should be called the Some of the Peoples Gardens.

Thanks to the UN FAO organization, The Growing Connection, there are a few EarthBoxes in the USDA Peoples Garden in D.C. Other than this rather anemic demonstration that few Americans know about the rest of the gardens are all about top-watered dirt boxes.

These inaccurately named Peoples Gardens are certainly not gardens for all the people who live in concrete jungle cities, particularly inner city neighborhoods of color. 

Here are some very smart people who get it and deserve your recognition.

Rick Bayless, chef extrordinaire and a favorite of Barack and Michelle Obama grows vegetables on the roof of Frontera Grill in EarthBox SIPs. Smart chef! Smart Chicagoan!

Vikram Bhatt, Director of the McGill School of Architecture’s Minimum Cost Housing Group (MCHG) initiated the McGill Edible Campus. This award winning campus garden was created by students who made the SIP planters from recycled materials. The campus is a joy to behold. Smart educator, smart students! Smart Canadians!

The Rooftop Garden Project in Montreal is the grand daddy of rooftop gardens all over the world. It has been a proving ground for many different sub-irrigation and simple hydroponics methods for many years. The young people who staff this and other gardens provide fresh vegetables to the Santropol Roulant kitchen. Read their rooftop gardening guidebook. Watch a video about the project. Smart rooftop gardeners! Smart Canadians

Ken Waagner, unsung hero of modern urban gardening, managed to get EarthBox SIPs installed on the granite steps of the Museum of Science and Industry and the rooftop deck of the Smart Home. Smart business man! Smart Chicagoan! (smart museum CEO and smart architect too!)

Ron Wolford, Madiem Kawa, of the U of IL Extention Program and Cook County Master Gardners are the ones who create, manage and maintain the innovative gardens, including EarthBox SIPs on the grounds of the Museum of Science and Industry & Smart Home. Smart educators! Smart Chicagoans!

Johanne Daoust in Toronto discovered SIPs last year, converted her entire rooftop garden (including traditional raised beds) and heard the applause of all of her friends. Smart professor! Smart Canadian! Read a prior post here.

Long time penpal Heidi Hough who created the SIP acronym, has been growing in SIP buckets for years. Smart editor! Smart Chicagoan!

Helen Cameron, co-owner of Uncommon Ground restaurants in Chicago grows some of her rooftop vegetables in EarthBox SIPs and also created a sidewalk garden with them. Smart business woman! Smart Chicagoan!

Lorraine Gibbons of Garden State Urban Farms founded a socially responsible business serving the needs of New Jersey urbanites of all stripes, including Newark Mayor Cory Booker. She grows in many EarthBox SIPs as well as a hydroponic greenhouse. Smart business woman! Smart New Jersian! Smart Mayor!

Larry Hall invented a very creative way to use SIPs and rain gutters to make an auto-irrigated gardening system. This SIP system has enormous potential for urban food production, school and community gardens in particular. Larry has done this for social good. Smart inventor! Smart Minnesotan!   

There are many, many more smart SIP gardeners across the country and around the world. We just haven't organized yet, but we will!

 

 

TEDxManhattan Leads the Way About Lead and Good Food

This is a screen shot from the TEDxManattan “Changing the Way We Eat” event held this past Saturday in New York and live streamed to a large audience on the web. The speaker is Paul Lightfoot, CEO of BrightFarms the company that is developing a business installing hydroponic greenhouses on supermarket roofs.

Dollars to donuts Paul did not know that he was standing by a hydroponic lettuce grower in the shape of the TEDx logo. It is also likely that few in the audience did either until the end of the program when this video was shown. Then the lettuce was out of the logo so to speak! Have a look and Tweet away.

The video is also on Vimeo.

Contoured Plant Based Plastic Bottles Coming From Pepsi. But What About SIPs?

The sub-irrigated planter (SIP) to the left was made from a 3-liter diet Pepsi bottle (see prior post also see how to make them). While it is good news about a new and greener Pepsi bottle, it looks like the days of straight-sided 2 and 3-liter soda bottles are numbered. That is not good news for making soda bottle SIPs.

Coke has already gone curvy. As you can see, a Spider plant is growing in a curvy SIP but it is more difficult to make and not nearly as flexible in design options. From the picture of the new contoured Pepsi bottle above it looks like the same thing will be true for Pepsi SIPs.

Contouring adds strength and perhaps some visual appeal but it is not so green. It may seem a utopian idea but there is real value in making soda bottles straight-sided. Are you thinking Don Quixote rides again? 

Recycling is good but upcycling or repurposing is even better. Soda bottle SIPs are an unintended secondary product of significant value to society.

Having grown plants in them for many years, I believe it could be justified to make them as a primary product. I’ve learned more about growing plants and plant science from soda bottle SIPs than any other information source.

Clear soda bottle SIPs should be helping to grow plants inside every school in the world. They would quickly demonstrate how easy it is to grow plants using sub-irrigation as compared to tricky-to-learn drench and drain watering in traditional pots with drain holes.

Clear SIPs teach recycling, water conservation, some basic plant science as well as an introduction to edible plant growing. What could be more important than learning some simple science along with self-sufficiency about feeding oneself? Learning how to use sub-irrigation on a personal level is a survival skill.

So, my message is to save all the straight sided soda bottles you can find and turn them into SIPs. What a great recycling project this would be for every school in America.

Know that growing edible plants with sub-irrigation is scalable from windowsills to backyards and school yards, to rooftops and balconies to commercial farms. It is not well known by the public that sub-irrigation is widely used in greenhouse growing around the world. It is even employed in field farming in some parts of the U.S.

Why then is it not taught in the public school system? Why are consumer horticulture institutions such as urban botanic gardens not teaching it? Many millions of children who are destined for lives of obesity or hunger deserve better.

via:crispgreen.com

Using plant-based, fully renewable resources, the company plans to manufacture a beverage container with a significantly reduced carbon footprint.

For years, scientists and inventors have offered up futuristic alternatives to the resource-intensive plastic packaging clogging up our landfills and recycling bins. And for just as many years, practical environmentalists have said that these designs are all well and good, but until the day they're used in mainstream commercial production, their impact will be minuscule.

It appears that day may not be as far away as we thought.

Root System Explodes in Just 3 Weeks

This Ficus benjamina (a bonsai in training) in a recycled soda bottle sub-irrigation planter (SIP) surprised even me with all my years of growing plants.

I'm in the process of reinstalling plants in the CuGreen lab to increase the plant care interval beyond weekly care. I need to do this pending upcoming knee surgeries and months of rehabilitation.

The tree was moved up from a 2-liter to a 3-liter soda bottle SIP on December 26, 2011. There were, of course, no visible roots after the replanting. When watering it this week, I was amazed to see the root system "explosion" in just 3 weeks. This is awesome!

As an aside, all school kids should be able to see the amazing “hidden world” of plant roots that I see every day because the SIPs have clear walls and the roots grow so well. 

The most important factor about what we see here is the vivid demonstration of how plants thrive in SIPs. Know that sub-irrigation is scalable from windowsill herb growing SIPs to 4' x 8' raised bed SIPs. SIP “plumbing” fits all sizes of watertight planters. The key element is the water and oxygen reservoir that is an inherent part of all SIPs regardless of size or shape.

The benefit to the plants is that they receive an online supply of water, oxygen and nutrients. All we need to do is add an adequate amount of light.

In addition, the systems are hygienic when growing edible plants. There is no exposure to often-contaminated city soil. Why risk the possibility of a serious health problem when such a productive way of growing plants is readily available. All it takes is a little bit of knowledge. The systems are so simple to make. 
 

Rain Gutter Grow System » Could be a Community or School Garden Anywhere in America

This is an end-of-season update from Larry Hall in Minnesota. It further documents the sub-irrigated micro farm he created with rain gutters. When viewing the video keep in mind that it is a micro farm rather than a decorative back yard garden. His objectives were to grow food in an efficient and productive way while saving time.

The sub-irrigation planter (SIP) system Larry created can be hidden just like the plumbing in your kitchen and bathroom. It wouldn’t take much to build a façade along the length of each rain gutter.

Russ Cheatham created a simple facade when he installed an EarthBox garden on the roof of his Chicago home. This is just one of many ways to conceal the inner sub-irrigation "plumbing". Also have a look at Rebecca's Remedy planter facades.

Systems like these could be the core method for creating community and school gardens in cities across America where land is scarce and often contaminated with toxic heavy metals such as lead and arsenic.

SIPs will also conserve water while out-producing traditional dirt gardening. Growing in SIPs, kids will learn much about about plant science, recycling and conservation than they will by shoveling dirt.

I do not know of even one community garden in New York City that incorporates modern sub-irrigated planter systems in any meaningful way. What a significant commentary on the quality of our horticultural education system.

via www.youtube.com

Ok so you want to build a Rain Gutter Grow System! Here is what you will need!

CuGreen Plant Lab » Indoor Plant Season is Here Again

These are some of the plants growing in the CuGreen plant lab. All are either sub-irrigated or growing in expanded clay pebble hydroculture. There is no drainage. They are watered on a fixed schedule. All soil based plants are growing in the same artificial soil media. There is no need for "special soil" based on the species of plant. Any terrestrial plant (with roots), including cactus, can be grown and maintained using these methods.

I am writing a how-to guide for what you see here. It will be a free download. Stay tuned.

Meet Larry Hall, Rain Gutter Sub-irrigated Planter System Guy Par Excellance

Making sub-irrigated planter systems (SIPs) is definitely not rocket science but I continue to be amazed at the variations that creative minds come up with.

Larry Hall in Minnesota gets my vote for best SIP improvement idea of the year. Larry is a super-sipper. I have not tried his auto-irrigation rain gutter SIP system yet but his YouTube videos make it very clear about how to make it and clearly demonstrate the productive results he gets. Very cool!  See all of his YouTube videos here.

It boggles my mind to think what would happen if the USDA extension program, community gardening organizations, horticultural organizations, and botanic gardens across the country gave the subject the attention it deserves. It would most definitely help to solve our widespread problems of lead poisoning, hunger, obesity, and poor nutrition not to forget major improvements in childhood science education.

While I am getting my LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter act together would you please Tweet and post about this. In my view, it is a social injustice that we have so many obstructionists who fanatically worship dirt to the exclusion of simple technology that would benefit all of society particularly the poor and disadvantaged.

via www.youtube.com

Uploaded by larrylhall on Aug 20, 2011

The Daily Drain Hole Report »The Big Deception Part 2

About the photo - Light from the windows made this shot more difficult to show details. The trees actually live on the rack in the window to the left. The objective is simply to show the quality of these coffee trees growing in a planter with no drainage. Click on the photo to view larger sizes on Flickr. Click on Actions for the menu that includes "View all sizes".

About the plants - These are a couple of coffee trees (probably Coffea arabica spp.) growing in a sub-irrigated planter (SIP) made from a storage box.

They were 4” pot size plants from Lowe’s purchased back in October 2006 that looked similar to the photo. They have never seen a drain hole since. No drainage!

They were combined into the current SIP on February 15, 2010. My how they have grown in just 5 years.  

About the growing method – The sub-irrigated planter (SIP) was made from a translucent storage box. The internal plumbing consists of a recycled juice bottle, inverted nursery flat and water bottle fill tube. No need for power tools.

Since it is an indoor plant, I did not include an overflow drain hole. A scale or a soil probe is the best way to measure soil moisture for indoor plants growing in subdued light. In this case it is also helpful that the planter is translucent. I can see the soil moisture at a glance.

More about the big deception – The vast majority of gardeners who read houseplant and gardening books would say, “You can’t do that, you need a drain hole!” They will also say that so-called “self-watering” planters are only for moisture loving plants or for when you go on vacation or a business trip.

Spend some time on houseplant forums such as GardenWeb and Dave’s Garden and you will soon find this to be true. I have done it, but not any more.

While many of the folks on garden forums may not have much formal science education, they are not stupid people. It is simply that our horticultural education system is broken.

As a long time industry insider, I know that much of the misinformation and disinformation is intentional and that bothers me greatly. It did not matter as much to me when it only involved decorative plants. Now it involves hunger, obesity, job creation, environmental concerns such as water wastage and the health threat from contaminated city soil and more.

I plan to escalate this issue to the highest levels of government. If you care about doing the right thing, please join in this effort. Even Tweeting helps. I may be speaking naively but I still believe there is power in public awareness.