The author makes much of New York City, and the publicity associated with Dickson Depommier and his sky farm ideas. In my view, New York is anything but the center of modern urban food production thought.
Of course my opinion is most likely warped by the overabundance of dirt huggers I encounter in my daily research. Widespread use of dirt gardening in the city is pure fantasy as a solution for urban food production and water conservation issues.
As land and water diminish, innovative ways to feed the world may just save our lives, writes Richard Cornish.
IT'S 2049. Food security is of the highest concern. There are 9 billion people on earth and most of them live in cities. To keep the population fed, politicians, scientists and big business have joined forces to create new food sources where the line blurs between technology and farming.
Continue reading "Vertical Urban Agriculture Through Australian Eyes " »
Update: March 3, 2010 - This post shows this type of planter made with recycled milk containers and a more clear photo-illustration.
A very simple arrangement of recycled plastic containers emulates all sub-irrigated (aka “self-watering”) planters (SIPs) such as the EarthBox, Tomato Success Kit and Garden Patch Grow Box among others.
This method has the potential to become the most generic way to sub-irrigate plants in any watertight planter including tote boxes, utility buckets, decorative ceramic containers, wood planters and raised beds. Wood planters require the addition of a sheet plastic liner to make them watertight.
Please understand that this is a beta test product. I am confident that
it works but we need people to try it and report their results under
varying conditions. I'll be glad to help anyone who has questions about
making them this way.
There are basic components to all SIPs: 1. a watertight container (in this case an 18 gallon Rubbermaid tote box), 2. a platform to create a water reservoir (air space) at the bottom, 3. a soil wick or wicks, 4. a fill tube. 5. overflow drain holes at the height of the reservoir. These are for outdoor use only to handle rainfall.
This simple arrangement requires no power tools or purchased products other than the tote box. You might even find a watertight container to recycle (ex. recycling box, food shipping box, wash tub, etc.) and avoid this expense as well.
The platform is formed in a unique but simple way. All you need is a collection of recycled plastic containers. In this case, it is a combination of one milk container (1/2 gallon) and a nursery flat turned upside down. It could be any combination of recycled containers including aluminum beverage cans as well as plastics. This configuration creates a reservoir of about two and half gallons.
The objective is to fill the bottom of the watertight container with reservoir containers of a reasonably uniform height. Kids can make a game of it. It’s like a logic puzzle. You might also think of this as analogous to “composting” the containers that flow through your kitchen, many of which end up in our land fills.
There are holes poked in the tops of the reservoir containers to provide aeration and drainage in case of rainwater intrusion. The bottoms of the reservoir containers need to be open to water flow. In this case, there is a large slot cut in the underside of the milk container to allow water to enter. The nursery flat is open at its top and therefore requires no cutting to allow water access.
The fill pipe is made from two small size recycled water bottles. They could be any small size bottles such as for juice or soda. Simply cut the bottom off and sleeve them together to make any length fill tube. See this prior post.
You may be wondering where the wick is. There is no need to add a container (such as a pond basket, yogurt cup, etc.) to form a soil wick. The spaces all around the reservoir containers form the soil wicking with no need for a separate soil wicking container.
Your comments and questions will be most helpful to other readers. There is usually some ambiguity and confusion about written instructions. Your questions will help clarify this text. There will definitely be a video as soon as I can get into YouTube mode. It is long overdue.
This planter now installed on the Waterpod shows clearly how a sub-irrigated planter (SIP) works. It emulates the sub-irrigated utility bucket planter (aka erroneously as "self-watering") in the foreground. There are now six of these gray planters on board growing heirloom tomatoes.
The clear SIP demonstrator is made from a party (ice) bucket with a clear cookie container glued (clear Goop) to the bottom. There are three party cups inserted in holes in the bottom of the bucket. They act as soil wicks. The planter holds three heirloom tomato plants grown from seeds, moved up into pop/soda bottle planters and now this demonstrator SIP. Within a weeks time the roots grew out to the edge of the planter and are clearly visible.
One of these SIP demonstrators should be in every school in America. Maybe then we would overcome our antiquated horticultural education that inhibits growing food in the city. It is truly a national disgrace.
These planters will produce in the range of 50% more food per square foot, while saving water, nutrients and precious time. All that is needed is sunlit space even if it is paved.
Come to the Waterpod and see this and other urban gardening methods. There are many other utility bucket planters with drain holes on the Waterpod. We are going to attempt to convert them to sub-irrigation without replanting. If it works this would be a solution for many who were unaware of SIPs and planted in drain hole buckets.
Read this prior post for directions to the Waterpod which is now berthed in Brooklyn. Next week it will move to Staten Island.
The Wall Street Journal asked some architects to design what they envision as an energy efficient house.
It was good to read about saving water with self-watering (sub-irrigation) on the Bob Vila website. I am a long time fan of his and remember when he first started on PBS.
It continues to astound me that institutions like the National Gardening Association (NGA) and our botanic gardens don't seem to get it.
Ways to Save Water in Your Garden
There are many simple ways to save water around your garden. Your plants and flowers need not suffer if you are water smart.
Self-watering hanging basket planters are an excellent way to stop water wastage. Not only do these practical style of planters save your water, they also save your time.
Many of these planters only need topping up once or twice a week. The great benefit of these style of pots is that your plants will never suffer from overwatering. There are many styles, sizes and colors to select from.
Although there are a few different ranges to choose from the basic principle remains the same: There is a reservoir of water at the bottom of the container, and when the soil becomes dry, the reservoir tops it up. Self-watering pots can be used for a huge variety of plants, flowers and vegetables, both indoors and out.
The Solar Cities blog is about rooftop solar water heaters that are an energy efficient alternative to electric heaters.
This photo of a Cairo, Egypt rooftop with a solar water heater included the vegetable garden benches to the right. It looks to me that the containers on the vegetable benches are watered the same way that container plants are sub-irrigated in green houses around the world.
It is a little known fact in the consumer market that most container plants are watered by sub-irrigation using an ebb and flow system, either on benches or on a concrete floor.
There is no narrative on the blog about the vegetable garden but the robust health of these plants leads me to believe that the containers are sub-irrigated.
Note the plastic liners. Water collected in these basins (or added to them) will rise up by capillary action though the drain holes in the nursery pots. It is a far more efficient and water-conserving method then either hose watering or drip-irrigation.
If sub-irrigation is a more productive, water-conserving method in the greenhouse, why aren’t we all using it for our houseplants and container vegetables? Think about it.
These are planters made from 1, 2 and 3-liter pop bottles. Use them and you will be reading a Rosetta stone of sub-irrigation (known incorrectly as "self-watering" in the consumer market).
Use them and you will soon be growing superior plants while learning more about capillary action and how plants function. Use them to teach your children too. What they will learn is about science, not just gardening.
Capillary action is the basic function behind all so called "self-watering" planters whether they be for decorative house plants or vegetable growing. Learn about capillary action by observing it at work in these clear bottle planters. What you will observe and learn is applicable when growing all terrestrial plants whether indoor or outdoor.
Think I'm over dramatizing? You will discover that I'm not when you try them yourself. Remember that they are FREE! In fact, you get some extra points for doing some social good by keeping them out of the waste stream.
I have been studying sub-irrigation watering methods for more than 30 years. It started in my interior plantscaping business back in the '70's. Sub-irrigation revolutionized the way we did business. Our quality went up along with customer satisfaction, while our replacement rate went down. It was a lot easier to train new employees too.
Most of the horticultural and community gardening communities have yet to discover the benefits of the EarthBox and sub-irrigation planters similar to it.
Thanks to Blake Whisenant, founder of the EarthBox company and the partnership he created with The Growing Connection (a UN organization) seniors at the Dunmore Community Center and some citizens on a farm in Ghana will learn about the many benefits of sub-irrigated box gardening.
Jeanne Hugenbruch is not exactly sure where she’ll put the 50 garden boxes that will be arriving soon at the Dunmore Senior Citizens Center.
But come spring, those boxes will be sprouting vegetables and herbs behind the Dunmore Community Center, in a joint project between the seniors and Dunmore children, including the Head Start program next door. Read more...
EarthBox is the most socially conscious company I know about in the gardening industry. In my view, the company does not get anywhere near the mainstream media recognition that it deserves. Most of our garden writing community is more interested in painting pretty word pictures about arcane horticultural topics than writing about meaningful social causes.
