Inside Urban Green

An Urban Garden to Improve the Quality of Life for Bees, Butterflies...and You!

"Far from the madding crowd" there can be a patch of peace above the concrete jungle below your balcony or on your patio. All it takes is a modest sum of money, time and energy. If this is not an option, build a sub-irrigated pollinator garden like this in a sunny community garden or even a parklet.

More important than some time and money is acquiring knowledge that is being willfully withheld from you. Read on. It's free. Help others by posting this information on your favorite social sites.

Click on all photos to enlarge.

All of the flowering plants that you see here growing profusely are helping pollinators do their critically important work. The secret is that they are growing in sub-irrigated planters made from widely available drain-hole planters and tote or storage boxes. They are all modified with the installation of water and oxygen reservoirs connected to fill tubes instead of wasteful drain holes.

There is no annoying water dripping on your neighbors below when using sub-irrigated planters. And, they are easy to make. There is no need to buy so-called "self-watering" planters.

No, these are not "self-watering" planters the utterly stupid term used in the U.S. gardening marketplace. Some use the term because they do not know any better while some use it to deceive the public. Their deceitful purpose is to spread disinformation to inhibit their use.

Most commercial growers and garden centers rely on consumption rather than socially beneficial sustainability. They like it when you kill plants. Since most of them grow their plants in greenhouses using sub-irrigation, they are well aware of the sustainability benefits of this method.

A popular shorthand term for a sub-irrigated planter is the acronym SIP. When used in a pollinator garden like this the SIP acronym has double meaning. SIPs help grow flowers while conserving valuable water, plants and your time. Furthermore you are helping pollinators like bees, butterflies and other flowering insects "sip" flower nectar while their bodies inadvertently spread pollen.  

Click on photo to enlarge

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Did you know that along with other crises like climate change we have a decline in our bee population of crisis proportions. I have long slept on a roll-up futon. Its location at night in my new apartment home is right by the sliding doors. I can easily see the bees doing their valuable work.

It has been of great meditative value to live with nature so close by. What you see in the photos above is what I see when I wake up. I will soon add some solar up-lights so that I can see the pollinator garden after sunset.

I also know when I wake up each morning that I am doing some good for the planet with the expenditure of very little energy and time once the garden was built. That did take some time and energy but it was well worth it.

There has been far more value received than I ever expected when I decided to build it at a hectic time of relocating back to the East Coast from California. It took me 3 1/2 months to decide where I would live after arriving by U-Haul, my car in tow on a trailer. As those of us who have done it know it is a lot of backbreaking work to move long distances and reestablish oneself.

Though still living in chaos the pollinator balcony garden has become my refuge, my sanctuary. Nothing else matters when I watch the bees doing their critically important work. There are lots of photos of them yet to be published.

Stay tuned. There will be much more about this project and my new consulting business. The business is long overdue. I have spent much time consulting over the past nine years in New York and San Diego but it has all been pro-bono without the formalization of a business name. That cannot continue if I am to survive financially. In addition to consulting there will at least one book, probably more than one. 

Just as for my busy bee friends, there is much work to do.

 

 

SIP Pollinator Gardens, Part 3 - Maintaining Them

This is the most recent photo of the SIP Pollinator Gardens taken on July 31, 2016. They are working beautifully. There are more photos in a Flickr album that I am still editing. 

Click on photo to enlarge

About Refilling the Reservoirs

I do not add water to the reservoir without checking the soil moisture with a probe. It is the foolproof way to avoid over-watering.

Do not fall for the "self-watering" propaganda. It is simply not true. The problem is that the gardening industry does not tell you about soil probes or sell them. It is arguably the most valuable gardening tool you can own.

The photos below show the SIP Pollinator Gardens with funnel pipes inserted into the fill tube installed in the planters. Simply pour water into the funnel until you see the slightest bit of water emerging from the overflow drain hole. Stop! You're done!

The water and oxygen reservoir is now full. Water will immediately start rising into the soil medium by capillary action. As it rises a new oxygen "bubble" will form on top of the water.

The filling pipe apparatus is an automotive funnel inserted into a PVC pipe. The lower photo shows just the funnel without the fill pipe. You can see that you can easily customize the filler to suit your ergonomic needs related to the planter height, your height and how supple your body is. Why bend your back if you don't have to, unless you want the exercise.

I had some extra plants when I made the Fiskars planters so I made a couple more using green storage boxes from IKEA. They are not UV resistant and may last just for the growing season. They cost only $1.49 each. We'll see how they hold up.

SIP Pollinator Gardens, Part 2 - How to Make Them

This is about how to make a SIP Pollinator Garden. This is a Fiskars brand 26" Veranda (cement color) planter box. Outside dimensions are: 26.26 x 11.69 x 9.84 (inches).

Inside dimensions at bottom of planter: 22.25 l x 7:75 w X 9.0 h.(inches). Other colors available are; Thyme Green, Clay, Pepperstone and Chocolate.

This is no rinky-dink box of the type that are widely available in garden centers and home improvement stores. Most of the window box type planters at retail are undersized for lush flower planting let alone have room for a water and oxygen reservoir system under the plants.

Unfortunately the Fiskars Veranda planters are not available in stores any more as far as I know. The company is based in Finland and has withdrawn from the highly competitive plastic planter business. The Veranda planters are available online (Amazon for example). They are from inventory not new production.

I am going to inquire about the disposition of the molds for the Veranda planters. These planter boxes should make a comeback somehow.

Round Ariana planters by Fiskars are also good for making SIPs. They are still available in most Home Depot and Lowe’s stores. I would call ahead for availability.

I have used the Ariana planters in terra cotta and green colors for many years. They are reasonably priced and have a nice profile. I will post more about them in a future post in this series about SIP pollinator gardens.

There are several Ariana planters in this sub-irrigated patio garden including the tall Dracaena marginata in the middle.

Fabrication of “bubble reservoir” SIP pollinator gardens is very simple. The key is to use recycled or inexpensive store-bought plastic containers as the water and oxygen reservoirs. I use the term "bubble" as a metaphor. Think air bubble or scuba tank.

The space between the bubble reservoirs forms the wick system. I do all the fabrication with a wood burning pen and a portable drill.

There is no need to build DIY SIPs like these with platforms and wicking “cups”. They are basically reverse engineered EarthBoxes and unnecessarily complicated to make. The “bubble” reservoir method works just as well and is much easier to make.

Note: Ignore the undersized overflow drain in the photo. That was a mistake that I fixed. The overflow drain is 3/4" o.d. tubing in the finished planter.

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Three ways to make the aeration/drainage holes are a wood burning pen, portable drill or a very sharp awl (for thin plastic only). I use a wood burning pen.

Net pots used in hydroponics would also work and thus avoid the tedious job of making the holes.

The "bubble reservoirs" in this box are rectangular and square as you can see. The larger one in the foreground is a shoe box. The smaller one is a storage box that I had in my collection of containers to make SIPs.

The planter mix surrounding the reservoirs act as a wick system. It is important to firmly tamp it down to initiate good wicking action. The water rises by capillary action and the root system grows down to find it. Roots are smart that way.

This view also shows the fill tube made from a recycled water bottle. I make the hole using the shaft of the hot wood burning pen. I carefully rotate it to enlarge the hole while testing it for the right size using the bottle neck.

The photo below shows the very important overflow drain hole on the end opposite the fill tube. It is made from 3/4" o.d. (5/8" i.d.) vinyl tubing readily available from home improvement stores. I drill the hole with a 3/4" spade bit. It needs to be located at the very top edge of the reservoir.

Pollinator SIP Gardens - Part 1

After my Calexit escape from unaffordable housing in San Diego, I have decided to start a national "SIP pollinator garden" project. If you are not familiar with the acronym, SIPs are sub-irrigated planters that are perfect for creating pollinator habitats in urban environments.

We currently have a national crisis regarding a decline in pollinators that are essential to growing food. You have probably read about it. This is what the White House had to say about the crisis. Here is a PDF: Download Fact Sheet: The Economic Challenge Posed by Declining Pollinator Populations | whitehouse.gov

A key to the magic of all SIPs is that they have a water and oxygen reservoir directly below the pollinator plants. You might think of it as a bubble or scuba tank. Using SIPs the only other things needed for the plants to prosper are a place in the sun and a minimum of human care. No green thumb necessary!

Even a young child can learn how to grow flowers in SIPs. They are totally kid friendly. Kindergarten (or earlier) would be a good time to start teaching children about them. If so they will become adults who know how to use simple technology to grow both flowers and food wherever they are.

Following are photos of the first beta-test SIP pollinator gardens. They are working spectacularly so far. The flowers are healthy and the first watering lasted an entire week in very hot weather. I sheltered them during showers to rule out water added by rainfall.

There will be a side by side test of SIPs like these using the same boxes with drain holes some time in the future. Who knows how many times you would need to water traditional flower boxes like these over the course of a week. Probably daily or every other day depending on local climate.

Click on the photos to enlarge them.

SIPs clearly demonstrate that it is long past time to end our national addiction to traditional drain hole "pots" that waste water, plants, time and consumer's patience. They were fine in horse and buggy days of long ago but not in these days of climate change and severe droughts. 

One of the primary goals of this project is to introduce STEM-based SIP pollinator gardens to all schools in the country regardless of grade level or neighborhood demographics. I am confidant that there is funding available to accomplish this.

Stay tuned for much more about this project in the coming days. 

I have started a SIP Pollinator Garden album on Flickr and will post many more photos to it as this blog series progresses.

The album will be similar to the very popular album about the sub-irrigated patio garden in San Diego.

The Indoor Desert Garden is Now Growing on the East Coast

My indoor plant lab including the desert garden, coffee tree plantation and Ficus bonsai tree forest is now located on the east coast.

To get here they had to endure more than nine days inside a U-Haul truck while crossing the country. They lived in total darkness without water other than the moisture in the soil they had leaving San Diego. Thanks to their sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) there was no need for water stops or other maintenance along the way.

For older folks reading this post these words of John Swayze might come to mind…”It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” Newscaster Swayze was the TV spokesperson for Timex watches a long time ago.

Just as in the commercial the plants in my plant lab took a licking inside the darkness of the truck but they're still ticking. It was a wild ride particularly through the spectacular mountains of Utah and Colorado. I soon learned how to be a low-gear trucker. The beginning sections of I-70 were an otherworldly experience at times when I was often the only truck or car within eyesight.

Out of my view the plants bounced around during the wild ride over one mountain after another. It was only after unloading that I saw the chaos from the journey. Fortunately, little permanent damage was done.

In some respects this arduous trip reminded me of old WW2 movies about the legendary Burma Road and Flying Tigers that I watched as a kid.

This was definitely not a ride for the faint of heart. I am lucky to be alive and sure that someone up there was watching over me. Maybe that someone was in the passenger seat next to me. Who knows?

This is just a hint of what I discovered after slitting the shrink wrap. I didn't have the heart to photograph the cactus chaos. I had other things on my mind.

Although all of the plants were shrink-wrapped within the light garden shelves some of them became airborne. Many of the small cactus and succulents flew around inside their shrink-wrap cocoons. Some even flew out of their SIPs but fortunately couldn’t fly out of their shrink-wrapped space.

Many succulent leaves were lost but the plants are now in rehab after several days of plant triage.

These photos were taken at a U-Haul storage location on the East Coast. It is the temporary location of the lab until I find a new home for it. It was a most tedious job repotting, watering and locating all of the plants in sufficient light but it's now done. Thank god for that!  

 

Garden State Urban Farms Helping Again to Fight Obesity and Fresh Food Deserts

I am still a road warrior in a U-Haul pulling a car trailer but saw this very important article about more of Lorraine Gibbon's good work in Newark, NJ.

Her company, Garden State Urban Farms, is a shining example of a business exemplifying civic responsibility in lower income urban neighborhoods. We need a green legion of people like Lorraine and educator Stephen Ritz of the Green Bronx Machine to help solve our national nutrition and obesity problems. 

Lorraine is experienced in both conventional greenhouse hydroponics and EarthBox planters that employ a passive hydroponics technique.

It is a sure sign of the poor health of our horticultural education system that we are still calling sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) like EarthBoxes "self watering planters." That's bad but what is even worse is the cursory mention of them only as self-watering planters in gardening writer columns and on USDA sponsored extension program websites. Professional growers never use this misleading term.

America can do better! Join the green legion of forward-looking urban food growers at home or explore the field of tech-based food growing as a socially responsible career path.

Do not hesitate to contact me. I will be happy to assist you in any way I can by drawing on over 40 years of experience with simple plant growing technology such as SIPs.

I have a significant menu of business ideas to share. Tell me about your personal interests and goals. I will do my best to suggest compatible paths to them. I will be posting more about socially responsible green growing careers once I get settled in my new home.

Read more about my professional journey. Please forgive the length. It is in need of editing.

Bob Hyland

urbangreenscaper [AT] gmail [DOT] com

via www.njspotlight.com

A hydroponic garden -- which uses water rather than soil to deliver nutrients to plants -- should help wash away even more of Newark’s food desert

The health benefits of fresh vegetables are well known. The process of creating a garden where residents can join hands to teach one another how to raise crops provides countless additional social and economic advantages to the surrounding community. These gains become even more important in a neighborhood that has traditionally lacked access to healthy food, safe community spaces, and job opportunities.

Many parts of Newark are just such a food desert. The lack of resources in New Jersey’s largest city caused leaders at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center to start an urban garden and farm market, a project that has flourished over the past five years to become a key part of the hospital’s larger Wellness Program.

On Tuesday the hospital, a part of the RWJ/Barnabas Health network, is scheduled to host a grand opening of a hydroponic greenhouse, the latest addition to the program. The facility uses nutrient-infused water to grow plants, and follows a commercial aeroponic greenhouse, which uses just mist, that opened last spring in the Ironbound. Hospital officials said the Beth Greenhouse will double the output available through the existing garden, allow food production all year, and serve as a local base for horticultural and other job-training and employment efforts.

The project, which Barnabas said is the only one of its kind nationwide, will host programs for disabled residents, veterans, and former prisoners. It will also allow them to expand on work done at the current garden, which has led to cooking classes for hospital outpatients, and become a critical part of the community fabric, they said.

The greenhouse and garden projects are also part of a larger trend toward wellness in general. Government programs like Medicaid and Medicare and private health insurance companies are shifting toward payment models that reward doctors for their quality of care, instead of the quantity of visits or treatments they provide. And there has been a growing understanding in recent years of the need to also focus on keeping people healthy, instead of just treating them after they become sick.

“These kinds of things are really avant garde. People still come to the hospital when they are sick,” explained Barbara Mintz, the RWJ/Barnabas vice president who oversees community engagement and healthy-living efforts, like the Wellness Program. “Hospitals need to be a place of wellness. This is a real culture change.”

Mintz said this work is particularly important in a city like Newark, where many residents battle health issues like obesity and high blood pressure; these conditions can benefit from a diet full of fresh vegetables. According to a 2013 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New Jersey scored – both state-wide and in low-income areas – two points below the national average on a 10-point scale designed to measure residents’ access to fresh, healthy food versus the availability of fast food restaurants and convenience stores in their communities.

 

An Update About the Indoor Desert Garden Growing in Sub-irrigated Planters (SIPs)

Click on the photo to enlarge. Then click again to zoom in.

This is an update about the indoor desert garden in my plant lab. The desert is about to move across country to the "right coast" for me. Note that the bottom shelf is the "coffee plantation."

This is a test garden in that I have not grown succulents and cacti indoors in sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) to this extent previously. We will all learn something together as I plan to post monthly updates. This is the first update since the installation back in early April.

Pop Quiz: Which plants are not really desert plants but are living here with their desert cousins? Hint. They are flowering in some of the photos.

All of these plants are the hottest plants in the gardening world right now. The country has gone succulent crazy. Me too. Every public school should have a light garden like this. It is the perfect companion for a Stephen Ritz school tower garden.

Incidentally, I am really liking these LED shop lights from Costco so far. They are amazingly light weight and easy to handle. They remind me of Star Wars. They're like Lightsabers for plants.

This album about the desert garden needs some serious editing (lots of redundancy) which may get done on the long drive. If not I will edit the photos when I arrive. This will be my third and last trip driving a U-Haul truck with the lab in back. It doesn't get any easier with repetition. 

Related articles

Six Month Update " A Sub-irrigated "Bubble SIP" Water Conservation Test Garden

Planting a Succulent Container Garden With Tradition...and Ignorance of Modernity

A "Master Gardener" Plant Sale at Balboa Park this Saturday

The Stephen Ritz Green Bronx Machine Roadshow Will be in Toronto Tomorrow Evening

Sorry for the late notice that Stephen Ritz will be speaking in Toronto tomorrow evening at 7:00 PM. Click the link below for details and registration.

via eventbrite.ca

Here is some additional information related to this event. There is a job posting by FoodShare Toronto. They are evidently planning to emulate the Green Bronx Machine in a big way. Later this year there will be 10 Toronto schools with 3 tower gardens each to pilot what they are calling the Good Food Machine program.                            

Field to Table Schools Educator (click the link and scroll down for the job description)

FoodShare Toronto is looking for an experienced, passionate, and creative educator with a strong understanding of the food system, including nutrition, cooking, gardening, composting and food justice. FoodShare’s Field to Table Schools program has been delivering food literacy education to students and teachers across Toronto for the past decade.

This year we are working with 10 schools to pilot the Good Food Machine – each school will receive 3 hydroponic tower gardens, a mobile teaching kitchen cart, and support from FoodShare Toronto staff to animate these resources and bring fun food literacy education alive in their classrooms. To drive and deliver produce on behalf of FoodShare Toronto with a specific focus on driving, setting-up, cleaning up and assisting with Grab Some Good Markets.

 

Stephen Ritz » The School Gardening Music Man, Educator Extraordinaire, Tech Grower and CEO

No one knows that I have been secretly auditioning people to fill the role of a horticultural incarnation of the "Music Man" immortalized in the 1962 movie adaption of a musical by Meredith Wilson. The story setting is 1912.

Skin colors need updating but just use your imagination for the color composition of the 2016 band musicians. Let's also change the uniform color from red to green. Turn the sound up if you can and get your blood flowing faster.

I beleive we have found just the man to play the part of the leader of the band, the "Music Man of School Green". His name is Stephen Ritz. I'll follow him anywhere as band leader and Chief Eternal Optimist (CEO).

I experienced a number of spellbinders in my corporate life before my career change. The ability to speak at this motivational level is rare and hard to learn unless you are born with it or undergo a life-changing experience.

This is the TEDx talk that made Stephen the talk of the town back in 2012. Note the TEDx logo in back of him. It is a planter box made by Frieda Lim, a consulting client, friend and talented creator of a rooftop garden atop her home in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. She grew the plants in the logo planter from seed and nurtured them in a studio in her home. 

She calls her rooftop SIP garden "Slippery Slope Farm", a sly reference to the fact that her garden is on the slope just below Park Slope, home of Bill de Blasio, current Mayor of NYC and Chuck Schumer, US Senator. 

Her garden is a sight to behold. In the summer it is a dazzling array of vegetable plants and edible flowers  It is arguably the most productive and hygienic residential rooftop garden in NYC. It is unfortunate that it is not available for the public to see.

This is the TEDx talk that Stephen refers to in the interview following as his favorite Ted Talk.

Read the interview below. Stephen shares some information about his personal life that I did not know. It is most inspiring. We need hundreds (make that 1,000's) more educators and motivators like Steve. He used to be obese weighing 300 pounds. You can see by the photo above he has lost most of it. I hardly recognize him now compared to when I last saw him.

Stephen has also recognized the value and need for new technology for growing food in schools and all of urban society. The tower gardens he is standing among have long amazed me. Read more from the IUG archives here, here, and here,

via nycfoodpolicy.org

Stephen Ritz is an educator in the South Bronx and the founder of the Green Bronx Machine. The self-proclaimed CEO, or Chief Eternal Optimist, of the Bronx, he is a tireless advocate for healthy eating in schools and underserved communities. By growing gardens in schools in the South Bronx, Stephen works to create healthy students, communities, and cities.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with him about his work in the South Bronx, the opportunities that come out of school gardens, and food policy.

New York City Food Policy Center (FPC): What motivated you to get involved with food policy and to become a food policy advocate?

Stephen Ritz (SR): The realities of my life and my students’ lives. I ballooned to over 300 pounds as an ex-athlete simply by eating what was available in the local community. My habits, which were really informed by the students, were killing me. Over the course of my 30-plus years of being an educator I am seeing kids getting sicker and fatter. And I am appalled at what is happening to kids. I am seeing the onset of puberty in girls coming at much younger ages than I did 30 years ago. The stark realities of my life and my students’ lives in the South Bronx prompted me to become a food policy advocate.

It was simple. The realities of my life as an educator demanded that I start looking at the connection between food and education and become an advocate for kids. Also, the way I see kids in high-need, low-income communities being marketed to, not only the by food industry but overall, demanded that I stick my neck out and move us from being consumers to becoming producers—really determining and advocating for and contributing to our destiny. I am a voice for the voiceless. Children are often at the bottom of the food chain, and that needs to change. Kids need to be empowered!

And who knew that we could grow food? That was the coolest thing. I had no idea we could grow food. Ten years ago I couldn’t tell you 10 kinds of vegetables and now I grow 37 kinds of fruits and vegetables indoors with my kids, en route to outstanding academic performance and changing health outcomes. What could be more spectacular? Crisis equals opportunity! These aren’t challenges; these are opportunities dressed in work clothes, and I believe that my kids are poised, ready, willing, and able to change their destiny if given the opportunity. So we’ve got to create that opportunity, make that opportunity, and acknowledge that opportunity. That opportunity is here and this is our moment!

FPC: How did you get involved with school gardens? Were you always drawn to gardening?

SR: No! I got involved with school gardens by mistake, but by absolute necessity. Was I always drawn to gardening? Absolutely not. There’s a part of me that loathes it but loves the results. But at the end of the day it’s about planting seeds, and my children are my seeds. For me, seeds represent genetic potential and my goal is to make sure all my students and all my colleagues reach their G-d given genetic potential.

 

Garden State Urban Farms is in the News Again

It was great to see the smiling face of Lorraine Gibbons (2nd from the left), founder of Garden State Urban Farms (GSUF). I have been a big fan of hers ever since the founding of Brick City Urban Farms (the original name) in Newark. Good memories of visiting BCUF and then GSUF at the new hydroponic greenhouse in Orange, NJ came back when reading this article.

We need many more socially conscious entrepreneurs like Lorraine doing what she does in all inner cities across the country. She walks the walk.

Read a series of prior posts about BCUF now GSUF dating back to when Newark Mayor Cory Booker (now Senator) visited the farm back in 2008.

Jersey City has also launched its first Earth Box Farms, an initiative in which 125 Earth Boxes were donated by Garden State Urban Farms (GSUF). The Earth Boxes, or self-contained gardening systems, were distributed to the Maureen Collier Senior Center, the Jersey City Health and Human Services building and the Berry Gardens Public Housing complex. Earth Boxes make it possible to garden anywhere, including paved parking lots and patios.

GSUF collaborates with schools, nonprofit organizations and government groups to provide employment opportunities and educational programming, as well as low-cost, healthy food in urban areas throughout New Jersey. GSUF also provided training for the gardeners, along with the guidance of master gardeners from the Jersey City Parks Coalition.

via www.nj.com

More gardens will be sprouting up around Jersey City this spring thanks to a new initiative that will expand urban agriculture and also make healthier foods from farmers' markets more accessible.

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop and the Department of Health and Human Services are joining up with the Partnership for a Healthier JC to increase resources for "Earth Box" gardens at several sites around the city and Adopt-A-Lot programs, which allows residents to transform unused city-owned lots into gardens by leasing out the site for a dollar. Read more...