Inside Urban Green

A New Way to Deliver Water to Sub-irrigated Planters in the Balcony Pollinator Garden...or Anywhere Else for that Matter

Perhaps you have seen a tank on wheels similar to this one in a garden center, office or indoor garden. It is called a water machine and they are very common in the interior plantscapng business. Perhaps more visible to consumers are the water machines used in Home Depot, Lowe's and independent garden centers.

The entry level price for professional water machines is about $1,000. Obviously not a retail consumer product unless you are a 1 percenter and if so you probably have a gardener. 

In addition to the sub-irrigated balcony pollinator demonstration garden I am also creating a new urban greenscaping lab studio complete with rolling rack light gardens.

I have been experimenting and researching better ways to grow both decorative and edible plants using indoor light gardens for about 18 years now. They have provided a wealth of open source information about sub-irrigated planters, methods and tools. For example, replenishing the water in sub-irrigated planter reservoirs saves a lot of time and water as compared to watering the same number of plants in traditional drain hole planters but it's still a physical chore. 

Lugging water around in utility trays holding 8 recycled plastic milk bottles is physically demanding. Each tray of 8 plastic half-gallon containers weighs over 66 lbs. Remember the old water weight phrase..."A pint's a pound the world around?" My back remembers it. 

It is long overdue that I find a better way to haul water. Here it is via a couple of products from Amazon. Incidentally I do not get any money from Amazon links. There is no revenue generated by this blog or the plant research lab. 

 

As you can readily see this is a Hydroller portable water tank from Amazon via Reliance Products ($25.97). Its primary use is by campers. The battery operated (2 AA) pump sticking out of the tank is also from Amazon by way of TeraPump.($19.99).

To extend the length of the hose just add a length of 3/4" o.d, 5/8" i.d. vinyl tubing. It fits perfectly on the pump hose. Remember that this machine is powered by 2 AA batteries. There is not enough power in the pump to move water from the tank to high places. It is perfect for normal use around waist to chest hight. 

So, the total price for this back saving water machine was $45.97 with my Prime Membership. We'll see how the tank and pump hold up over time but so far it has worked like a charm. 

Compare this balcony garden with sub-irrigated planters (now supported with a water machine) to "dumb" clay pots dripping water on the neighbors below. This is urban gardening for today rather than horse and buggy days. 

This shows the water machine and a light garden just inside the sliding door to the balcony pollinator garden. I staged this photo to show the machine and light garden. It is not the method I use for sub-irrigated indoor planters (SIPs) without overflow drains. The indoor method is based on measuring the soil moisture with a scale. I will show the exact setup in a future post within a week. 

What the photo does show is that the new urban greenscaping studio has both a summer and winter garden. The pollinator garden (all annuals) is still going strong but will soon be history after the first frost. Then the winter view will be of a desert garden and coffee plantation. "Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!" 

More Information About the No-Drip SIP Pollinator Balcony Garden

Note the fallen leaves. The all-annuals pollinator garden will soon be history. How sad but Spring will be here before we know it. Next year the garden will be grown from seeds sown in indoor light gardens instead of annual starter plants from garden centers. My STEM-based urban greenscaping lab is now back in business after a long summer recess while crossing the country. 

No Drips Allowed!

Other than a small amount of water that exits from the overflow drain, there is no hazard of water dripping on the neighbor below when you grow in SIPs. Dripping water, however, is a very common problem with traditional drench and drain pots on balconies.

Dripping water is the cause of many disputes in balcony buildings. Count the ways that drain hole planters are a dumb idea regardless of what your local garden column writer, favorite gardening book author or "master gardener" advises. Clay pots are from the time of outhouses before indoor bathrooms. They have no functional benefit. Planters with drain holes are counter productive in an age of drought and the need for sustainability.

My goal for this SIP balcony garden is "no drips." Human error is the only way for it to happen. If too much water is added too quickly to the water & oxygen reservoir system the result can be a "drip error." I don't' want to be the drip who did it. Here is how the reservoir system works in actual practice, particularly in elongated window box type of SIPs.

In this design the fill pipe is in one corner and the overflow drain on the diagonally opposite corner. This arrangement is to ensure the filling of all the reservoir segments and to ensure absolutely even soil moisture distribution.

When you add water it takes some time for it to saturate the soil and fill the reservoir nearest to the fill pipe before it travels to the opposite end where the overflow drain is located. The added water is filling the reservoirs and saturating the soil sequentially from one end to the other.

It is easy to become impatient and have too heavy a hand when adding water. The result is a strong surge of water that can cause a drip problem. To remedy this pay attention to what you are doing and add a catch basin below the overflow drain.

I made several overflow drains from Glad type 24 oz (rectangular) food containers. I cut them down to fit under the overflow drains. As further insurance i added a piece of good quality duct tape to attach them to the planter under the hole. They can be easily removed without damaging the duct tape and installed on the next planter to fill. You can get a better look at the temporary catch basin (lower right) by clicking on the photo for an enlarged view.

Be Sure to Tamp the Soil Down Firmly to Create a Good Soil Wicking System

I haven't had a problem with any of the 16 SIPs on the balcony. They are all working very well, saving water, time and growing plants that are pretty spectacular. I have, however, realized that I have not emphasized the need to tamp down the soil between the reservoirs enough. Doing this removes the possibility of air pockets in the wick system.

Push the soil mix down firmly between the reservoirs with your fingers. Use a piece  of 1/2" wooden dowel to save your fingernails if necessary. You don't need a hammer but push firmly. No patty-cake, patty-cake with palms.

 

 

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

Click on photo to enlarge

Click on photo to enlarge

Click on photo to enlarge

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.