The Rooftop Gardening Source

Urban agriculturalists Keith Agoada (Sky Vegetables and Rooftop Gardening Source), Dr. Mike Nichols, Anthony Foo, Ms. Morag Gamble, and Geoff Wilson will be presenting at the this half day conference. Find out more at the Green Roofs Australia Website

The Rooftop Gardening Source will provide you with more information about the speakers and the urban agriculture conference in the coming days.

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Are you a rooftop farming guru interested in spreading the love of growing veggies on the roof? Well now is your chance! We don’t care what your technique is, we just want to hear from you.

Email Keith@skyvegetables.com

On top of the biology building at Columbia’s Barnard College in Manhattan is a greenhouse. This botany greenhouse, donated by Arthur Ross and Family features a diverse collection of plants from all over the world. While produce cultivation isn’t its primary concern, there are several species being grown at this greenhouse. The garden has several varieties of hot peppers, Mexican avocado and the exotic Buddhas Hand Citron seen below.

Find Out more at the Barnard Website

On 5/28, NPR’s popular radio show, “On Point with Tom Ashbrook” dedicated an hour to the current food crisis facing the United States and the World. The program’s featured guest is best selling author of “The End of Oil”, Paul Roberts. Roberts has a new book in stores next week titled “The End of Food.” This book provides fantastic insight into the broken food industry. It has received rave reviews from the media; including author Michael Pollan (Omnivore’s Dilema) and Bill McKibben (The End of Nature). lAlso making a guest appearance on the program is Founder and President of Sky Vegetables and The Rooftop Gardening Source, Keith Agoada. Sky Vegetables was featured on the last 20 minutes of the show as a possible solution to the deteriorating industry. We encourage you to listen to the Podcast of the show, found on NPR’s On Point website

Eli Zabar’s grocery store and restaurant in Manhattan is a prime example of using urban rooftop space for agriculture. This roof has commercial-size production greenhouses filled with raised beds planted in greens and herbs and tomatoes. Fig trees in planters are lined up sporadically along the edge of one rooftop. All vegetables and fruits produced in these greenhouses are sold in the grocery store and restaurant below.

http://www.elizabar.com/vinegar.html

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Want to learn more about this project?

http://www.zeek.net/612ableman/

Over twenty years ago, the Gaia Institute developed the capacity to create ultra-lightweight soil out of the waste stream in order to establish ecological and agricultural systems on rooftops. Much further developed in recent years, a patent was awarded in 2005 for this plant growth medium. A grant from the Bronx Initiative in Energy and the Environment and the Bronx Overall Development Corporation in the Bronx Borough President’s Office made it possible to build an instrumented, stormwater capture and educational green roof facility in partnership with St. Simon Stock School.

http://www.gaiainstituteny.org/

The four-floor, 132,000-square-foot facility creates an academic quadrangle on the southwest corner of the Monroe Park Campus. Science and math faculty – as well as education professors who prepare future science teachers – will be within steps of one another’s classrooms and laboratories. The facility contains exciting new learning spaces including seven classrooms, two lecture halls, computer labs, and a student study lounge – all equipped with state-of-the-art multimedia technology.

The life sciences building features 17 undergraduate instructional laboratories. In addition to general biology and anatomy laboratories the building offers specialty laboratories for advanced courses. Those include genetics, molecular biology, bioinformatics, ecology, environmental science, botany, physiology and microbiology.

A rooftop greenhouse is a research-grade facility that can control humidity, temperature and light. The 3,000-square-foot greenhouse supports a pesticide-free room and three environments simultaneously: desert, mild climates much like Central Virginia and tropic.

http://www.vcu.edu/lifesci/facilities/fac_eugene.html

By Brianna Bodine

The greenhouse will function as a hands-on lab for students, a production site for general lab specimens, and a research facility for faculty. Tours for school groups and special interest organizations will also be scheduled. “Since the greenhouse is on the roof, we will not be able to develop theme gardens outside the building as we had hoped,” said biology professor Larry Giesmann, “but individual laboratory classes can visit the facility, and small off-campus groups can be accommodated for educational outreach.” Giesmann is expected to become the greenhouse manager upon the project’s completion. During his spring 2006 sabbatical leave, Giesmann worked with local greenhouses and took a Greenhouse and Garden Center Management course at Cincinnati State University.

http://media.www.thenortherner.com/media/storage/paper527/news/

In 2003, ABC renovated a largely abandoned, dilapidated warehouse on East 126th Street in East Harlem to create its newest vibrant children and family center, Echo Park.

the centerpiece of this rooftop recreation and learning space will be a large self-sustainable, solar-heated greenhouse. This greenhouse will add an entire rooftop classroom and laboratory in which children and their families will grow food and where they will learn life-long lessons of good nutrition, respect for the Earth, the dangers of global warming and a responsible relationship with the planet. It will demonstrate that even the most vulnerable child can be a world leader and take small steps toward ensuring a healthy future for children everywhere.

http://www.a-b-c.org/rooftop-project.htm

At the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto, herbs are grown on the rooftops. These herbs are used on some 6000 meals per day at the hotel restaurant. Built In 1998, this rooftop garden is located on the 18 floor of the hotel. All the herbs are organic, grown without pesticides and herbicides. The garden also grows Italian red kidney beans, tomatoes, pear and plum trees. The Fairmont Royal York is looking to add grapes for winemaking and bees for homemade honey. The rooftop has 17 elevated beds and 23 pots. The plants are watered using a traditional water hose system. The Executive Chef, claims that the rooftop garden saves around $20,000 year in produce costs.

http://www.greenroofs.com/projects/pview.php?id=557