The Rooftop Gardening Source

From Inside Urban Green

This is the Claire-Morissette rooftop garden of the Design Building at the University of Quebec at Montreal. Sub-irrigated grower boxes have been gracefully integrated into this space connecting people and personal food production. They could be eating fresh vegetables right out of the grower boxes later in the summer.

A newsletter from the Rooftop Garden Project in Montreal triggered this post [on Inside Urban Green]. It is a call for volunteers at the Claire-Morissette garden and they will no doubt find them. Thanks to the dedicated people of the Rooftop Garden Project, there is community awareness of rooftop vegetable gardening in Montreal.

http://www.insideurbangreen.org/2008/05/university-of-quebec

From The Rainbow World Fund

Rainbow World Fund is partnering with CARE on this project. The Haiti Urban Garden Project seeks to improve the food supply and income-earning potential for struggling families in this devastated region of the country. Targeted households will use composted waste to grow small vegetable gardens. Located in backyards, on rooftops and even front porches, these gardens will yield fresh vegetables and fruits and surplus income for project participants. As a result, participating communities will have better diets, greater income resulting from the sale of vegetables and an improved environmental situation through more robust sanitation efforts. The project is also encouraging community members to devise innovative solutions to create cleaner and healthier neighborhoods. One example of this is how old tires previously discarded on roadsides are now given new life as containers for growing vegetables.

The project is based in Gonaives (and surrounding communities), an extremely impoverished part of Haiti populated by many families from rural areas who migrated there in search of a better life. The residents are still struggling to rebuild their lives following the lethal 2004 hurricane that left most of the city’s neighborhoods, particularly its low-lying slums, under water. An average family in Gonaives survives on less than a dollar a day, and the bulk of that goes to food.

http://www.rainbowfund.org/hunger/

Israeli architect firm Knafo Klimor won first prize at the 2nd International Architecture Competition for Sustainable Housing. The building features a high tech rooftop vegetable garden. http://www.knafoklimor.co.il/living-steel/10.html

We decided to throw a change-up. Instead of a rooftop project we are going to the basement. Recently we stumbled upon basement farming in Japan. One great example of this is the Asona O2 garden located beneath the 27 floor Otemachi Nomura Building in Tokyo. The building was originally used by Tokyo Life Insurance and Resona Bank (formerly Daiwa Bank). In the basement there were bank vaults. When the bank moved out, Asona, leased the 2nd basement floor and converted the vaults into a commercial rice and vegetable production facility.

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http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/11/underground_farm_in_japan.html

http://web-japan.org/trends/lifestyle/lif050317.html

After acquiring the building in which he worked, Eric Lindberg, President of Community Growers, decided on making use of the flat, black rooftop. He constructed several rows of raised wooden beds and has successfully turned this heat sucking rooftop into an urban farm. Big thanks to Milwaukee Renaissance for sending us word about this great garden. We encourage you to check out the their website to find out more about this garden and to read an interview with the garden’s creator.

Milwaukee Renaissance

http://milwaukeerenaissance.com/

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

This the rooftop container garden at the Headquarters of WXHQ 105.9 LPFM in Newport , Rhode Island. This garden is a working educational garden to promote sustainable agriculture and Green living. The seedlings have made great progress in our unusually warm early fall weather. The rainbow Chard and Kale are booming, no signs of Broccoli heads yet but the plants are consuming 2 gallons of rainwater per day. The Great American Rain Barrels are performing beyond expectation, collecting 120 gallons of rainwater per storm. The copper downspout modification eliminates overshoot of the roof runoff. This project is made possible by the generous support of Earthbox, the Great American Rain Barrel Company, Seeds of Change (organic seed company), Bliss Natural Grocer and Simmons Farm.

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http://www.google.com/base/a/1537490/D10902677995838814500