I live on an eensy city lot. The front yard contains little more than the steps to our door and a path to the back. The back isn’t a yard at all. Half of the space is filled with a deck, and the other half with a garage.
Still, I think I can farm here. The garage is a new, sturdy structure, designed by the architect prior owner to hold a roof-top deck where he could entertain and barbecue. He planned to use it as a place to cook food with friends. I’d rather use it to grow food with family.
My vision includes vegetable beds, bee hives, and a chicken coop. Hundreds of Seattleites raise laying hens, but given my daughter’s egg allergy, I’m more inclined toward broiler chickens.
In investigating the feasibility of a roof-top garden, I’m encouraged by the growing number of “green roofs” like the one that tops the Ballard library. I still need to learn more about how to get my garage to shed water and bear weight.
So I felt delighted to read the line “Grow Food on Your Roof” on YES! magazine’s winter cover. Sadly, the piece inside wasn’t the “how to” feature I imagined — just a photo of a Bremerton family’s rooftop farm and a brief caption — but it was inspiring to learn that they “grow enough produce to feed themselves and to stock their stall at the local farmers’ market.”
December 4th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Rooftop garden sounds great! We grow tomatoes on our balcony but that’s as far as I’ve gotten
I’m intrigued by Sara’s 1 foot square gardening technique but I don’t remember where she got that idea.
December 5th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
I haven’t read it, but I’m pretty sure this is the book: Square Foot Gardening
December 24th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Jenni,
One of the exciting things about urban farming is finding all the nooks and crannies to plant out food. I look at public places, not so public places, neighbors yards, alleys and ???
The notion in my yard is to replace the non-edibles with only something that is edible or that supports edibles. The edibles part is easy…what do I mean by supporting edibles? Here in Phoenix we are having a problems with not enough pollinators, so one of the things that I do is plant out a lot of the more fragrant flowers to being in the bees. It works great.
I would also encourage you to look to see what kind of pots you can place on your patio. Explore with your local cooperative extension what plants do best in pots, but here in Phoenix tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, herbs and most all greens do awesome in pots. Plus any pots on your patio are 1. easy to move in bad weather and 2. likely much closer to the kitchen where we use them.
As for your roof…is it a patio now? Or just the roof? From a structural perspective you will likely need a structural engineer to evaluate the sturdiness of the structure to handle more weight. If you are going to all this you might want to have them evaluate it for a greenhouse cover so that you can extend your growing season. Also there are ways to grow food organically with out soil (hydroponics) that weighs a lot less than conventional dirt.
Well there is a beginning. I would love to follow your progress and maybe see some pics.
Thanks for reading
Farmer Greg from the Urban Farm
December 25th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Hi Greg. I have plans to get a structural engineer out to take a look after the new year. A month or so ago I had a Seattle Urban Farmer help me with some soil calculations. It’s moving slowing, but it’s moving.
Thanks for your good wishes.