EAT UPwho are these people, anyway?
Rooftop farms and gardens are sprouting up in cities across the country. Restaurants, community groups, families, and individuals are enjoying the bounty, but who the heck is up there growing all this food? Lots of people…
“lettuce” in – it’s cold out here!
As your asparagus lies low waiting for spring, it has plenty of time to fantasize about warmer soil. Jump up to a rooftop, and this fantasy could be closer to reality than your vegetables have ever dreamed….
that is one hot potato.
To the newbie, designing and building a rooftop farm may seem like a cakewalk. What’s the big deal? You just plop a regular farm on top of a building and it’s business as usual, right? Wrong….
indecent exposure
As a Project Manager for the green roof firm Roofmeadow, I regularly travel around the country to perform construction oversight. In December I had the good fortune of overseeing construction at a hotel in Lower Manhattan,…
boutique industry
Many of the pioneer rooftop farms sprinkled throughout the U.S. are much smaller than their rural counterparts. This scale differential begs the question of production volume. How can a rooftop farm that is less than an acre…
there’s nothing like a heat island
When travelling from my forested neighborhood to Center City Philadelphia, the change in temperature is often startling. The commute is only ten miles, and yet the temperature noticeably warms by at least 5° F when approaching the…
open table
This post is all about you. Previous blog posts have revolved around interviews with industry leaders, large-scale viability issues, the path to publication, and general musings about rooftop food production. This post, in contrast, will ideally act…
the shortest tomato plant
Let’s talk stature. Many tomato plant varieties grow tall, large, and wild. When conditions are right, these plants seem to grow overnight in a manic effort to reach the sun. Tomato plants can be tamed with…
Singapore: food localization poster child
Urban food production in North Philadelphia, SHARE Food Program || (photo by Lauren Mandel) We are an overweight, undernourished nation. Plain and simple. The condition of public health in the U.S. does not need to be…
we can’t afford NOT to do this
The bottom line is that cities can’t afford not to invest in rooftop agriculture. The societal and environmental benefits of rooftop food production far outweigh the practice’s costs, particularly when expanded across a skyline. Without targeted…