commercial row farming at its finest

Check out this amazing Huffington Post video on Brooklyn Grange, produced by Damiano Beltrami in 2011.  The shortie features the rooftop farm’s Head Farmer and President, Ben Flanner.

from slaughterhouse to rooftop farm

Strutting through Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood, the re-purposed stockyard may seem like business as usual.  Look up, and you’ll quickly realize that one of these buildings is not like the others. Set within one…

Michelle Obama, up on the roof.

First Lady Michelle Obama visited the Gary Comer Youth Center (GCYC) on Wednesday, along with six NATO delegates’ spouses. The center provides children from Chicago’s South Side with a safe and stimulating environment, with programs that…

“Daddy, I want a cucumberrrr!”

Jay Sand, a home gardener in West Philadelphia, feeds his kids the freshest veggies on the block. The source? His own roof. Sand and his wife decided to renovate their spacious Victorian fixer-upper from bottom to…

Microsoft reaches new heights of freshness

The technology news site GeekWire reported yesterday that Microsoft may be in the market for rooftop greenhouses at the company’s Redmond campus.  The technology giant is in preliminary talks with UrbanHarvest, a Seattle-based rooftop farming startup company, to…

got organic? you betchya.

Chicago has something to brag about.  Uncommon Ground, a restaurant on the north side of town, houses the country’s very first certified organic rooftop farm.  The farm was founded on the restaurant’s Edgewater location in 2007,…

the value of visibility

Rooftop farms and gardens are intoxicating when you’re up on the roof, but how the heck are you supposed to know they’re there from down on the ground?  Visibility is a powerful tool in spreading the word…

West Philadelphia pilot garden

Elderly residents sit on their front stoops watching tattooed hipsters peddle by on fixed-gear bikes.  This cultural juxtaposition runs rampant throughout West Philadelphia’s Cedar Park neighborhood, while grit and urban decay provide a strange sense of continuity…

harden off those youngins

With spring upon us, greenhouses across the country are full of eager seedlings.  Sheltered greenhouse environments are ideal for sprouting seeds and providing a head start for young veggies, but the real growing occurs outdoors. Before transplanting…

the hottest of hotspots

If the U.S. were a cupcake, and the rooftop farms and gardens dotted around the country were the sprinkles, then Brooklyn would be the cherry on top.  Thank you for bearing with me on that analogy….