EAT UPfrom 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.
The Plant || image by Google Earth, diagram by Lauren Mandel
Set within one of the meat packing plants made famous by Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel “The Jungle,” a business incubator called The Plant experiments with vertical farming. Executive Director John Edel works diligently to stock The Plant with innovative, feel good businesses such as 312 Aquaponics, Peerless Bread & Jam, Thrive Kombucha, and SkyyGreens Aquaponics. While the tenants predominantly raise fish and crops within the building, the Chicago-based company The Urban Canopy experiments with rooftop production.
I spoke with The Urban Canopy founder Alex Poltorak earlier this week, who explained that the company began farming above The Plant in 2011. Poltorak first became interested in rooftop farming as a means of providing fruits and vegetables to school children, who may not otherwise have access to fresh, nutritious food. According to company’s website, its broader vision is now “to show how rooftop farming can be a vital part of the urban agriculture movement to create a sustainable and equitable food system.”
The Urban Canopy provides vegetables to a small CSA, and experiments extensively with rooftop production techniques. In the absence of a formal rooftop agricultural research center, Poltorak and his interns play a crucial role in experimenting and collecting data. Current efforts include raising crops in burlap sacks, five-gallon buckets, and even polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe! Spring crops included pine berries, chard, kale, mustard greens, and lettuce.
Thanks to pioneers like The Urban Canopy, Chicago’s skyline is sprouting tall.
EAT UP BOOK DEAL!!
I am thrilled to announce that EAT UP | the inside scoop on rooftop agriculture will be published by New Society Publishers! The book will be released in Canada and the U.S. in spring 2013, with an e-book to follow.
New Society Publishers, a carbon-neutral publishing house in British Columbia, is committed to publishing solution-oriented books that resonate with readers ecologically and socially. For over 30 years, the company has remained at the forefront of sustainability within the North American book publishing industry, both in titles and in practice. Through a commitment to printing all books domestically on 100% post-consumer paper with vegetable-based, low VOC inks, New Society Publishers has saved over 20,200 trees and mitigated thousands of pounds of solid waste.
EAT UP book deal with New Society Publishers
Stay tuned for more publication news and details on upcoming Roof to Table launch events as spring 2013 approaches. Thank you for your interest in the EAT UP blog, and now for your continued interest in the book.
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 promote education, cultural arts, physical fitness, and civic engagement. An award-winning 8,000 square foot (0.18 acre) rooftop garden on top of the building provides GCYC children with a safe place to grow vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Resident chefs teach the children about cooking and nutrition, using the garden’s bounty.
“If you want to be a scientist, then get up on top of that roof and start studying those plants and working in that garden,” Michelle Obama coaxed GCYC listeners during her address.
What do you think about the First Lady’s interest in nutrition and gardening?
“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 Family with a freshly-picked rooftop cucumber || photo by Lauren Mandel
Sand and his wife decided to renovate their spacious Victorian fixer-upper from bottom to top, with one key addition: a rooftop vegetable garden. “We wanted the fun of the house to extend up to the roof,” explains Sand. Now the whole family can spend time together outside, while working the soil and experiencing the joys of fresh food.
I had the pleasure of visiting the Sand Family Rooftop Garden yesterday, where I saw for myself what joy the space brings to the family. Sand’s three girls (eight, five, and three years old) frolicked around the garden as they described their favorite use for mint and explained the importance of a self-watering planter system.
Molly Sand, 8, harvesting mint || photo by Lauren Mandel
Sand had never heard of rooftop vegetable gardening when he first conceived of the project. He bought a book on container gardening, did some online research, and developed a rooftop prototype. The container design utilizes two plastic bins, one nested inside of the other. Overflow holes are drilled into both bins, and a flexible pipe leads from the surface of the soil to the base of the inner bin. The pipe is used to water the bins – at the base of the system. This type of container provides a reservoir for the growing vegetables, and Sand refills each reservoir once per week with a garden hose.
With 12 self-watering bins, Sand and his kids grow enough vegetables to snack on throughout the summer. Tomatoes, cucumbers, Brussel sprouts, and mint currently dominate the garden, and each year the family experiments with new crops.
Adaline Sand, 3, enjoying a freshly picked cucumber || photo by Lauren Mandel
Toward the end of my visit the girls shared a freshly-picked rooftop cucumber. They passed around the snack, each taking a bite, until the veggie was demolished. With the realization that the cucumber was gone, little Adaline, three, burst into tears screaming “Daddy, I want a cucumber!” The tot had developed such a deep connection to fresh vegetables that only the promise of more cucumbers could console her.
With a crop of young vegetable-loving kids, Sand certainly walks the talk of local, organic eating. What foods do your kids crave?
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 evaluate the feasibility of rooftop farming at the corporation’s main facility.
photo by Lauren Mandel
UrbanHarvest was founded recently by University of Washington MBA candidates Chris Sheppard and Chris Bajuk. The two won first place on Thursday at the University of Washington’s annual business plan competition, where they received $25,000 to propel UrbanHarvest into the next stages of development. The company’s website does not yet show any built projects, which means that UrbanHarvest could jumpstart business with an extremely high profile project.
Microsoft currently imports produce from California for its cafes and cafeterias. Growing food within the campus would minimize transportation costs and maximize freshness for cafeteria fruits and vegetables. UrbanHarvest and Microsoft identified three buildings for evaluation: a parking garage, Building 121, and Building 122. Bajuk estimates that the Microsoft Farm will cost approximately $1 million to build, and construction could start as early as next year.
Rooftop agriculture could add a flare of freshness to Microsoft and propel the corporation’s sustainability initiatives to new heights.
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, and became certified by the Midwest Organic Services Association (MOSA) shortly thereafter.
Greens basking in the sun at Uncommon Ground || photo by Lauren Mandel
The 2,500 square foot rooftop contains an intricate patchwork of raised beds, containers, and gathering space, with a lower roof area reserved for bee keeping. The farm’s innovative design drips with sophistication, and great care was clearly taken in both layout design and material selection. One key innovation involves a railing system that integrates raised planters into the perimeter fencing. Additional design features include a rainwater harvesting system (to capture roof runoff), drip irrigation, and solar thermal panels (to heat water within the building using sunlight), which provide an extra pinch of “green” to the rooftop farm and the building below.
Earlier this week I visited Uncommon Ground for the first time, and was delighted by the farm’s spring bounty. Radishes, mustard greens, and lettuces were out in full force, as were blossoming chives and spring peas, climbing toward the sun. An idyllic setting? Yes. An example of how a commercial agricultural facility can build community and empower people? You betchya.
Radishes ready for the chef || photo by Lauren Mandel
Before diving into a fiddlehead and asparagus salad down below in the restaurant, I had the pleasure of meeting Dave Snyder, Uncommon Ground’s full-time farmer. Dave’s official title of Rooftop Farm Director is as comprehensive as it sounds. In addition to crop planning and tending to seedlings, Dave spends almost half of his time tending to people. Whether it’s leading rooftop farm tours or training interns, coordinating with the chef or meeting with partner organizations – it’s all part of the job.
As Dave and I chatted, he sat on a bar stool beside a pile of papers ballasted with Felco hand shears. When discussing Uncommon Ground’s decision to go organic, Dave explained that “we use our farm as an education and outreach tool… to get people more aware of the food they’re eating.” One benefit of the farm’s organic certification is that it opens the door to conversation about organics. If you can get people talking about organic veggies, they are more likely to try them, love them, and support the cause.
Sign up for a rooftop farm tour at Uncommon Ground’s Edgewater location next time you’re in Chicago, and see what all the fuss is about!
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 about a rooftop gem (well, maybe “emerald” is more accurate), and empowering people to start their own skyline initiative. Visibility can be achieved through communication, such as media coverage, blogging, or word of mouth, or it can be achieved by physical means. Here, we focus on the latter. What simple steps can you take to ensure that your rooftop farm or garden is visible from the ground?
1| Location location location! When selecting the building on which you’ll build your rooftop haven, pick a busy neighborhood – the more foot traffic the better. Some rooftop farms are visible to cyclists and motorists, but when operating a vehicle it’s best to keep one’s eyes on the road, and not in the clouds. Pedestrians are more likely to look around while they’re in transit, and it’s safe for them to do so.
SHARE Food Program || image by Google Earth, diagram by Lauren Mandel
SHARE Food Program, in North Philadelphia, has plans to turn its warehouse roof into an active farm. While raising the funds to do so, Bill Shick, the non-profit’s on-site farmer, won a grant to build a handful of rooftop raised beds. Shick, with the help of the volunteers from the grant’s donor company, framed the beds two weeks ago, on the northwest corner of the 160,000 square foot (3.7 acre) roof. Their goal? To make the beds as visible as possible. They selected a corner of the roof that is virtually eye-level with an adjacent bridge. Both pedestrians, and in this case cyclists and motorists, can see the pilot project while in transit.
Pilot site next to an adjacent bridge || photo by Lauren Mandel
2| Build up, not out. Most roofs have a low perimeter wall, known as a parapet. When rooftop visibility is sought, you may decide to introduce vertical elements into your farm or garden design. This may involve trellises, bean poles, sunflowers, fruit trees, or any other element that extends above the parapet. Shick opted for bean poles in his pilot project to ensure that bridge travelers get a glimpse of green. The poles themselves are simple: 2” x 4” pressure treated wood that extend six feet above the raised bed framing. Each raised bed is equipped with six bean poles, which leaves plenty of real estate for climbers.
An army of bean poles extends above the parapet || photo by Lauren Mandel
Volunteers secure the 2x4s with screws || photo by Lauren Mandel
3| Advertise. Even though your rooftop farm will be obvious to some, others will walk right by without noticing. Get creative with street level advertising! I recently met the founder of Walk Raleigh, a grassroots initiative focussed on promoting urban walkability through pedestrian-oriented signage. The movement, which started as a guerrilla sign-hanging graduate thesis project, has gone viral. With the help of a Kickstarter campaign and attention from the BBC and other media giants, Walk Raleigh has expanded to cities around the country. Signage encouraging pedestrians to look up at your farm can take advantage of the same principles. Draw arrows on the sidewalk with chalk; hang signs pointing up to the roof; do whatever it takes to grab people’s attention! Just remember to keep it legal, and respect your neighbor’s property. Hey, if you neighbors get hooked, maybe they can plant some signage too.
Street-level advertising would boost the visibility of SHARE’s pilot project (right) || photo by Lauren Mandel
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 form one block to the next.
Lightweight soil mixing || photo by Lauren Mandel
One row house is different from the rest, although you would never guess it when looking from the street. This two-story building is home to a rooftop gardening pilot project, built by a local group called the Philadelphia Rooftop Farm (PRooF). PRooF volunteers gathered on the roof this past Sunday to bring a spark of green to the neighborhood.
The goal: to build two vegetable planters (out of a series of four), each measuring 3′ x 3′. The volunteers first inserted corrugated plastic foundation containers into a wood frame, which they had previously built. Next, they installed a plastic drainage layer, two layers of separation fabric, and planting soil. One volunteer looked up several soil recipes on her iPhone, and the group decided to vary the mix in each planter in order to see which blend yields the healthiest crops. After laying the soil, the volunteers covered the planters with black plastic, in order slow desiccation (soil drying) and stifle weed growth. They slit the plastic and planted a variety of seedlings, including lettuces, chard, cucumbers, eggplant, and herbs.
Separation fabric installation || photo by Lauren Mandel
The planter design was a long time in the making. Back in 2010, PRooF worked with a team of volunteer design and engineering professionals from the Community Design Collaborative (CDC) to further the group’s rooftop planter vision. The final CDC design combined base irrigation techniques that are common in Canadian rooftop planting bins, with wood framing construction, which is more typical of raised beds. The hybrid proved easy to install, and was made, in part, of salvaged materials.
Soil installation || photo by Lauren Mandel
PRooF’s plans for rooftop greening extend beyond this first installation. The active group intends on evaluating the performance of the West Philadelphia pilot project, and then building more planters around the city. Home owners are welcome to volunteer their roofs to the group, along with a commitment to water and occasionally tend to the crops. It is important that each roof is structurally sound enough to bear the weight of the planter, although the CDC design included a strategy for distributing the planter’s weight across a row home’s party walls.
This is an exciting time for rooftop gardening in Philadelphia. Thanks to organizations like PRooF, we finally have the “proof” that rooftop gardening on Philly row homes is easy!