Roof-to-Table Photography Exhibition!

Roof-To-Table Photography Exhibition flyer || by Lauren Mandel (photo credits to Lauren Mandel, The Fairmont Waterfront, Patrick Rogers Photography, Allen Ying Photography, Jake Stein Greenberg, and Ari Burling Photography)

The EAT UP | Roof-to-Table Photography Exhibition captures the vibrancy of North America’s burgeoning rooftop agriculture movement.  With fresh roofscape imagery and gritty portraiture, this collection of 30 colorful photographs portrays food’s journey from urban roof to plate.

The exhibition coincides with the publication of EAT UP | the inside scoop on rooftop agriculture, the first full-length book about rooftop food production.  The book includes over 100 images of skyline farms and vegetable gardens, most of which are printed in black and white to satisfy the publishing house’s carbon-neutral mission.  By featuring images from EAT UP, the exhibition aims to bring the colors of rooftop agriculture to life while spreading the imagery of a movement.

Each archival photograph is framed in double-reclaimed lumber that transformed from barn siding to flooring to frame stock.  EAT UP author Lauren Mandel curated this travelling exhibition.  The works of nine photographers showcase rooftop imagery from nine cities: Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, Boston, Portland, San Francisco, Sarasota, Montreal, and Vancouver.  The contributing photographers are:

- Allen Ying Photography
- Ari Burling Photography
- Jake Stein Greenberg
- John Q. Porter
- Lauren Mandel, MLA, ASLA
- Lufa Farms
- Michael I. Mandel, PhD
- Patrick Rogers Photography
- The Fairmont Waterfront

The exhibition is now on display in Philadelphia at Good Karma Cafe (928 Pine St.) through June 29.  The show will travel to Chicago from August 20 through September 15, where it will occupy the walls of Uncommon Ground (1401 W. Devon Ave.), a restaurant with its very own rooftop farm.  The photographs are available for purchase (both framed and unframed), so stop by if you’re in the area!  If you’re interested in hosting this exhibition at your own gallery, restaurant, or public venue, please contact Lauren at lauren.mandel@gmail.com.

Rooftop agriculture is real, it’s happening. Now pick up a spade, a fork, or a pen and help kick-start this revolution.

Read Full Post »

containers and raised beds and pouches, oh my

In many developed nations we are both blessed and cursed with an obscene breadth of consumer choices.  With a selection as simple as what type of cereal to buy: low fat, high fiber, whole grain, multi-color… decisions can quickly become daunting.  Selecting planters for your home rooftop garden can conjure similar feelings of intimidation, and so here are a few quick steps to select your planters and grease your track to success:

Seedlings awaiting transplant into containers || photo by Lauren Mandel

step 1| Determine your garden’s objective.  What prompted you to build a rooftop garden in the first place?  Do you need herbs for cooking?  Would you like to feed your family and friends throughout the summer?  Defining your goals while considering the size and weight restrictions of your rooftop will start you off in the right direction.  Honestly evaluating your lifestyle and how much time you can commit to watering, staking plants, and harvesting, will also help you determine what garden scale to pursue.  For dainty installations, try focusing on containers and hanging pouches.  If quantity is what you’re after, consider raised beds and self-watering containers.

step 2| Decide what crops to plant.  This will be your garden.  What vegetables and herbs will you enjoy eating and sharing with others?  Each crop prefers a different soil depth, and the height of your planters should reflect these needs.  Select shallow containers for shallow-rooted plants like greens and herbs, and deeper containers for crops like tomatoes, eggplant, and Brussel sprouts.  Keep in mind that deeper soil means heavier planters, so be sure to consult a licensed structural engineer whenever a roof’s structural capacity is unknown.

step 3| Consider using recycled materials.  Off-the-shelf planters can be quick and easy to install, but what if you’re trying to save a few bucks?  Salvaging recycled materials, such as barrels, tins, even old bathtubs, can provide you with the planters you need, without the cost.  Be smart about your selection by avoiding materials that could contaminate your soil, such as pressure treated wood, lead paint, or resins.  Remember also that metal will rust and degrade quickly.

step 4| Let it drain!  Regardless of whether you select containers, raised beds, hanging pouches, or recycled vessels, your planters must drain to prevent root rot.  Most off-the-shelf containers are manufactured with at least one hole in the base, through which excess water is ushered.  Metal containers do not contain drainage holes as consistently as ceramic and plastic pots, so drill or punch out several holes (with a hammer and nail) if none exists.  Hanging pouches are generally made of felt or burlap cloth, both of which are permeable to water.  For raised beds, try installing a hard plastic sheet drain with a high compressive strength (a common green roof component) underneath the frame to allow water to leave the bed.

What types of planters exist in your home garden?  Are you happy with their performance?

Read Full Post »

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?

Read Full Post »

“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?

Read Full Post »

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!

Read Full Post »

who 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?

Volunteer at Eagle Street Rooftop Farm (Brooklyn, NY) || photo by Lauren Mandel

Lots of people – that’s who!  People of all different ages and ethnicities, with different skill sets, and different reasons for growing food.  American rooftop farmers tend to be between the ages of 22 and 55, with men and women equally engaged.  Most, if not all of these farmers migrated to rooftops from ground-level farms.  Some came from urban farms, and others from more traditional rural farmsteads.  Farmers who land these highly-prized rooftop positions are generally very knowledgeable about their agrarian genre – whether it be row farming, beekeeping, or hydroponics.  It is rare that a newbie finds himself in charge of much on the skyline.

Trey Flemming of Urban Apiaries (Philadelphia, PA) || photo by Lauren Mandel

Farm interns are a pillar of small agrarian farms.  In this young industry, however, formal trainees are few and far between.  The rare rooftop farm intern generally falls on the younger end of the spectrum, and carries her position for one to two growing seasons.

Volunteers, on the other hand, are key players in most rooftop endeavours.  These are the passionate folks who lend their time and energy in exchange for the experience alone, and maybe some fresh veggies on the side.  Farm volunteers are sometimes much younger or older than typical rooftop occupants.  They may enter the roof from a marginalized, inner-city neighborhood, or form another unsuspecting environment.

Vincent Dessberg of I Grow My Own Veggies (Sarasota, FL) || photo by Lauren Mandel

Laborers are common in large-scale, high-yield commercial farms.  Hydroponic facilities like Gotham Greens are structured to support a crop of highly-trained workers.  The pulse of rural farms across the country relies on migrant labor.  By contrast, the high-profile nature of rooftop farms tends to attract a very different workforce.  At this point in the fledgling industry’s development, commercial hydroponic farms are the only type of rooftop farm that can afford to pay workers aside from the farmer.  Perhaps this will change as the industry becomes more established.

We’ve now covered the key farming players, but what about rooftop gardening?  By 2009, the National Gardening Association found that 50% of American households grew some portion of their own food.  This astounding statistic means that anyone can be a rooftop gardener!  What’s your story?  Tell us about your own rooftop gardening experience, and you could land yourself  in one of the Eat Up volumes.

Read Full Post »