Category: Rooftop

BELFAST — Since Belfast resident Elsa Mead started her “victory garden” over two months ago, she said she has noticed more raised bed gardens in people’s yards. The coronavirus has given people more time for gardening and provided local garden and hardware centers a business boost.

Victory gardens are rooted in World Wars I and II, when people started growing their own food to supplement the nation’s limited food supply and to lift people’s spirits during a time of uncertainty and economic hardship.

“It’s something to look forward, to have something beautiful to look at, to be involved with growing food, be able to share our harvest. That’s why we call it a victory garden,” Mead said.

She said she is not traditionally a gardener, but when her daughter, Stephanie Mead, and her boyfriend, Erich Winzer, came for a visit right before a coronavirus outbreak around their New York City neighborhood, the two decided to wait out the pandemic in Maine and spend their time planting a garden with Mead.

Stephanie and Winzer have an urban garden on the rooftop of their apartment building, where they grow much of their own food, they said. The couple had been looking for properties in upstate New York to have a little farm and workshop for their work of building sets and props for theaters and TV shows like “Sesame Street,” Stephanie said.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE: https://waldo.villagesoup.com/p/residents-plant-more-gardens-retailers-see-revenues-grow/1860748

In recent years, there have been several initiatives and campaigns, promoting urban gardening on rooftops and elsewhere, to encourage more eco-friendly solutions across the country. Fortunately, there has been a positive response from both Egyptian residents and the government in following and implementing such initiatives.

Founded by brothers, Sherif and Tarek Hosny due to their interest in plants and nature, Schaduf is a social enterprise that initially started off by offering microloans in the form of rooftop gardens for low-income Egyptians, and later expanded to creating more green spaces on rooftops of the entire country.

Today, Schaduf is a leader in designing and implementing green walls and roof gardens, as well as vertical and roof landscaping.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE: https://www.greenroofs.com/2020/05/28/urban-gardening-the-rooftop-gardens-of-cairo/

In an Olmstedian effort to bring city dwellers back to nature and to produce a sustainable, local assortment of fruits and vegetables, urban farming company Agripolis is bringing what will be the world’s largest rooftop urban farm to Paris. Situated along the périphérique in the city’s 15th arrondissement, the 150,000-square-foot sprawling green space will sit atop the Exhibition Center at Porte de Versailles when the space opens in 2020. Designed by local French firm Valode & Pistre (who were also responsible for the recent transformation of Gare du Nord), the urban farm is a part of the decade-long renovation project to make the exhibition center a model for sustainable development as the rest of the city follows suit.

“Today, large metropolitan areas are the focal point of a number of ecological issues,” says Clément Lebellé, cofounder of Cultures en Ville, a partner in the project that specializes in urban agricultural development. “These issues include the loss of natural ground cover, pollution, and rainwater management but also societal issues such as the lack of connection between urban dwellers and their food supply.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/paris-will-soon-be-home-to-the-worlds-largest-rooftop-urban-farm

High above the Boston Medical Center grows a bountiful organic vegetable garden that feeds patients, staff and the poor.

More than a hundred volunteers tend the garden, which includes kale, collard greens, bok choy, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, beans, squash and a wide variety of herbs.

The crops are grown in organic soil in recycled milk crates and are pollinated by two onsite beehives that provide honey as well. The 2500-square-foot farm also provides habitat for bees in an otherwise uninhabitable urban setting.

The eco-farm insulates the building reducing cooling and heating costs and absorbs rainwater that would otherwise contribute to sewage overflow in the city streets below.

But most of all, the rooftop garden provides nutritious food for those who need it most, between 5000 and 7000 pounds of it per year.

“Food is medicine. That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing,” says David Maffeo, the hospital’s senior director of support services.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE: https://returntonow.net

It’s a warm afternoon in late spring and before us rows of strawberry plants rustle in the breeze as the scent of fragrant herbs wafts across the air. Nearby, a bee buzzes lazily past. Contrary to appearances, however, we are not in an idyllic corner of the countryside but standing on the top of a six-storey building in the heart of the French capital.

Welcome to the future of farming in Paris – where a whole host of rooftop plantations, such as this one on the edge of the Marais, have been springing up of late. Yet this thriving operation is just a drop in the ocean compared to its new sister site. When that one opens, in the spring of 2020, it will be the largest rooftop farm in the world.

Currently under construction in the south-west of the city, this urban oasis will span approximately 14,000 sq metres (150695 sq feet) – also making it the largest urban farm in Europe. With the plan to grow more than 30 different plant species, the site will produce around 1,000kg of fruit and vegetables every day in high season. Tended by around 20 gardeners, they will also be using entirely organic methods.

READ THE FULL STORY: TheGuardian.com

Members of religious orders have always had a need to garden, inspired no doubt by one of the Christian faith’s noted cultivators, Saint Fiacre, a green-fingered holy man who became the patron saint of gardeners.

When monks, friars and nuns established their enclaves, they turned to gardens of herbs, wildflowers and vegetables to feed and heal themselves. Other essential elements: a dairy and a fruit orchard. Apiaries also played a key role, providing honey, mead and beeswax for candles.

The garden, as Westerners know it, survived the Dark Ages because of monasteries. Given these traditions, it was natural for the founders of the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America to count on a small farm when in 1897 they purchased 100 acres of open land in Northeast Washington.

READ THE ARTICLE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/a-city-farm-is-revived-faithfully/2018/07/10/713f1f40-7e23-11e8-b0ef-fffcabeff946_story.html?utm_term=.eaa91050eb78

“For nearly 150 years, many residents in the Washington, D.C., area have turned to W.S. Jenks & Son for their hardware and home improvement needs.

The product selection has shifted from wood-burning stoves, heaters and horseshoes to an array of modern hardware and lawn and garden products, but the business remains a spot for community members to gather.

In 2014, the family-owned and operated business moved to a new location in a unique, older building, says Jerry Siegel, president of W.S. Jenks & Son.”

See MORE Pictures at: “HardwareRetailing.com“