Molly de Aguiar, Program Associate
Did you see the recent article in the New York Times about rooftop gardening and the movement to replace traditional roofs with green roofs? Not only does a green roof offer many environmental benefits, it also provides an opportunity, especially for people in urban areas, to grow their own food on a larger scale.
Paula Crossfield (pictured above) persuaded the board members of her co-op in New York City to put a 400 square-foot garden on the building’s recently renovated roof.
Crossfield says that the rooftop garden helps inform her work: she writes a sustainable food blog, Civil Eats, for the Times. See this interesting and useful post about sustainable food blogs she published on Mark Bittman’s “Bitten” blog.
We’re experimenting and learning here at Dodge with our own green roof and garden.
So far, the roof and garden look spectacular (thanks in part, I think, to unseasonably cool and wet weather). It will be interesting to see how the garden performs in the hot August sun.
Take a look at some current pictures; the swiftly growing grasses in the background are an easy visual indicator of the roof’s progress.
Sunflowers and zinnias are getting tall. We’ve already started harvesting herbs.
Zucchini! I never noticed before how growing zucchini looks like blowing up balloons to make balloon animals.
For comparison, here’s what the roof and garden looked like a couple of weeks ago.
Stay tuned throughout the summer for garden updates.
Top photo: Robert Wright for the New York Times
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