I currently garden in four very urban spaces: The rooftop of my building where I have been growing a wide assortment of edibles in containers for over a decade, a Guerrilla Garden on a very busy urban street corner (also about 10 years in the making), a community garden plot, and a local yardshare (new for 2010).
The CBC News at Six sent over videographer Michael Dick this morning to shoot a segment on the rising trend in growing food gardens on roof tops for what I believe is tonight’s news. I guess I should have asked.
It was still cold and windy on the roof by noon but the sun has finally emerged and the temperatures have risen enough that I can work out there without a jacket.
Davin’s chalkboard drawing did the trick.
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Click the image to see full-size.
This is what the roof looked like last Friday shortly after we had commenced project The Best and Most Ass Kicking the Roof Garden Has Ever Been, EVER 2008. High winds on the roof have made me a little fearful of getting up on a ladder to take and assemble the after photo. I think I will do it this weekend when spring decides to make its return — it’s been FREEZING here, especially on the roof where the winds are always much more intense.
For the record, it wasn’t technically this chaotic before we started but you know that old adage about how sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better… Chances are that the roof garden will go through that shift between chaos and organized a few times before the season has really even begun.
Here’s what it looked like in July 2007.
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While the street garden and the community garden plot are both merrily on their way the roof is a disaster. I started an assortment of edibles a while back amidst the chaos with the intent of organizing it, and then didn’t. When the local television stations starting calling about coming to shoot the garden for various growing season has begun segments I knew I did not want to find myself profusely apologizing for the lackluster show like I did last year.
“Hello. Welcome to my assortment of random empty containers. Please avoid pointing your camera in this direction, and that one, and while you’re at it you might want to crop out that pile of junk to your left.”
That’s the problem with a small space, there are no hidden spots to tuck away and hide the mess. Just everything out on display all the time. And so Project The Best and Most Ass Kicking the Roof Garden Has Ever Been, EVER 2008 was launched this afternoon and let me just say, it really is going to kick even harder than ever this year! Or something.
On our way back from lunch I had the sudden impulse to transform an old metal frame into a chalkboard. We stopped at the local art store and picked up some Masonite. As soon as we got back Davin got on the job, transforming what was once an over-the-top framed 3-D hologram of Jesus that I had garbage-picked on a night stroll years back into a place for us to draw pictures. The drawing you see in the photograph is tame, embarrassingly quaint really in comparison to some of the images that first graced the board. I wish I had photographed those, although I am sure there will be plenty more like them in the future.
The project started out on a whim but once it was done we all agree that a place to draw and doodle outside is one of the best non-plant additions to the roof garden ever.
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I recently added a new category, “Gayla’s Gardens” to the site archive. I’m sorry about the title, I know it’s lame. Just reading that back makes me think it should be displayed in Mistral and accompanied by a photo of me sporting matching floral-patterned knee pads, apron, gloves and a GIANT smile. I’d be wearing a floral-patterned dress too.
I decided to do this because I was having trouble locating old posts about the gardens and figured readers might also prefer the option of searching by posts that are more specifically about my personal gardening spaces, of which there are three. All three are bundled into one category rather than separating into three more categories. I have to admit that I am not quite done archiving since there are literally thousands of pages to search through on this site.
And while I’m at it I will also admit that there are lots and lots of old articles that have never been archived, period. Because I suck.
P.S. I started a Twitter account a while back that can be followed if you are into that sort of thing. It updates my feed and I occasionally write to say “Just planted the peas” and exciting things like that.
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Right. So. Yet another reason why I can not grow edibles in the Guerilla / Street Garden.
The other night we stepped outside for a walk to discover a giant patch of bright blue paint slapped onto the raw brick wall of our building… much of which splattered onto my plants below.
There are so many reasons why I think this is a bad idea:
And one reason for the pro side to this argument:
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