The tenacity of chickweed...

or the freakishly mild winter of 2011? This week i went up top to make sure the tarps surrounding the bins were secure, and found dozens of bins overrun with chickweed. The brown scraps are degraded maple leaves that were salvaged in the fall, packed into green garbage bags and volleyed onto the roof from the alley. The maple leaves act as a blanket mulch, insulating the soil surface against the cold, and eventually breaking down into free mineral nutrients. If worms in the bins haven't succumbed to the freezing temperatures(?), then those invertebrate tenants will metabolize the leaves into fertilizer.

How the roof looks right now. Bundled up!

Under the hops, looking north at twilight in late September

Cascade variety of hop vine reaching the ridge (center beam) of the greenhouse frame, which marks them at more than 20 feet. The two "suns," in the back are the alley street lights.

What Parts and Labour's Chef Matty did with his roof greens.

Bins draining for winter 2011 - Compost bin absorbs clean up.

Draining the containers in the late fall served two functions. It removed extra water weight before the roof has to contend with the winter ice and snow load, and hopefully it will prevent container and root damage by removing the most likely source of expansion and contraction in the container - water. We like to over engineer, so after draining the containers we move them all up onto the flashing that caps the support walls of the building, and then wrapped the drained bins in waterproof tarps. All that debris in the foreground compost heap? Dead plant material, and compostable coffee and tea cups we keep up top for guests and work parties.

City Hops Project - Early September

Three varieties of Hops, Cascade, Centennial and Nugget, grown as part of Bellwood Brewery's city hop project. First year hop vines typically grow 8-10 feet, and rarely produce cones. These varieties shot up past 20 feet long, and produced heavily. Even though they seem to love container living, we don't know how they'll do over the winter. In the fall I let the vines die, cut them back, layered some compost on the tops of the bins, buried the whole bin cluster in maple leaves, and wrapped the whole thing up in a tarp. I'm hoping that this "dumpling," approach will prevent the freeze/thaw that damages root systems overwinter. Last year the chives made it through with less padding, but apparently it's almost impossible to kill them. Fingers crossed.

Garden's beauty relaxes staff/lures them into education zone.

Staff lounge and tool storage area just before the second overhead shade tarp was re-attached.
The discounted astroturf patch in the background gained credibility, (with us), through it's no maintenance, no problem approach. Staff report it was softer than expected.

Just a rainbow. No big deal.

Facing south, mid-summer 2011. Semi-transparent camouflage netting worked as a partial privacy screen in between us and our neighbors in the Community housing across Queen Street. Originally we put up tarps, but the high winds up top would catch in them, and tear them to shreds. The netting worked well enough in the end. I felt like I was in a private space, and the view into their windows from the main roof was obscured.

Weed takes over salad bin, and we're into it.

One of the quickest ways to lose plant saving moisture from a container is through surface evaporation. This outrageously prolific chickweed explosion (the wee, low growing green plant with star shaped leaf clusters) slowed the moisture loss of this bin down by spreading over the soil surface like a chubby, lettuce cooling blanket. Less watering equals less work, and free chickweed equals a better profit on salad green mixes for sale. Check the last blog for an article about treating ulcers with chickweed, or search Stellaria Media for plant info. If you'd like to shoot straight down the native plant, medicinal/witchcraft rabbit hole, add Susan Weed to your search.

Chickweed flips bird to containment attempts by rooting in nothing

Volunteer chickweed plants set up shop on the roof surface. Another example of native plants thriving in a harsh environment, and why I often consider abandoning high maintenance cultivated varieties. Chickweed doesn't mind the shade, is an effective natural mulch, tastes like fresh corn, is prolific and adds an interesting dimension to salads. Here's a link to an article about chickweed treating ulcers, and other city ailments. http://www.livestrong.com/article/507579-chickweed-used-for-stomach-inflammation/

Nettles, surprisingly comfortable in the bins.

A bin of Urtica Diocia, or stinging nettle that was established in 2010, and returned to take over three bins in 2011. The self defense systems of this native flowering perennial are tiny, hollow stinging hairs called Tricomes. The Tricomes, found in the leaves of the plant, act like tiny hypodermic needles, and shoot Histimines and other irritating chemicals into skin that comes in contact with the plant. This plant has an extensive medicinal and culinary history in North America, is 10% protein, and, like other wild edibles introduced to the Parts and Labour roof, it manages to thrive despite the harsh temperature fluctuations up top. It also sneak attacks the chefs fingers.

Here's a site with a great deal of nettle lore, including the benefits of being flogged with the plant?

http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Plants.Folder/Nettle.html

compost bin gets a carbon boost from the Grid.

The microbes responsible for breaking down the compost pile need a balanced diet of nitrogen and carbon. Nitrogen comes from green materials such as food scraps, manure, and grass clippings. Carbon comes from brown materials such as dead leaves, hay, wood chips and shredded newspaper. A ratio that contains equal portions by weight (not volume) of both works best, and since most of what we've got up top is green plant material, this layer of abandoned weeklies helped to balance things out.
The cage was 6 plastic ties and 3$ worth of chicken wire I picked up at a Parkdale garage sale. It's 3 feet across - small enough to turn and keep air flow going, but large enough to retain the heat necessary to "cook" the compost. We started this pile mid-summer, and as of two weeks ago, it was half broken down into black black soil. Last week we cut the cage and turned the pile into a six by two foot, "compost burrito," that is wrapped in a dark tarp. It was a precaution against over-weighting any one point on the roof overwinter. We will see if the burrito is wide enough to keep the worms alive this winter.

Hops grown for Bellwoods Brewery as part of their City Hops Project. The plants were healthy until last week, and then over a period of a few days they were infested with green aphids AND cucumber beetles. I used Ed Lawrence's anti-everything spray to treat them. It's one part dish soap, two parts neem oil and 40 parts water. Step one - physically remove the bugs by spraying the vines with the hose (satisfying!) 2. mix the soap, neem and water in the water bottle and shake hard to emulsify. 3. spray on vines, top and bottom of leaves, and let sit for 10 minutes (some sat for twenty and seemed just fine). 4 rinse off with hose. All of this was done early in the morning to prevent the soap, sun and oil from combining into a plant scorching slurry. It's been a week and a half and the vines are still bug free.

Okra transplants that we are raising in the ice cream buckets never got as large as predicted, but they have started producing anyway!

Lazy Housewife pole beans started to produce these tiny beans at the start of July, and now they are going strong.
Climbing beans love the bins (not all plants do), they are thriving in this freakish heat wave, and so sweet!

forty degrees in the shade

Forty degrees in the shade.

THE PLANTS WATER THEMSELVES!...kinda/Election signs, not just for sledding anymore.

Last summer the rooftop hit 42 degrees C, and the sub-irrigated bins were the reason most (most!) of the plants made it through those extreme conditions.

The Rooftop Garden Project in Montreal is responsible for designing and providing our bins.
You can make your own from a recycling bin, a 1" PVC pipe, and an election sign for the false bottom/reservoir.

Go to http://rooftopgardens.ca/en/kits to find out more about the Rooftop Garden Project, how to build your own bins, and other examples of urban agriculture in Montreal.

the return of the mushrooms!

Our soil was inoculated with Mycelial culture to facilitate nutrient and water uptake in the plants. Sometimes when you use this type of culture the fruiting body of the mycelium (mushrooms!) rear their heads. No idea what this variety is.

For more mushroom education go to the website of Paul Stamets, a mushroom expert who claims to have cured his stutter at age 16 by ingesting a massive dose of Psilocybes (magic mushrooms) and then spending the night clinging to the top of a 100-foot redwood during an electrical storm.

Stamets is a leading expert of treatment of contaminated soil with mushrooms. His work is hopeful and hilarious stuff, and you can learn to grow your own.

and, here's his very attractive wife Dusty with some mushroom kits. awesome. http://www.fungiperfecti.com/kits/index.html

The return of the beans in ice cream buckets!

Buckets salvaged from outside Film Buff on Roncesvalles. Best free, food-grade container score in the downtown. They leave the empty (sticky) buckets and lids out almost every night. I use them at home to store dry goods, as planters and as trash cans.

In the mint bin!

What it would be like to sit in the mint bin - North side of the roof, facing south and Queen street.

Icicle and Cherry Belle radishes

Red Deer Tongue Lettuce in the top left corner - Matty had a visiting Chef up top, and he said Portlander's call this variety Deers Blood.

Cooling off the Cuban Mojito mint before transplanting. This variety is called the only true Mojito mint. It was brought to Canada from Cuba in 2006 and has a mild warm scent, compared to the sweet pungent notes of typical spearmints. It won't overpower the high notes in your booze, it will take over your garden with its rhizome (creeping) root system, and has been in your Parts and Labour Bar cocktails since the Spring of 2011. Come taste an original component of Ernest Hemingway's favorite drink.

Hops up top

Three varieties of hops, two of each, planted in collaboration with soon to be opening Bellwoods Brewery - The six little bro's from the Cannabaceae family, grown from Rhizomes, have shot past their predicted first year length of 8-10 feet and it's only July.

Chives - our first harvest to the P&l kitchen.