Rooftop gardening is a concept that has been around as long as there have been roofs. City dwellers have been tucking plants on roofs gardening is a concept that has been around as long as there have been roofs. City dwellers have been tucking plants on roofs and fire escapes for generations. Even green roofs, roofs covered with soil and plants, have been around for years. It seems no matter how much land a gardener has, we always seem to be looking for more space, and rooftop gardens of all kinds are gaining popularity in both residential and commercial sites.
There are plenty of good reasons to consider a rooftop garden:
- They make use of unused or underused space
- A garden beautifies an empty space
- They can provide privacy
- They can be extremely environmentally friendly
- There is usually good sun exposure
- No deer or rabbits
Procedure of Roof Gardening
Step1: Prepration
Entire Roof Gardening Kit is provided by our government on lesser rate to promote roof gardening in each and every home, Also this is a DO IT YOURSELF kit, so this kit comes along with
- Polyurethane bags (UV treated)
- Compressed Cocopeat brick
- Biofertilizer
- Biofungicide
- Ten varieties of seeds
- Compost have to brought separately
- Manure (our personal choice. we make our own organic manure by decomposing dried leaves, fruit skin, Egg shells, and any kitchen waste that is organic)
Procedure to make your cocopeat bags
- As this is a compressed cocopeat, adding water its maximise its size as water is added. since all our Polyurethane bags are with holes hence i placed the cocopeat in large plate and poured water.
- Within minutes it will expand as much water is being continuously added at a stage it will stop absorbing as it will be fully expanded. i.e., four to five times its brick size
- Add Compost, Biofertilizer, Biofungicide and mix it will cocopeat. For one cocopeat bag, one kg compost is to be added (this quantity came in the specification book, same as been followed)
- Allow this mixture to decompose for 7-8 days, it will turn black colour (last image)
- Now we are ready to plant, lets sow and harvest
Step2: Sowing & Nuturing
There are two types of sowing
- Direct sowing
- Transplanting
In direct sowing, the depth of seed sowing should be two and half times the seed size.
Depending upon the size of plant, number of seeds are to be sowed, such as Lady fingers can be placed 4 seeds as rectangle with required clearance between the seeds in one bag., like wise climbers such as Bitter gourd, Bottle gourd, snake gourd are also 4 per bag. Brinjal, tomato are 2 per bag.
Step3: Transplanting
Transplanting is one of sowing method for plant like Tomato, Brinjal, Chillies, Capsicum are sowed in container and they are to be transplanted into bag. It takes about 30 – 35 days for their transplantation. Mean while green leaves (spinach) can be sowed and harvested in a month, so that transplantation can take place.