Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

Molly de Aguiar, Program Associate

We’re only weeks away from getting our hands in the dirt and planting our rooftop garden—we’ve already cleaned it up and have starter plants of lettuces, dill and radishes in our kitchen. We’re also working with the Freylinghuysen Arboretum to source native and local plants and to help us plan for three seasons of planting.

We took advantage of the warm weather last week to clean up our planters.

Our lavender and chives are thriving already.

And so are our strawberries!

This compost bin is a very happy addition to our gardening arsenal. We have a smaller compost bin in our staff kitchen which we empty into our rooftop bin frequently. In addition to our food scraps, the Dodge Foundation uses compostable plates, cups and napkins which we can tear up and stick in our bin.

Right now, the rest of our green roof is growing beautifully. The color of the sedum is spectacular.

I’ll share more pictures as this year’s garden grows. In the meantime, if you want to take a look at last year’s garden and green roof photos, you can find them on Flickr.

While we’re on the topic of green roofs and gardens, below is an interesting video from the Guardian on green roofs in Sheffield, Yorkshire, UK which I saw on Twitter via our friends at grist. (Follow grist on Twitter).

Here’s a clever idea for small space gardening from Re-nest using recycled soda bottles:

From CRAFT, you might find these best easy garden tips helpful:

And The Crochet Dude helps you plant your garden in an easy grid:

Excited to get your hands in the dirt? What are you planting this year?

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The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark is October 7-10
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Michelle Knapik, Environment Program Director

Once inside the unassuming entrance of Roberta’s, if you can cast your gaze past the wood fired stove and pizza gurus, let your olfactory senses take in something beyond the sweet aroma of ricotta pancakes sopping up maple syrup, and put down your mason jar of local beer, you will see, hear and experience the backyard urban oasis – a farming oasis that is. But don’t look out, look up. There is where you will find the first of the rooftop greenhouses.

The hoop greenhouse is built on top of a shipping container that is fitted out as a radio station (more on that later). Another captures waste heat from the condenser unit for the walk-in refrigerator.

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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. (more…)

Molly de Aguiar, Program Associate

We’ve talked a lot about our three-story biowall on this blog and on our website – that it is a central aesthetic feature of our new office space, and how it embodies the connection between human health and the natural world.

It’s quite a privilege to walk past it each day and to hear the sound of the water trickling down the wall. We marvel at its beauty and its clever design, as it efficiently and naturally filters the air we breathe.

In fact, some visitors come to our office just to see the wall and learn how it works.

Lately, I’ve seen some other interesting examples of bringing nature indoors.

If you are interested in your own vertical garden, for example, ELT Living Walls sells kits that you can install in your home. How about one for your home office or kitchen, like these?

Check out ELT’s terrific photo gallery here.

Greenworks, based in Stockholm, recently exhibited their concept for a self-watering, mobile plantwall at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair. How would you like one of these for your home?

Also a prototype, this bathmat designed by Nguyen La Chanh of Switzerland is made of a variety of mosses planted in a type of foam called plastazote. The mosses get watered as you towel off from your shower or bath.

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Molly de Aguiar, Program Associate

Here’s an extra-curricular project we’re excited about at Dodge: our rooftop garden.

We planted our containers two weeks ago. We filled them with herbs (sage, rosemary, dill, parsley, cilantro, basil), flowers (zinnias, dahlias, sunflowers), strawberries, squash, and several kinds of tomatoes, including the Ramapo – the famous Jersey tomato that time almost forgot. Many of the plants came directly from Rutgers’ own greenhouses.

Two weeks later, our plants are growing like mad (note how the grass in the background has grown too).

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