All Hands On the Rooftop

Nighttime planting under the new moon

April 22nd, Puebla - With a surprisingly dry April so far and no rain in over two weeks, things have been heating up on the rooftop. But the heat hasn't slowed us down. The Dadas have returned from the last detox retreat, most hands are on deck around the house and collaboration is growing. A few days ago we held a nice, intimate little seed germinating party at night under a thin sliver of moon. Everyone from the house gathered on the roof to lend a hand with the planting. Dada sang a special mantra that was given for tree planting ceremonies and the seeds were tenderly placed into their earthy cocoons with thoughts of universal consciousness nurturing them to maturity. The location of the seeds will intentionally put some degree of stress of them, in the form of heat and wind, while protecting them from heavy rain and direct sun, aside from a few hours in the morning. In this way, they will be better adapted to the harsh conditions on the roof. 

Filling the seed trays

On gardeningbythemoon.com it is said that:

“At the new moon, the lunar gravity pulls water up, and causes the seeds to swell and burst. This factor, coupled with increasing moonlight, creates balanced root and leaf growth. This is the best time for planting above ground annual crops that produce their seeds outside the fruit. Examples are lettuce, spinach, celery, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and grain crops. Cucumbers like this phase also, even through they are an exception to that rule.”

We planted two varieties of lettuce, spinach and tomatoes; three varieties of peppers; as well as cucumbers, squash, kale, cilantro, okra, swiss chard, beets and a few others.

As a seed starting mix we used: 

50% peat moss

30% perlite

20% sifted bokashi compost

Adding compost tea to the strawberries

That same night we also added a type of compost tea to all the plants of the house. We had started making it two days prior by steeping various composts in a jug of water and aerating the mixture using a fish tank pump. The application of this type of compost tea is more for the beneficial microorganisms, which is especially important when gardening in contained spaces where the natural diversity of true soil is not as abundant. This is a great addition to a raised bed where you are building soil with sheet mulching, bringing much needed microbial life into the mix. I've done this for two 2'x5' raised beds, filling them with various layers of grass clippings, dry leaves, compost and black earth. I'm guessing that it will take at least two months before they'll be ready to receive transplants. There will be two other raised beds, this time made from pallet wood instead of fruit boxes, that we can fill with the standard mix, but heavier on compost, for the vegetables that we just planted. 

Discussing the workings of worms in the vertical migration box

The ins and outs of the SIP containers

Progress on the Sub-Irrigated Planters

The 'p' word that I haven't wanted to mention up until this point has lingered in my mind since the beginning: pressure. Will it be enough? How will the mechanics of water flow and the physics of this most crucial substance interrelate with the design ideas? I let a little part of my ego believe that everything could work flawlessly after some small initial tweaks. Consequently I felt a little defeated and naive, but not at all surprised, when the system presented some substantial deficiencies. Initial testing with just the interconnected containers was successful: when I added water to only the first bin, it eventually became level across all six without any trouble. The problem was getting the water the flow strong enough out of the 200L plastic barrel, which will be used to catch rainwater. I was testing with a miniature hydroponic float valve, but it seems the tube size was too small and not enough water flowed out to force the valve to be fully open, resulting in a tiny trickle. 

First trials of the SIP containers

I'm sure it'll be a simple solution and won't require me to change the design too much. Possible solutions: raising the barrel up another foot; switching from half inch water tubing to thicker PVC between the barrel and the control tank and the control tank and the first SIP bin. If the water can flow faster between the barrel and the first bin, there shouldn't be any issues after that. As a backup plan, in case this design becomes too much of a headache, we can always convert the bins into stand alone units, which will then need to be filled individually. The rain catchment and barrel system can stay the same, aside from changing the outflow to a tap or hose connection.

Base for 200L tank, partially on load-bearing concrete wall protrusion

Construction of the bins will always use the same principles and components, but the materials used for various parts can easily be substituted with similar alternatives. For example, instead of using PVC to prop up the soil substrate, you could use glass jars, plastic containers (as long as they're sturdy enough) or bricks, etc. The hydroponic baskets could be replaced with plastic containers (sour cream, yogurt, etc). Simply cut lengthwise slats all around it so the water can enter into the compacted peat moss. These soil “legs” can be packed with pure peat moss to act as a tight sponge that can wick the water up into the soil “bed” above it. Packing (but not too tightly) improves the water absorption capacity and holds the peat together, preventing it from escaping into the water reservoir below. The rest of the mix will include other elements like perlite (for aeration), black earth (for minerals and structure) and organic matter like different kinds of compost. The trial mixture that I've used to fill a stand alone SIP container was comprised of the following materials:

50% peat moss,

30% perlite,

10% bokashi,

10% corn fibre compost

New Additions

Painted Compost Bin with sacs of grass clippings and
leaves from a nearby municipal park

Two raised beds with sheet mulching in progress to "create" soil

Raised bed made from pallet wood

Inventory of soil building ingredients on hand and easily accessible

Bokashi: fermented compost, mostly sheep manure, with hay, bark and dirt. 

Corn fibre compost: after the harvest, they slash and then pile the remaining corn stalk and husks in layers and allow time to decompose, becoming a thriving mass of beneficial fungi and other microorganisms. It's used as a nutrient dense food for livestock. I've been tearing this up and mixing it with fine wood chips as a mulch.

Black Earth: mostly fine, dark sand and clay

Black leafy compost: mixed half and half with Black Earth to form a base soil to be mixed with other ingredients. Usually makes up 40% of what I've been using to pot with.

Worm Compost: they're breeding and becoming voracious eaters.

Canadian Peat Moss

Perlite

Lime

There's still no progress on the roof and the wind and sun seem to be getting fiercer, but just this afternoon, another welder stopped by the garden to check out the space and hear our ideas. We made plans to start building next week! Hopefully the search has ended and the blue tarp can finally come down.