Lost Island in morning light casts a shadow upon the western two year old debris clump. The tomatoes are to the right and you can start to see the blight from this angle. Even if the tomato crop fails again, at least I won’t have to work as hard doing all that canning. The debris clumps look nice.
Black Eyed Susans
Black eyed susans thrive amongst squash, chives, spearmint, and eggplant on the main roof. These flowers volunteer their services every year and share a 20 gallon container with chives.
Garden spider
Spiders start work early evening by spinning a web and waiting for an errant bug to stop by. The webs only last so long. Here’s a spider still doing business in the morning. This will be her last catch of the day. Sometimes I have to be careful at night in the garden because there can be quite a few spider webs. The spiders are harmless but I feel badly about ruining a web which took so much hard work to make. Maybe later this year I’ll get a night shot.
Purple Morning Glory
Purple and pink morning glories are usually the first to bloom. The Heavenly Blues bloom later but are more rare and have problems competing. Most years I seed Heavenly Blues to give them some help to even out the odds. This year I did nothing so we’ll see if any Heavenly Blues make it.
Squirrel
A rodent also known as a squirrel uses telephone lines to get around without being eaten by local cats, raccoons, or coyotes.
More Debris Clumps
Here’s a nice shot of three debris clumps in morning light. The far clump is in its second year. Lost island is in the middle and the greenery is starting to take hold. Debris clumps are light, portable groups of plants that can go into dormancy. They are light enough where they can occupy middle areas of the roof. The roots don’t bond to anything so they can be easily moved. Theoretically an entire roof could consist of these. They would need some watering regime. I’ll find out this summer if one of them puts a hole in my rubber roof. A problem I see is that an elm seed starts to grow and that would mean tree roots. Tree roots can go through concrete. IMHO, green roofs should be inspected frequently.
Tomato patch
Another view of the tomato patch on first day of harvest.
Tomatoes and Debris clump
The tomatoes look OK and today was the first day of harvesting. Although the tomatoes taken today are small hopefully they’ll get bigger. If everything goes right I should be harvesting tomatoes through September. The Debris Clump next to the tomatoes has gotten quite large. This is two debris clumps from last year that merged into one. When dry, the entire mass can be pushed around the roof like a big mop head. Hopefully no roots penetrate the rubber. Since I’ve never done this to such a large scale I’m in unchartered territory. I need to find a roofer to help me out should a leak occur.
MGs top SW veranda corner pergola
By the end of July Morning Glories top the pergolas and start to pile up. By the end of August they will amass quite a bit of greenery. These pictures show the calm before the deluge of greenery occurs in the upcoming weeks.
gardenlab / edible estates #3: suburban new york city
gardenlab / edible estates #3: suburban new york city.
I found the site at the above link to be interesting. It looks like they might have used a lot of square foot gardening techniques.