your farm. anywhere.

In the gardens around Somerville, summer crops are starting to take off. Gardens that were planted early in the season and have plenty of sun are starting to overflow with fat sugar snap peas hiding among green leaves on the vine, and tomato plants are growing big enough to be velcroed to stakes and produce tiny green tomatoes. Clients who have been used to going out into their gardens to harvest a salad for dinner are seeing some changes. As the days get longer and hotter, lettuce begins to go through a process known as bolting. The plant shoots up a tall stalk with flowers at the top, getting ready to go to seed. Although it may be charming to watch your lettuce flower, bitter bolting lettuce is not so charming to the pallet.

Until about two days ago the yard outside of the Green City Growers office was getting very difficult to navigate. Looking out the office window, you were transported into a jungle of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and melons. Eggplants held their own in a bed, herbs poked their little leaves out of the fray, blueberry bushes calmly ripened their berries. The tomatoes and peppers were jumbled together: Black Prince next to Black Velvet, Yellow Brandiwine in between a Sun Cherry and a Jet Star, Commandment pepper squeezed beside a Jalepeno. There was nowhere to walk because the squash were in the path. The gate could barely open as the jungle inside, bursting with leaves and flowers hoping to turn into fruit, pushed its way outwards.

Then, the jungle moved to a farm. Well, much of the jungle. And the farm isn’t traditional. It’s rather small on the scale of farms. But it’s on a roof. This “farm” is the rooftop garden on a restaurant called the Ledge, in Dorchester. This installation is different than some of our other rooftop projects because we are working with green roofing engineers: instead of putting garden beds on the roof, the entire roof has become a garden.

In the small fridge in the back room of the office, nestled behind a chocolate mocha cake, is a bag of rather subdued ladybugs. They are not a snack for hungry Green City Growers employees. No, instead of hanging out in the fridge waiting to be eaten, they are hanging out waiting to eat.

You might not think very much about the soil that fills your garden bed. Maybe it looks dark brown, you notice if it is dry, or it is just the background to the beautiful flowers and tasty vegetables that grow out of it. Here at Green City Growers we think about your dirt. We spend abundant time on the art of mixing dirt, working with a palette of peat moss, compost, vermiculite, and top soil to create that deep brown that makes your greens happy.

Square Foot Gardening

Your raised bed farm utilizes a technique called square foot gardening, developed in the 1970’s by Mel Bartholomew. It allows for you to grow more crops in less space, and with less work. Raised bed farms are easy to tend to and care for, and can be placed anywhere with adequate sunlight, including driveways, decks, or rooftops.