Senga's Blog
Eco-chic Outdoor Living & Exterior Design
Feb. 8/2010 Building an Edible Green Roof
Dolce Vita - Design and Build Your own Edible Green Roof
t is only February and I am already dreaming of warm summer nights out on one of our outdoor dining patios. My inspiration from over 3 years ago – Umberto’s cooking School, Tuscany (above). This is Eggplant Roll made from the school’s vegetable garden – freshly picked that morning. There the resident chef and teacher Maretta walks down the lane from the 18th century chateau to pick the vegetables and produce fresh from the kitchen garden. Ahhh if only we had the luxury - of land that is!
Flash forward to last summer. Dinner time at the Lindsay/Wright household – my sister visiting from Idaho was the guest of honour. ‘So how can I help?’ she asked. ‘Well we are going out to get some stuff from the garden for dinner.’ I answered, grabbing a pair of large knife and basket. ‘I just need you to hold the ladder.’ After retrieving the produce list from my husband chef (and yes lucky me – he is a French trained chef!) I beckon her to garage roof...
My edible green roof – chef approved! 
Swiss Chard, squash, tomatoes, baby melons, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, strawberries, French leaf and iceberg lettuce all provide the base for the evening’s meal of prawns and salmon my husband caught off Horseshoe Bay yesterday. As we sit down to start the meal my sister grabs her camera and just has to take a picture of the plates. Her comment is ‘Do you eat like this all the time?’ And I can honestly say ‘yes!’
Since I started my 'Year in a Sustainable Garden' I have been going through the vegetables (mostly heirloom) that will be growing on the edible green roof. So today's blog is a 'how to.' It became even more evident on the weekend as I was emailed by a leading publishing house from Australia to contribute to their book on urban agriculture. And in particular they were interested in the edible green roof - apparently veryl little is done on known about them 'down under.' So here goes...
The 100' Diet
Edible green roofs raise the sustainable bar further by creating local food producing machines you can enjoy at your doorstep. Never mind the 100 mile diet, now we are talking about the 100’ diet! And the best part is that most of your produce can be grown on less than 1’ of soil. And with weight being an issue on many existing roofs – this is a bonus.
So How Do You Create An Edible Green Roof?
And 4 Weeks Later We Are Harvesting!!!!
