Rooftop Garden Quick Tour

When deciding where to locate a vegetable garden, the most important consideration is sunshine. You can fix bad soil, you can fix a steep slope, but you can't fix a lack of sun. And the entire front yard of our "casita" is shaded by a giant ficus tree.

This giant ficus tree shades our  whole front yard.
And it is doing one heck of a job on the sidewalk, too!

Pepe's Ladder

The only "full sun" spot was on the roof. But to get to the roof, I had to first build a ladder. Sarah has a bit of a fear of heights, so if I wanted to lure her up there to visit my garden, I had to build the ladder tall enough to extend beyond the roof line, and make it narrower at the top. That way she would have something to hang on to while she inched her way around the ladder onto the roof, and again when she inched back onto the ladder to climb down. Just to keep it interesting I made the rungs all slightly crooked and varied the spacing. I call it my Mexican ladder. Our neighbor, Pepe, was so impressed with the ladder that he asked if he could buy it from me when we head back to the states. He calls it my American ladder. But I couldn't accept money for it, so it will have to be a gift.

Container acquisition

Since there was no soil on the roof, I would have  to grow in containers. That sounds like a simple enough solution - in the states, we would just drive down to the garden center and buy everything - from soil to seeds to containers - all in one trip. But not here in Mexico (at least not without breaking down and going to Walmart, which I refuse to do). Here you have to kind of just start asking around for each item, and follow any leads. We found crates at the November 20th (Street) Market, bought bags of soil from a guy we happened upon outside the Pochote Market, bought waste baskets at the Chedrawi store. Sarah has a friend named Mica who is also a little nutty for growing veggies. Mica and I followed every lead for veggie seeds or seedlings that we could find. I bought lettuce seeds from a woman at the Pochote Market, whom I have not seen since. We found an American woman who advertises seedlings on FaceBook, and I bought strawberry and green pepper seedlings from her. I found a dried out climbing bean on my way to El Pedregal one day, and stopped to collect all the bean seeds. We found an actual organic seed rack in the back room of a coffee shop, and I bought tomato, pepper, and herb seeds to share (all labeled in Spanish, of course, so I really have no idea what I am growing).  Herb plants are easier to find - they are commonly sold at markets, potted in black plastic bags. Bill and Carol, a couple from Canada, gave us a tour of their rooftop garden system, and sent us home with cherry tomato and squash seedlings - as well as a much better idea of how to build "wicking beds" (planting beds that include a water reservoir below that wicks water up into the soil above). Some of our garlic started to sprout, so I added some of that to the beds, too.

But enough of introductions, let's start the tour!

…we're on the roof! 

As we step around the ladder...

The trellis is made from "cariso", a  bamboo- like weed that grows alongside the creeks and ditches. PVC pipe allows me to refill the reservoirs beneath the beds.  The scale of the trellis is a bit ambitious given we only have another 3 months here. But I am optimistic, and ready for growth! The next-door neighbor, Raul, from on top of his roof, commented that he thought the garden looked attractive, and that HE'D like a garden like mine on HIS roof, so I offered to help him build it (keep in mind, this transaction occurred in Spanish, so I am actually not sure what I agreed to!).

Center crate: Cherry toms, beans and squash in the back,
lettuce in the front

Left crate: twin wicking beds of strawberries,
beans, swiss chard, garlic and tomatoes

Right crate: twin wicking beds of squash,
beans, tomatoes and garlic

Every good garden needs a security system...

The neighbor's dogs keep watch day and night,
but mostly they just bark indiscriminately. 

…an irrigation system...

A drip in the water filter provided enough water for the garden
so that I didn't need to haul buckets up the ladder -
until, that is, the water guys came this week,
and the leak seems to have stopped :-( 

…and a compost system to make use of household food and yard scraps.

Rigo, the gardener, saved the garden clippings,
Pepe, the neighbor, loaned me his drill,
and I modified a couple of trash bins.
The tire helps with "turning the pile"

Simple design: plastic basket inside plastic bin
allows me to control air flow.
A daily inspection tells me when I need to add moisture. 

New to me since we came to Mexico is "lombricomposta" - worm composting. I started my own bin almost three months ago, and I haven't killed off the workers yet. These "California Wigglers" were bred in the 1970's, in California, to feed on food scraps,  multiply quickly, and provide rich worm manure. It's fun to have pets that you WANT to poop!

Here's one of my workers inside the basket
with plenty of food. 

Some of the workers escape from the basket
into the bin from time to time,
but they somehow find there way in again
when they get hungry

With only three months left here in Mexico, I am not sure we will get much in the way of vegetables, or compost for that matter. But I am having the time of my life. And I am hopeful that someone - if not Pepe or Raul, or Rigo, or Carol and Bill, or Mica - will be happy to take all of this off my hands when we leave in March.