Fest your eyes on Esme and David’s amazing Bushwick, Brooklyn roof garden and visit their Flickr page to get the full tour. This is their first year as roof gardeners.
They live on the top floor of their building and run a hose up from their kitchen sink to water. They use self-watering containers and built a wind barrier with plastic trellises from home depot and some pallets scavenged from a warehouse. This tall red flower is a Mexican Sunflower.
They are experimenting with a small part of the roof area, since the landlord is concerned about the weight and water damage. They are hoping to get more space to grow next summer.
Here’s the very ambitious list of all they are growing up there:
Moonflowers
Morning Glories
Black-eyed Susans
Teddy Bear Sunflowers
Mexican Sunflowers
Eggplant
Strawberries
Corn (Esme reports: “not looking so hot – it was our most ambitious crop!”)
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Serrano Peppers
Thyme, Basil, Oregano, Parsley, dill
Nasturtiums
I can’t wait to learn more about how the sunflowers are doing. I never even dared attempt growing them. And our rooftop moonvine met an early death, so I’m interested to hear how they are keeping them happy too.
Photos: Esme and David
Brooklyn Roof Garden 
Posted by meemsnyc on July 27, 2010 at 2:04 pm
That’s awesome! It’s nice to see rooftops being used as gardens. We lived in Brooklyn for 6 years and our landlord was strict about growing things. She didn’t even let us have a tomato plant on the fire escape because she said it was a fire hazard. :(
Posted by J R Wachsmuth on August 4, 2010 at 10:31 am
that eggplant looks amazing and i love the mexican sunflower.
congratulations!
don’t forget to give lots of free produce and/or flowers to the landlord.
landlords love it when the peasants do that, right? :-)