Another day, another article reading how rooftop hydroponics will feed us, from their miraculous plastic pipes. Read a little closer, and you find that Nature Urbaine (for this spectacular Parisian roof-top garden, a must-visit for 2020 (if you can get to it), complete with its own restaurant serving some of the grown produce, is what this article is about) "most significantly is a real-life showcase for ... [a] flourishing urban agriculture consultancy" and ho-hum, more of my interest peels away.
It's true that doing away with soil does lose some of the loading issues with rooftop gardens. The pipes are lightweight, and the electricity need to run the system is (relatively) easily tappable from the building systems. Harvesting is easy as there's only one plant in any one place. It's a clever trick, growing plants with their roots hanging in damp space. Aquaponics, which puts fish into the system, is perhaps cuter, but base hydroponics like this have the edge on simplicity. It's the minimum moving parts type of agriculture. In fact, forgive me, mea culpa. The system in this article isn't even hydroponics, it's aeroponics. Less water, more sprinkling. Even fewer parts.
I get definite pleasure from the ambition of Les Parisculteurs and the powerful aim to cover at least 100 hectares of Paris's roofs, walls and facades with greenery. If the green roofs and walls don't die, they can help cool the lethal heatwaves that sweep our cities nowadays. If their hydroponic sprays and their clever drip irrigation systems don't clog and fail, and they don't catch a dry wave that locks their compost solid, then there is enormous joy in a green wall. But I have seen some sad dead green walls - I was too heartsick to photograph the ruin of the Oswestry M&S Simply Food green wall, but someone else has - and failing hydroponics, too, drippling rank water over browned plants.
So wherein my distrust? I think it maybe arises from the limited palette, the small number of parts. This isn't an ecosystem, it's more a short green line from A to B; and if any part fails, all fails. The parts, too, are custom-built by your eco-consultancy, a fancy plumbing system of plastic bits and nozzles, all requiring regular maintenance, all prone to system failure. The plants are fed by proprietary nutrient systems, bought in drums and sachets off the internet and mixed with water. This is the opposite of ecology; insects are a problem, as they throw off your balance. Birds may come, but they won't stay. The only animal presence is the human animal - and their chemistry set.
I do prefer the world where the wardrobe bong farm has taken over our rooftops to the one where they are blank concrete, tile and tar wastelands - but only marginally, and partly, I suspect, because my thoughts run like this; where there is water transport, there will be raised humidity and occasional leakage and that will drive organic plant growth, in roof-corner dirt traps and cracks, and that will be a stepping stone to the upper storey wildflower meadows our building crave and our bees are waiting for, that will surely come eventually.
And in our march towards the green striped city, any stepping stone will do.
It's true that doing away with soil does lose some of the loading issues with rooftop gardens. The pipes are lightweight, and the electricity need to run the system is (relatively) easily tappable from the building systems. Harvesting is easy as there's only one plant in any one place. It's a clever trick, growing plants with their roots hanging in damp space. Aquaponics, which puts fish into the system, is perhaps cuter, but base hydroponics like this have the edge on simplicity. It's the minimum moving parts type of agriculture. In fact, forgive me, mea culpa. The system in this article isn't even hydroponics, it's aeroponics. Less water, more sprinkling. Even fewer parts.
I get definite pleasure from the ambition of Les Parisculteurs and the powerful aim to cover at least 100 hectares of Paris's roofs, walls and facades with greenery. If the green roofs and walls don't die, they can help cool the lethal heatwaves that sweep our cities nowadays. If their hydroponic sprays and their clever drip irrigation systems don't clog and fail, and they don't catch a dry wave that locks their compost solid, then there is enormous joy in a green wall. But I have seen some sad dead green walls - I was too heartsick to photograph the ruin of the Oswestry M&S Simply Food green wall, but someone else has - and failing hydroponics, too, drippling rank water over browned plants.
So wherein my distrust? I think it maybe arises from the limited palette, the small number of parts. This isn't an ecosystem, it's more a short green line from A to B; and if any part fails, all fails. The parts, too, are custom-built by your eco-consultancy, a fancy plumbing system of plastic bits and nozzles, all requiring regular maintenance, all prone to system failure. The plants are fed by proprietary nutrient systems, bought in drums and sachets off the internet and mixed with water. This is the opposite of ecology; insects are a problem, as they throw off your balance. Birds may come, but they won't stay. The only animal presence is the human animal - and their chemistry set.
I do prefer the world where the wardrobe bong farm has taken over our rooftops to the one where they are blank concrete, tile and tar wastelands - but only marginally, and partly, I suspect, because my thoughts run like this; where there is water transport, there will be raised humidity and occasional leakage and that will drive organic plant growth, in roof-corner dirt traps and cracks, and that will be a stepping stone to the upper storey wildflower meadows our building crave and our bees are waiting for, that will surely come eventually.
And in our march towards the green striped city, any stepping stone will do.
No comments:
Post a Comment