My Climate Change Garden

We finished the main build last week in time for the launch party, which went splendidly. The roof garden is now up and running.

Now the fun begins – we are working on an irrigation system and we have all the materials ready to build a keyhole garden. The sun last week dried our beds out, and the effect was amplified by the high winds we get on the roof. We put down a wood chip mulch that has reduced evaporation greatly – this allows us to leave the plants for 3 sunny days between watering, up from only 1 day. Still, it would be a shame not to take advantage of the high points surrounding the garden, so we are designing a water capture and drip-feed irrigation system that uses potential energy to water our plants.

The garden is starting to develop its own ecology. We had an invasion of the dreaded blackfly on our nasturtiums and runner beans. Luckily some ladybugs have also found their way up to the roof and are feasting on the blackfly colonies. We have also spotted hoverflies sniffing around, butterflies are visiting regularly and a solitarycaterpillar was making its way up one of the bamboo supports by the tomato plants.Otherwise, you will all be happy to know that the spring onions are looking much happier now we have replanted them and our living mushroom mound has flowered with 4 types of edible mushrooms!

I have included some photos of Circus Kinetica’s installations that are mounted on the high points surrounding the garden. The piece on top of our chimney has several windmills each attached to a printer motor, when the wind blows the motors power multi-coloured LEDs. Their craftsmanship shows the elements that are around us all the time and demonstrate how we needn’t pay for expensive materials or depend on manufacturers to use the power of the wind.