GRG On The Road: Destination - Faith and Tomatoes

This past Monday, Art and H2 loaded their old truck with buckets and tools. I picked up seedlings, potting mix, and fertilizer. Once we had all the materials, we headed south, to 8100 S. Dante Avenue, and met up with a group of people at Avalon Park Community Church.

Time to make some 2 bucket SIPs...


There's no doubt that certain religious organizations are doing important environmental work; while none of the GRGers are churched, we jumped at the chance to put our ideas in practice.

The class was facilitated by Veronica Kyle at Faith In Place. Katy Regalado, who attended one of our previous workshops and works for the organization, linked us up.

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Did I mention it was hot? And also that the church had a perfect location for a SIP garden: a southern exposure against a natural trellis--a chain link fence.

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We did our demonstration and then they got to it, drilling out and planting 10 SIPs made with 20 white food-grade buckets donated by our friends from Jewel-Osco.

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Veronica Kyle noticed it was the kids leading the way. They loved getting their hands dirty.

Here's the youth crew, goofin' for a group shot with the extra shower caps they made from a potting mix bag.

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Our charming group of adult gardeners got their hands dirty too while they learned about the advantages of SIP growing: no stooping to weed (no weeds!), less watering, and greater yield. Like H2, these gardeners had decades of experience gardening in the ground, but they were all open to this new way of growing food.

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Collards, beans, tomatoes, melons, Sweet Chocolate peppers, Pingtung Long eggplant, kale, broccoli, and summer squash. We had more plant starts, many brought from church members' gardens, than SIPs.

The final test was for the group to build their own SIP out of two of our recycled Vienna Beef yellow pickle buckets and some leftover supplies. Needless to say, they passed with flying colors.

This class member, a natural-born SIP maker, skillfully improvised the shower cap and tie-down, using plastic from the potting mix and tape to secure.

See one. Do one. Teach one.

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Thanks to everyone who made the day a success.

We'd like to especially mention Florence, at center in the picture above, for helping us with so many things once we arrived. Her wheelbarrow and water hose were crucial, but even more important was her generous spirit.

And thanks to Rev Paul Robeson Ford for welcoming us to the church.

After our work was done, Rev Paul talked to the young people a little bit about the importance of leadership and sharing their new skills with others in the community. And then he said a blessing over the new church garden.

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A few of these photos were taken by Amanda Baugh, a Northwestern Univ. Doctoral Candidate studying the intersection of the environmental and religious communities. She was nice enough to share the rest of her pictures in this Picasa album.

Finally, a word about Stan Goff. What we did on the south side of Chicago is an echo of the work he (and others) are doing in Cedar Grove, NC. Thanks for the inspiration Stan.

May 30 SIP Workshop in Chicago

Ten days after our first SIP workshop we did it again.

On May 30th another great group of people came to Art and H2's place to learn how to make a sub-irrigated planter out of two 5-gal buckets.

We drilled and filled, and then we planted. A look back:

Using a hole saw is the easiest way to create the cut-out
for your wicking chamber...

...but not the only way.
Here, one participant uses a drill to outline the hole before cutting it out with a utility knife.

Identifying the position of the overflow holes is easy:
visualize and mark the bottom of the top bucket by holding the set up to light.
Then drill about 3/4 inch below.

Now for the fun part:
Bruce offers his array of seed-started heirloom tomato plants so class members can choose which they'll plant.

And plant they did.
The portrait gallery

How many pounds of juicy heirloom tomatoes will this group harvest later this summer? Possibly more than 100. Thanks to our great group of SIP-makers!

While you're dreaming about BLTs to come,
go have a look at this video and tidy list of the benefits of using SIPs to grow food.

Recap of the May 20th SIP Workshop

Last night, a small group gathered for a hands on workshop at Mr. and Ms. H2's urban hideaway.

She passed on these captioned photos.

Using the quarter-inch bit to drill the numerous air-circulation/root holes.


Bruce shows how to visualize the bottom of the top bucket by holding the set up to a light source. Mark bucket bottom and drill overflow hole about a half-inch down.

Packing the wicking cups (after slitting) with soil-less mix and then pouring water liberally on top to ensure sogginess before tamping down to eliminate air spaces.

Getting the "shower cap" on over Bruce's monster tomato starts was a challenge.

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There are plenty of reasons to grow plants in these kinds of containers. I keep coming back to the fact(s?) that they're easy to use and they work: "more than double the yield of a conventional garden--using less water, less fertilizer and virtually no effort". They're a nice solution to some of the problems posed by challenging growing conditions on rooftops, balconies, and contaminated soil. I'll admit they're not perfect--all that plastic and added fertilizer--but they let you make the most of whatever you've got.

For the class, we used 5 gallon buckets; other small scale options include pop bottles and 18 gallon Rubbermaid™ totes.

You can make these planters out of almost any type of watertight container, that usually means plastic. Some plastics are ok, others you want to stay away from--short version, avoid #3, 6, and #7.

We used 1 cubic foot of Baccto Professional Planting Mix (available at Gethsemane Garden Center, $10 for 2 cubic feet) per planter. It's a mixture (by volume) of 85% sphagnum peat and 15% perlite, with some lime added to stabilize the pH between 5.5-6.5. You can buy other pre-bagged potting mixes as long as they don't have composted/decaying material, like soil, in them.

By introducing organic, decaying matter into the closed environment of the SIP, you allow for the growth of mold and you impede the flow of water from reservoir to plant. We'd encourage you to stick with the peat for the first year so you have something to base any further experiments on.

However........ Peat is a non-renewable resource. Coir is a terrific substitute, you can buy a compressed brick (it'll expand to 2 gallons when you add water) for $2.60 at Brew and Grow. We've found that a mix of 35% coir, 50% peat, and 15% perlite works well. We'd like to hear from anyone who has had good results growing in just coir and perlite.

Here's list of the tomato varieties planted by the group.

Everyone put 1 cup of Espoma Garden Lime (available at Home Depot) in the top 4" of potting mix of each bucket to ward off blossom end rot. That was followed by 2 cups of Espoma 3-4-6 Tomato-tone (from Gethsemane) in a ring on top of the mix in each planter.

These amounts are based, loosely, on the official Earthbox™ Planting Guide.

Thanks to all who attended, including Nance, Erik from Homegrown Evolution, and Martha. Nice job all around.

We're looking forward to another great group on Sat. May 30th, from 1-3 pm. Send us an email greenroofgrowers [at] gmail [dot] com by May 25th to reserve a spot. More details here.