by Derek Markham, TreeHugger, March 26, 2014

The plot thickens at Tokyo train stations, as passengers grow on the go with these rooftop garden allotments
Photo: Soradofarm
Source: www.treehugger.com

The plot thickens at Tokyo train stations, as passengers grow on the go with these rooftop garden allotments.

It’s one thing to start and tend a garden if you have plenty of space at home, as well as the time to care for it, and another thing entirely to do so if you spend a good chunk of your day commuting, and lack a place at home for even a tiny garden.

But an ingenious solution is cropping up in Japan, where the East Japan Railway Company has collaborated with a station entertainment company to create a series of rooftop gardens on train stations, where commuters can create their own tiny gardens and tend to them while they wait for their train to arrive.

The Soradofarm project, which currently has five locations, including at Tokyo’s JR Ebisu station, allows people to rent their own garden allotment measuring just 3 square meters (tools, water, and garden equipment, and even seeds are included) to try their hand at growing food, flowers, and more.

The price isn’t cheap, as some of the plots cost 100,440 JPY per year (~$960 USD), but considering that it may be the best option for many of the people who are interested in it, due to space issues, these urban rooftop garden allotments could be a viable way to get some green in their busy lives.

Aside from the possibility of growing even a tiny amount of fresh food for themselves, these innovative urban gardens may be an effective solution for decreasing stress and increasing the amount of time spent out in the fresh air and sunshine, especially in areas where outdoor space is at a premium, and having a place to call your own is hard to come by.

Although there are just five urban rooftop gardens installed at the train stations so far, according to Springwise, East Japan Railways plans to open up more of these garden allotments “on top of or near to each one of its stations” in the future.

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by CHERYL FAITH WEE, The Star Online, March 10, 2014

Rooftop farms in Singapore are sprouting greens.

Urban farmers: Three of the four founders of ComCrop (from left) Kuah Zhen Shan, Allan Lim and Keith Loh, with vegetables from the urban farm at *Scape rooftop in Orchard Link, Singapore.
Photo: SPH
Source: www.thestar.com.my

Since the start of the year, Bjorn Low and his team of five have been growing small test batches of organic vegetables that can be used in mixed leaf salads – giant red mustard, mizuna, bok choy – and herbs such as basil and mint.

Like most farmers, they deal with pests such as pigeons nibbling on the plants. Team member Robert Pearce, 37, says jokingly: “I squirt the birds with water whenever I see them doing that.”

But unlike most farmers, the team’s plots are on the roof of People’s Park Complex car park – the latest rooftop farm to sprout in Singapore. Surrounded by high-rise buildings, the vegetables and herbs are a part of an urban farm, about 2,787sq m, slated to open on the sixth floor of the car park this year.

Last year, urban farming consultancy Edible Gardens, which helps restaurants and institutions build gardens, was approached by the car park’s re-development manager, Goldhill Developments, to see what could be done with the under-utilised space.

Low, 33, who co-founded Edible Gardens with Pearce in late 2012, says: “We’ve always been looking for a space like this to set up a commercially viable rooftop urban farm. This is our dream.”

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by KATHERINE WEI, The China Post, March 10, 2014

Vickie C. Yang, Mica Hsiao and Wan Lin Chen on the roof of the university’s Sociology Department
Photo: Daniel Garcia
Source: www.elviajero.elpais.com

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Around 60 ping of lush green covers the rooftop of National Taiwan University’s Sociology Department building, with strawberries predominant among the many rows. The notion of growing your own food in the concrete jungles of the city has long been a fantasy of urban dwellers, many of whom have sworn to devote themselves to a healthier, organic way of living.

Whimsical fantasies, it seemed, as concrete rooftops were less than ideal for growing, as the material absorbs and radiates excess heat in a way unhelpful to gardening. But a group of college students are now proud veterans of the gardening struggle between urban farmer and the limited environment.

The garden sprung from the course “Innovation and Design of Socio-economic Organizations,” in which a group of eight students decided that they were fed up with the money-driven flow that escalated housing prices outrageously in Taiwan, especially in the Wenlin Yuan case. When the Wang family accused the government of confiscating its land unlawfully, the students thought: aside from providing shelter, what else can “home” represent to people?

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