An enterprising restaurant in New York has developed a farm to table garden on the dormant construction lot next to their location. According to a Fast Company article, "The farm now contains 7,400 milk crates and over 100 types of plants. Riverpark currently gets about 25% of its produce from the farm, but expects to get more soon."
It's a ingenious design created out of the necessity of not being able to dump large amounts of garden soil on the temporary site they had secured.
Ortuzar and Zurofsky presented their quandary to ORE Design and Technology Group, which proposed the milk crate idea: Staple a piece of landscaper fabric (a material that allows air and water to pass through) to each milk crate, and fill it with soil.
There is now truly no excuse for not growing some of your own food. All you need is a milk crate, a piece of landscape fabric, and a litle dirt. I love it. Now all we need is a design for a milk crate chicken coop.
I just looked in my backyard with visions.
Posted by: Keith | August 17, 2011 at 01:05 PM
What a great idea! Not sure about the stapling of fabric? Watch out milk companies. Need to buy stock in the milk carton manufacturing busines. Even if buy cartons legally probably cheaper then raised beds with lumber and hardware. Would like more info on the details. What about using them on a trailer and going to markets and pick as purchased. Talk about fresh. Also would be easy to move indoors to a green house when weather changes. Do the roots grow thru the fabric on the bottom into the dirt as they would with a regular raised bed?
Posted by: Gary M Angell | August 17, 2011 at 09:21 PM
Gary - landscape fabrics are specifically designed to keep roots & plants from growing through their mesh (or in this case, in) so I would think It would be wholly self-contained. Probably great for squash-type plants and greens. I love the idea of taking some to market for fresh picking. Imagine having people cut their own lettuce and greens. They probably use a heavy duty stapler that penetrates the plastic of the milk crate.
Posted by: craig | August 18, 2011 at 07:23 AM
Visions of lollipops and gumdrops?
Posted by: craig | August 18, 2011 at 07:24 AM
i am very interested in trying this new milk crate garden i saw it on kelsey nixon show and was in aw of it. do you know what the fabric was, i know i can buy the milk crates at target but need to know the name of fabric. whoever the person who thought this up must be a genious, love it.
Posted by: dora higa | July 07, 2012 at 03:10 PM
Dora, any landscape fabric that work. Ask them for landscape fabric and make sure it is permeable.
Posted by: craig | July 07, 2012 at 09:32 PM