Last week, I took another trip out to Farmer Dan’s neck of the woods (Queens) to check out his emerging rooftop garden. Jelly. As any urban farmer / window box owner / illegal fire escape planter knows, the major – and I mean MAJOR - pain in the ass is the watering during the peak of the summer. Look away for a second too long and your luscious, twining tomatoes become drier than a pile of autumn leaves. Crinkle crinkle. After some online research, and some serious homemaking weekends, Dan put together a range of sub-irrigated planters that are playing happy host to a wide variety of greenery. Check it.
This yummy looking lettuce mix?
It resides in a $15 kiddie pool. The three basins underneath are the water reservoirs.
Dum dee dum. Don’t get in the way of this vegetable army.
This tomato plant will cut you.
Just kidding, the residents are friendly. Look at these cutie basil plant-lettes. So mini.
The spinach, also residing in a kiddie pool, were especially fresh and tasty. I had several leaves in the name of research.
This one is good. This one is also good. Yes, check. Quality control.
I think this is chard. I had stopped paying attention on account of the spinach testing.
Remember the hens? This was their best angle that day. Who knew henpecked wasn’t just a term for harried husbands?
Oh stop it, no one likes a know it all.
Obviously, there is a beehive on roof as well. 
The smaller planters are just stacked buckets. The bottom bucket is the water reservoir which gets refilled via the white tube, while the top holds the soil and plant. Dan learned about this online.
I had no idea Dan knew about the internets, much less blogs. I say this with love.
Anyway, pretty cool huh? I got sent away with fresh eggs and salad.
They were delicious.
If you’re into knowing more about SIPs/sub-irrigated planters, check out the following links:
(By the way, you know how I said jelly earlier. It started as a joke, like haha, why can’t people just say a whole word, snark snark snark. But now I say with relish. Same goes for super. And totes. And maybe obvi. But I can’t really own up to that one yet. Serious.)
