MEXICO CITY — Climb to a rooftop and scan the horizon of this metropolis, and you’re likely to see nearby rooftops or balconies with vegetable gardens.
Urban rooftop gardening is on the cusp of a boom here, sponsored by a City Hall that sees gardening as a way to alleviate poverty, provide residents with their own healthy food and add some green to one of the world’s most populous cities.
In a program begun five years ago, Mexico City’s municipal government has given grants to 3,080 families to build gardens on their rooftops, sometimes sheltered by simple greenhouses to protect from nightly mountain chill and occasional hail. Many more families have attended urban gardening classes and struck out on their own to grow tomatoes, lettuce, chilies, scallions, guava, passion fruit and other edibles.
“There wasn’t anything up here before,” Sergio Hernandez Rodriguez said from his rooftop in the Coyoacan district, where 2-foot-tall garden beds now display an array of corn, celery and chilies alongside aromatic herbs and lavender. Off to the side, his wife puttered inside a greenhouse made of plastic sheeting and clear mesh and supported by a metal frame where tufts of romaine lettuce peaked out from holes in horizontal PVC tubing.
“I’m hoping to grow strawberries in here before long,” Estela Lopez said as she showed off the simple hydroponic system using a pump made for a fish tank. The couple spends hours each day tending to their rooftop garden, building compost and nursing seedlings. The project is already paying off – literally. “I can sell to my neighbors,” Lopez said. “They know it’s very clean.”
On Mexico City’s flat roofs, tiny gardens help feed families, provide an urban respite (McClatchy)
