#rooftop garden

Ground cover on the roof of UDC

Tiny Off-grid Vertical Farm Shed

FEATURES

I’ve always been a bit into Grow Your Own and Self Sufficiency but like many I’m limited by space, time and funds. Also I’m concerned about our climate crisis and that motivated to reduce my CO2 footprint and don’t even get me started about single use plastics However my immediate selfish motivation was keeping my Coriander out of the reach of slugs and after three years of trying I ended up with a Tiny Off-Grid Vertical Farm.

The basic structure is a 2 meter cube (photo 1) built from 52 “Grown Up Building Blocks” and double wrapped in insulation and tarpaulin. Each block is like a large Lego brick with racking for 3 seed trays or 8 1.5 litre pots inside and which is just about portable when fully loaded. The whole shed has racking for up to 400 1.5 litre pots or 140 24 cell seed trays - so a maximum of 3400 seedlings.

OTHER INFO

1) Rainwater is harvested from the roof, stored and slowly dripped into the top of the plant pots so each rain drop passes through the roots of up to 11 vertically arranged plants before soaking away. (photo 10). In times of drought (or initial water loading) the tarpaulin sides can be turned into awnings for shade and to increase the rain capture area to 20 square meters. My next build is to collect and recirculate this water with a solar powered pump. Overflow water is stored internally in a 100 litre butt which also provides a little thermal mass.

2) Solar powered grow light LED strips boost natural light and provide 250 watts of warming for winter nighttime. To conserve heat, prevent light pollution and so as to not impact insects I have fitted thermal blackout blinds.

3) A cubic meter of leaf and grass Hot Composting sacks continuously provide a tiny bit more winter heat (photo 9 bottom). They also provide compost and liquid fertiliser as they rot down and they give off a high CO2 atmosphere inside the shed which captured by the plants and promotes growth.

This Off-grid Vertical Farm Shed is in the running for UK’s Shed of the Year 2022!