My friend Robert Strauss is The Gardener On The Roof. I met him in Barcelona, Spain and had to come to his house to see his highly-productive and creative rooftop garden. In fact, it’s more than a rooftop garden as he has 5 total stories of growing space.
He makes his own compost by getting scraps from the local green grocer, as well as collecting leaves from his neighbors during the fall and winter.
In this video, we go through his entire garden from start to finish to show you exactly how he grows so much food in such a tight urban area.
As a bonus, we harvest and cook calçots a type of spring onion that’s famous in Catalunya with romesco sauce. We pull it straight from his garden, throw it on the grill, get some newspaper from Big Al, and then eat it all together to close out the video.
IN THIS VIDEO
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0:00 – Intro
0:44 – Overview of garden + calçot harvest
9:38 – Growing in veggie crates
15:26 – Fruit trees, corn, ornamentals
17:29 – How Robert sources compost materials
20:24 – Robert's composting method and system
23:51 – Cooking and eating calçots
29:43 – Bonus clip 😉
Hey Kevin. What a pleasure it was to have you at the house and what a GREAT video you produced. Out of the 1,967 views the video has had at this moment, I promise you that my mother-in-law and I are responsible for no more than 1,500 of them. And because "Endow 77" stared at the screen for "three minutes" after seeing my compost, I'm putting together a video on how I do it. Hope to have it up and running in a couple of days. Thanks for everything, Kevin, Jon, and the EG team.
0:50 right into his crotch. You're welcome.
Great. Very entertaining and informative.
What a fantastic little documentary of this mans garden! Absolutely fantastic. Thank you for sharing.
My rooftop farming is very small. : )
okay, I 'lost' 1.5 hours of my time watching your rooftop gardens videos and I don't even have a rooftop haha, well done subscribed!
What if u fall from that ladder… hope not.. its scary tho
Love lebanese broadbeans in oil mezzeh.
Ha! I'm originally from Iowa and had a good laugh at that interaction. Here in San Francisco i've been trying to figure out a way to urban garden. Backyard gets very little sunlight and roof is unsafe to reach. Damn! Maybe I'll try the front steps as they get sun and just hope nobody will mess with it.
Great video and cheers to you Robert.
EPIC.
Those boxes doesn't have holes underneath??? Don't they get waterlogged?
Very nice. Can y explain a bit about how to get to that great compost?
I'm terrified of heights and I almost vomited. It's not you. I just can't. I'll have to skip this one.
Hi http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-53481-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=2&pub=5575378759&campid=5338273189&customid=&icep_item=124257780211&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229508&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg&toolid=11111
This was a great video.
Amazing
https://youtu.be/AsVaNubAoz8
Pls like
Fantastic compost .I live in Costa Blanca where can I get worms . Haven't seen one in 5yrs .
gosh, i hope he knows that there are seeds in the fruits in this garbage he collects too. i am a seed hoarder and i saw him pour down the garbage for the compost and i was like oh my gosh, there are seeds in there, lol
Thank you for sharing. My husband family is from Spain, so I sent this video to my Mother in law to see. She will enjoy. I always enjoy your videos.
fabulous! thanks
Wow! Robert is an awesome urban gardener. Does his wife share the romescu sauce recipe!? Can we get Calcote onion bulbs in the U.S.? What a great documentary on this epat urban rooftop farmer. Loved the neighbors weighing in from their balconies. And that compost….
Love this video
Hummingbirds aren’t in spain are they? A hummingbird moth perhaps?
I am wondering if you could entice Robert to discuss his composting method in more detail, I would be very interested in trying something like this at home and love the compact design. I have looked (possibly not hard enough) to find more details on his particular design but have fallen short. It seems it needs minimal sun, relying almost entirely on decomposing material for heat, has little to no drainage (for water), and apart from a regular turn there is little aeration. It almost seems to defy some of the basic rules of this style of compost. I AM VERY INTRIGUED!