Vertical Gardens

Vertical gardens are high rise towers that in theory can produce large amounts of fruits and produce from a small area of land. I say in theory because if high rise gardens are to be viable then there are a number of engineering and construction issues that have to be addressed.

Some are easy to fix while some are more complicated and could undermine the basic structure of the tower if left unsolved. Using concrete to construct the garden tower would be usual however the shoots of the plants infiltrate the capillary cracks in the concrete structure quickly breaking up the integrity of the construction.

This action can take only a single growing season to begin the degrading action. A second and another important issue is the exposure of the plants to natural sunlight. Placing gardens one on the top of each other obviously curtails the amount of sunlight that the lower gardens are exposed too.

This in its self means that crops must be carefully selected for their positioning within the tower and their ability to flourish in what would be an enclosed shaded area. Trees and such would be undesirable because of their root structures and needing light and space to grow.

Thirdly there must be an adequate irrigation system in place to ensure that the top level gardens receive plentiful soil nutrients. Well thought out drainage must be employed on the crop terraces otherwise the leaking moisture can also degrade the structure.

Vertical gardens are indeed the future of crop production in a world, which by 2050 will have topped 9-10 billion people. However careful thought and design must go into crop selection and vertical garden construction if this form of crop growing is not to garnish a bad reputation and spectacular construction failures.

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