- What is terrace gardening or rooftop gardening? In simple words it means gardening or farming or growing plants on your terrace or rooftop. If you live in a city without access to land for growing plants, a roof or terrace garden is the best option.
- Is terrace gardening bad for the building? What are the drawbacks of gardening in terrace?
Well the answer depends on two important factors. Firstly the weight of your Terrace garden, I mean total weight including containers, potting soil, plants and all the load. Secondly the Construction quality of your building whether its build very well including concrete columns, the thickness of walls and the thickness of the slab, the span of a room and so on. Generally you might have to be careful only if you building is too old or if you are just not confident on this aspect. Otherwise, if carefully planned there should not be any problem of loads arising due to terrace gardening, specially if you grow plants in containers and place them along the walls on the terrace, whatever the weight of the container might be.
- How do I start terrace gardening in a small limited space on my teres? Simplest way is to start with some plants or veggies in containers. If you want to expand, you need to plan it well, specially if the space is limited. You might want to consider the two step or three step pot stands to arrange your plants in step like fashion to save space. And its just common sense and you can apply your own ideas to save space.
- What type of plants
can I choose for terrace gardening.
You can grow any plant on your terrace garden whether ornamental plants or vegetable gardening or even fruit trees in large containers. - How can I plant fruit trees (like mango or banana trees) on a terrace garden? Yes you can grow them but you need the largest possible containers, atleast 24 inch diameter and 24 inch height by dimensions. To reduce the load on your building, consider using the fabric bags of 24 inch or 30 inch diameter.These can be purchased from amazon, I have linked that below in video description. Also choose a light weight potting mix and the placement of such heavy containers also should be done smartly like next to or on top of a column or over and along the building main walls.
- Should I waterproof
the terrace before starting a terrace garden?
Not necessarily, unless you plant to build raised bed terrace garden. If you grow in container, you only need to check whether the water draining out of the pots is easily flowing out of the terrace and not stagnant. - What type of soil
should I use for terrace gardening?
As I already discussed,to reduce the load, you need a light weight potting mix. One such formula is 40 percent cocopeat or peatmoss, 20 percent perlite or vermiculite, 20 percent garden soil, 20 percent compost. That’s 40, 20, 20, 20. - What are the practical ways to attract birds on your terrace or garden?
This is infact a vast topic. We will discuss in detail in some other episode. Simplest way is to keep some water for birds or even bird feeders Or a bird house, keeping them some seeds and so on.
- Can we install drip irrigation system on terrace garden? Infact this is one of the best options for watering on your terrace, specially if your plants are in hot sun with no green shade net. And more over, the watering hose pressure is very low on the terrace and it takes a long time to water your plants. You might require to install a pump to get that proper pressure to water your plants. Drip irrigation system is also a good option and its not that difficult to install and not that expensive. You get many options to purchase online like 100 pots, 300 pots and 500 pots options and sets. You can get one HERE.
- How do I build my terrace garden permanently with green shadehouse and how much does it cost?
Well, I have a detailed article and video on this topic titled the Making of My Shadehouse Terrace garden.
What is a Shade House?
Also called shadenet house or net house, green net house, green house, polyhouse, and so on.
A Shade house is a framed structure enclosed by nets or any other woven material of different percentages of light filtering, to allow only the required amount of sunlight, moisture and air to pass through the gaps. It creates an appropriate micro climate for proper plant growth.
The shade nets are made up of 100% Polyethylene thread with specialised UV treatment and they have different shade percentages or Shade factors i.e 15%, 35%, 40%, 50% 75% and 90% (for example 35% shade factor means – the net will cut 35% of light intensity and would allow only 65% of light intensity to pass through the net).
Each plant has its individual requirements for sunlight and shade and to create optimum climatic conditions, selection of the correct percentage of shade factor is very important.
Colors of Shadenets:
Presently shadenets are available in different colours i.e. white, black, red, blue, yellow and green and in combinations: like Green x Black – Black x Black – White x Black – Green x Green . Whatever it is the darker shade generally filters more sunlight and Green x Green shade – enhances the process of photosynthesis in plants resulting better foliage in ornamental plants.
Planning and Design of a Shade House:
The shade house structure should be planned taking into consideration the type of crop to be grown, locally available materials and local climatic conditions. I will only discuss some important points at home gardening or terrace gardening level, that’s is basics.
Site selection & Orientation: Single span structure may be oriented either in east-west or north-south direction but multispan structure should be oriented in north-south direction to ensure uniform light intensity.
Structure: It mainly the FRAME and CLADDING MATERIAL.
- FRAME: best material to use for framing is MS (Full form of MS is Mild steel). This can easily last for than 25 years depending on the guage you use. Here am using 16 guage material – like 3 inch diameter MS pipes for pillars, 2 inch pipes for top frame support. Plus you can plan and design decorative ideas like hooks for hanging pots, Then two step or three step pots stands, then plan one area for vertical garden using thick mesh support to hang vertical pots and also a provision for garden swing and things like that depending on your budget.
- Make sure you periodically perform anti-rust treatment by painting the MS material like once in 2 – 3 years or so.
- The Cheaper Alternative to MS is bamboo sticks but the life of this type of shade house is not more than 5 years or so.
- Now coming to the Shade Net Material, you can choose the Filter percentage depending on your local climate. In my zone, am using 50 percent green-green shade net which is the most commonly used everywhere. You need to tie the shade net cloth firmly at all ends and at multiple places to keep it taut and give it’s a professional look. Also remember to keep it open at atleast 2 sides to allow good air flow to your plants. And also giving some gaps at the side walls at different places is a good idea to allow air circulation.
- The Design and Decoration depends on your engineering skills as well as your budget and ofcourse the dimensions of the shade house.
- The cost of shadenet cloth differs from place to place and also on the percentage of sunlight filtering – like 50 percent shade net comes at the price of 1 to 2 dollar per square meter or even less than that. And the cost of MS framing will be about 2 – 3 dollars per square feet including material and labour.
Benefits of shade house in gardening and farming:
- Helps in proper growth and development of any type of plants like flower plants, ornamental plants, medicinal plants, vegetables & fruits specially in summer and hot places.
- Helps to enhance yield and prevent losses due to excessive heat.
- Protection against many pest attacks.
- Protects crops from natural weather disturbances such as wind, rain, hail stones, frost, bird and insects.
- Used in production of grafts and reducing its failure rate during hot summer days.
- Helps in creating favourable micro environment for production of Vermicompost.
- Other uses like Hardening of plants, terrace gardening, fencing and so on..