My poor dear husband…there are never enough hours in the day or should I say planting season to complete the many projects I randomly think of to put on his to do list. And this year one of those projects is to construct a simple roadside stand to showcase some of our product and make it easy for customers to make a quick stop to pick up some veggies or herbs or cut flowers or baking or…….You get it, something fresh and delicious to make summer/fall days a little more satisfying.
I did say ‘simple’ roadside stand and while he does thoroughly enjoy his work once he gets started, I know it sometimes helps if I gently coerce him by prompting with a few well intentioned hints. I admit, this year I may have gone a bit too far…I made the roof before he even started on the walls.
I’ve been itching for a very long time to create a green roof. And yes of course a roadside stand is the perfect venue to practice on. Its country, its farm friendly and hopefully eye-catching. However at the rate the projects were getting checked off (and added!) on that list I knew I needed to be a little pro-active if indeed the roof might ever be installed. It would have to be ready made and installation made very simple. So I scrounged around to see what I could find to make this idea work.
I wanted to make a sectional planter which would be deep enough but not too cumbersome to lift up onto the finished roof. I anticipated the one side of the stand would be a 8 by 4 sheet of plywood so I thought even if I made the planter slightly smaller I could finish the edges later with some moss or other filler that would complement the planting. Each section of the planter I made 1 foot wide and 44 inches long. I made the front side with a 1 by 6 board, strapping on the bottom and backside and then stapled long sheets of plastic on bottom and back to hold in the soil plus later would prevent the roof boards from becoming saturated. Certainly not rocket science. I knew that God, via my husband, would grow the plants to cover my imperfect carpentry efforts. I wasn’t concerned about drainage holes because I really didn’t want dripping planters and thought the longer the water was retained on the roof the better.
And that was it. Now the planters are made, my virtual roof can grow, I won’t get frustrated at my husband and he hopefully is well aware my artwork is waiting for a permanent resting place!!
So to find out what happens at the end of this story maybe you should drive by sometime to see if you can spot a green roof…if it is on a roof that is. And then just maybe you might find something to buy in that roadside stand that suits your fancy!!
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