On a recent afternoon on Dot Ave., trucks are hoisting what appears to be dirt. Tons of it. This growing medium is bound for the roof of Ledge Kitchen & Drinks. Owners Brendan and Greg Feeney and Mike Ahern and chef Marco Suarez are planting a 2,000-square-foot garden on top of their Dorchester restaurant.
There, over the city street, they are creating a pastoral landscape of herbs, squash, tomatoes, peas, pumpkins, and more — eventually maybe even mushrooms. Putting that much weight atop a building isn’t for amateurs. Recover Green Roofs, a Somerville company, is overseeing the installation. “We’re looking to pull the first product at the beginning to middle of next month,’’ Suarez says. Their harvest will make its way into the dishes served at the restaurant.
In recent years, chefs have turned increasingly toward local, seasonal ingredients. As a natural extension of this, some are taking it a step further — or closer, really — growing their own in pots, on roofs, occasionally even on farms started for the purpose. Forget house-made. We’re on to house-grown.
High-profile restaurateurs around the country have long been on board, from New York chef and sustain able-food advocate Dan Barber (Blue Hill at Stone Barns) to Chicago’s Rick Bayless (Topolobampo) to Cambridge’s Ana Sortun (Oleana). But restaurants are increasingly raising rooftop gardens — in Atlanta, Baltimore, Beverly Hills, Brooklyn, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, Portland, Ore., Providence, Seattle, and more. Many cities offer tax breaks or other financial incentives to convert rooftops into green space. So-called “green roofs’’ reduce storm water runoff and help combat urban heat, among other benefits. In Boston, Sam Yoon, the former city councilor and mayoral candidate who is relocating to Washington, D.C., has been perhaps the biggest advocate of such incentives.
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