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-- the Rooftop Garden -- |
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The Hanover Theater is often the talk of the town, and in the summer of 2008, the theater was once again on the front page of the Evening Sun, but this time with an unusual story - a garden on the roof of the theater. The theater's caretakers Dave and Stacie enjoyed gardening and wanted to continue growing vegetables at their new home in Hanover, but where? The only patch of dirt on the theater property is the gravel parking area behind the stage and due to the height of the stagehouse it is in shade almost all day. At their former home in Richmond, Virginia they had improvised a rooftop garden using plastic "kiddie pools" with mixed results. After some discussion they decided to try a garden on the roof of the theater.
The front roof was the logical choice for a garden as it receives full sun for most of the day. (It is shaded by the projection booth and main roof late in the afternoon.) There had once been a "blade" sign which towered over the theater spelling out "STATE" vertically. This sign was supported by several large steel beams which rest on brick pillars extending from the main walls of the second lobby. These beams were the perfect supports for a garden and Dave built several wooden planter boxes which spanned between the beams. Each box was 14 feet long and 2 feet wide and just over 5 inches deep. Two cubic yards of dirt was easily obtained from a local landscape supplier, but the "fun" part was moving it to the roof, 30 feet above the street. The dirt was placed in buckets and carried up the grand staircase in the lobby to the winding stairs which lead to the projection booth (41 steps in all, but who's counting). From the projection booth the buckets were slid out a window onto the front roof where they were carried to the planter boxes. With the dirt in place, the next challenge was to decide what to grow. The couple decided on cucumbers, corn, several varieties of tomato, peppers, eggplant, zucchini squash and crookneck squash. The seeds were planted and it was time to wait to see what happened. What resulted was an amazing bounty of vegetables, far more than two people could eat and for a while there were daily trips to local food banks to donate the excess vegetables.
With the success of the garden, plans were made for the 2009 garden and thanks to a generous gift, organic seeds were ordered in December. Choices for the 2009 garden once again included squash, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant and tomatoes (including a purple cherry tomato). New additions were sugar snap peas and okra. In mid March, the peppers were started in indoor pots and a new narrow bed for the peas was built. Compost was bought up to the roof to mix into the existing soil and a few days later the peas were planted in their planter box. By early April the peas were up and the rest of the seeds were started in pots. Check back for updates and more pictures as the garden grows this summer!!!
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