GROW CityU accommodates farming plots for CityU students, as well as faculty and staff. Along with the plots, we provide organic seeds, seedlings, farming tools and organic fertilizers as well as technique consultation for our members.
To apply for farm plots, you must have a CityU staff/student ID and you can submit your application to our management team growcityu@gmail.com .
To keep the operation of GROW CityU roof garden in accordance with the requirements in "Organic Production Standards"* (referred as Standards below), we made the guidelines below for participants in farming activities to follow:
We provide a range of organic seeds from reliable sources for you to choose, or you can submit an application to us about what seeds you wish to grow and we can try to find locally for you. Also if you purchased organic seeds by yourself, you need to give us the full package of seeds, together with the receipts for our record keeping before put in the soil.
We will prepare our own seedlings in the roof garden during the early period of each growing season and also order special organic seedlings at the same time. Pre-order forms for GROWers will be distributed before such events via email. Additional orders and preparation of seedlings depends on special situations. We do not accept seedlings other than the two kinds above in principle, unless sufficient information is provided according to the Standards.
We encourage you to grow more than 2 or 3 kinds of plants at the same time and try different crops in different seasons. Annually leguminous crops or green manures must be grown on the land due to the Standards. We will provide recommendations on this matter if needed.
We provide several organic pesticides that help control most of the pests found in the garden but the application of such solutions should be as few as possible. Regular weeding with hand tools is found very effective in controlling the pest population and is hence recommended.
We primarily put in green manure and organic compost to improve the soil at the beginning of each growing season. Also we encourage you to grow green manure plants or leave the field fallow during hot summer storm season. During growing seasons, we use organic fertilizers to help improve production and application of such fertilizers should only be complementary, to avoid soil deterioration. We run a small scale of on-site composting as well, with the residues of plants and weeds, to increase the fertility of the field.
We have collection of most basic farming tools that you need and other plant supporting materials for specific use, like bamboo canes, garden twines, trellis, shading cloth, etc.
Plastics are restricted to Polyethylene (PE), Polypropylene (PP) and Polycarbonates (PC), and any materials containing plastic must be removed completely from the garden after use.