By Karen Botes\Semafor Africa
Photos: Karen Botes\Wikimedia Commons
Growing vegetables on living walls can improve food production in urban centers, purify the air, and reduce noise pollution, a new study suggests.
Karen Botes, a University of Pretoria landscape architecture lecturer, compared traditional soil-based agriculture with growing crops on living walls, or a building’s facade.
Botes identified seven traditional African vegetable species suitable for household food production in living wall systems: creeping foxglove, Indian borage, jute plant, pink ribbons, water mint, dwarf elephant’s food, and black-eyed pea.
Botes concluded that using living walls to grow traditional African vegetables could improve local household food production.
It could also help address climate change, urban heat islands, and urban microclimates.
