When Joan Carulla Figueres turned the roof terrace of his Barcelona apartment into a garden, it was out of nostalgia for his rural origins. Sixty-five years later, the ecological concepts he has long followed have become commonplace, and he is acclaimed as a pioneer of organic farming.
Carulla, who turned 100 this year, is credited with creating the city’s first roof garden. However, his “allotment in the sky” boasts far more than the usual tomato plants and pots of geraniums. It is home to more than 40 fruit trees, vines that produce 100kg of grapes a year, olives, peaches, figs, garlic, aubergines and even potatoes. He is passionate about potatoes.
“The civil war [in Spain in the 1930s] made me a vegetarian, through necessity, then conviction, potato by potato,” he…
