For clarification, is that 2 to 3 boxes, each six feet long? Or is it 2 boxes, each 36 feet long. It makes a difference. I think it's the former.

Is this for home use? It is not much space if you are thinking of supplying a restaurant, except maybe for herbs.

Jim

I'm chef and I do this kind of thing. Aside from herbs, which tick ALL the boxes, I grow arugula (grows really easy, really fast), interesting lettuces, especially loose-leaf for mesclun type mixes.
Unusual chillies. No idea of your prices, but you can get a lot of chillies from one plant. Just make sure that plants with different water requirements are in separate planter boxes.
Radishes. Whatever your food style, there's a radish to suit you! I grow Japanese daikon and a variety of European radishes.
Slightly exotic anythings really: unusual colours and things with cool names like 'drunken woman' lettuce...and tomatoes of course. I particularly recommend black cherry; it's delicious. Watch out, the plants get absolutely ginormous!

grow 3 or 4 cherry tomatoes. That will give you some bang for the buck and more than one meal. Black cherry as above is excellent. Sungold is a sweet orange tomato. Dr. Carolyn Pink is a very good pink large cherry. Camp Joy is a delicious red cherry - and I do mean cherry red.

Lettuce is fast and easy in planters. Just start leaf lettuce really thick and keep harvesting. You could get enough for between 30 and 50 meals from one planter with 6 square feet of growing area. Good varieties include Nevada, Red deer Tongue, Orielles de Diables, and Forellenschluss.

sandhill

You can also see Fedco, Baker Creek, Victory, and dozens of other companies on this link.

Seedsources

DarJones

Grow swiss chard. Its delicious and just keeps producing. You can get it in all different colours too.
You can also get cucumbers that are bred to grow in containers and smaller spaces that are good too.

Good Luck!

A rooftop environment is a lot harsher than a regular vegetable garden. It is hotter, and it is windier, and there is barely one foot of soil in those containers, so better be good with the watering. The herbs, I agree, will do well, basil, thyme, oregano, rosemary and sage. Parsley, mint, and chives may be harder.
You may try marjoram too, and all of those will give you a good bang for the square foot (I assume you want to use the stuff in the restaurant), which is an issue since you have so few square feet. A friend of mine has a pizzeria and he sells from the garden every day, and it goes down well with customers, but he really needs all 8 of his 18 ft beds to keep up while still growing for the family. He also has 70-80 sqft of herbs, and he uses them all in the restaurant.

The cherry tomatoes is also a good idea because you can get them black, red, yellow, grape, round, striped, and they will all produce a lot (often of the order 1000 per plant if well kept). Check the Territorial Seeds site, they have an above average selection for toms, and they ship plants, meaning you can start in a week.

If you want something very unusual, grow Saffron flowers. You just pick the little tentacle things in the middle of the flower. They are very expensive for the reason the tentacle is the only thing eaten from the plant and not very productive, but a chef might look good having some saffron growing in his garden.

If you are going to grow leaf lettuces, grow a variety of colors like purple, red, burgandy, oak leaf lettuces of a few colors, and some odd shaped lettuces. It makes an interesting salad by shape and color.

Rare squashes, Sweet Dumpling, a white and green variety is a nice one. Egg plant is a nice northern restaurant food, you can grow those.

If you want to make more from your beds, insert another bed in the middle a little higher like a pyramid shaped bed, it will double your space. Go with vine varieties to make more ground space plus they take up less dirt. Grow a vertical garden by making everything grow upwards instead of out to make more space. It might take pruning some varieties or purchasing some made for that shape.

Looking at your post , you'll really struggle to get much out of two-three six-foot planters.
If you have the space, I'd put tomatoes/chillies and herbs that can cope with being a bit dry in their own (large) pots and keep the planters for the greens and thirsty herbs.
You will have to be really good with watering and if you use terracotta or wood, make sure you paint the interior with one of those garden sealants.
Have you got a water source on the roof?
Mulch, mulch, mulch...

We have the same conditions here, hot, dry, windy. Musclen greens, microgreens both due well in one of my small garden boxes and they are "cut and come again". Meaning you can cut them 2" from the soil and they grow back. I am also a fan of the black cherry tomatoes, watermelon radishes, lemon cucumbers. On the watermelon radishes you may have a hard time getting enough in your space for a whole restaurant, however. Given the amount of space you have and what you are trying to do with it. Bright lights swiss chard is nice, easy to grow, cut and come again, especially nice if you hand smoke your own bacon!

I was going to say and someone beat me to it, think vertical. If you cannot go out, go up! Think hydroponics. There is a restaurant here in Oklahoma City that grows everything hydroponicly. It is not that hard to set up as you would think and it looks impressive and it can be vertical, so you can get more "bang for your buck" on space. (that is what I would do in your position) A whole lot can be grown vertically.

of course, herbs.....

i have a planter setup here in nyc. its like 20" X 10' or so and sits on a balcony! last year i had brussls sprouts, 5 tomatoes (google laurel tomatos, great variety), beets, carrots, water melon and cantelope. this year im going to tone it down a little and do 4 tomatoes, brussels, and watermelon. i have seperate single planters for spinach, lettuce, blueberries, rasberries and strawberries and over the railing planters for herbs (basil oregano thyme rosemary sage). buy square foot gardening, its a good book to maximize for tight spaces.

I am not a chef, but I am thinking as a punter, and what is really impressive from the garden, and doesn't take up a huge amount of room.
we have no idea how many covers you do and there is some confusion on the size of the plot, but if you want to be known for the quality of food and being home grown, but not be a slave to it, you have money to make, you need to look at season and mouth wow! and all the others have beaten me to lettuce, I would advocate the leaf varieties they grow quickly and taste amazing (I was a certified lettuce hater, before I tried my own, last year), and even when you have cut some from the area it will get more growth, and in NY if you can cover well you can grow all year and in succession.
Cherry toms also beaten too, but again these are productive but a short season, but one thing I learned eating only local in the UK the taste is so full, you need less on the plate for a better taste...and yet you want more!
Baby carrots, again quickish to grow, don't take a huge amount of space and if clever you can use all through the winter, either in ground or if using a main crop, stored.
bunching onions, don't take a big space and are quick supposedly (not for me! I just can't do them :-( )
Radish and beets, quick, give a kick to a salad and again can be succession planted, and with beets you can use the greens in salad as well as the root, and used for soup.
Broccoli the bane of my American life... if I eat out, the item listed as seasonal veg on the menu (here in CT anyway) is always, always broccoli! but if you are up market then look into the sprouting types such as purple, they are lush, the asparagus of the cabbage family, and take some room and take a while to grow, but they are very good, unfortunately on the plate they will be green!
Zuke's are prolific and much as gardener moan about the amount, in NY I imagine, most people will shop in the supermarket so just buy what they need and mainly they are pretty tasteless and the eye candy and taste of gold and green roasted Zuke's in olive oil on the plate will please, and I have a feeling if you experiment with herbs... Oh I am salivating at the idea!
Being British I would also say Runner Beans, they are heavenly and crop well and don't take up as much space as you would think and when cooked have an interesting green of the bean pod to the purple of the bean.
I wish I could say pots and peas, but both need space.
for year round production i would recommend Elliot Coleman's 4 season's harvest, to extend your season, and their are lot's of books on intensive gardening, I personally use Sq ft but Mel Bartholomew, but in your case you will maybe need something different?
My brother is a chef...lots of Big Dinners for Royalty, Presidents, Big wigs of all types, mass catering, he has passed on some tip's to me on cooking and presentation, but growing he knows now't!
PS. he's no Gordon Ramsey! thank Goodness, my Brother said he would be punched in the face if he ran his kitchen like that by his staff and superiors..haha! he is in Afghanistan at the Mo, serving quite literally:-) either British or American Army :-) I suspect the American's as he isn't allowed to say where he is, which happened the first two time's he was in Iraq when he was deployed to American Troops, when he was back with the Brit's the 3rd time he did say.. or maybe he is just trying to have an air of mystery???

You can get lots of dwarf hybrids, so anything can fit, even some dwarf squash:

http://www.swallowtailgardenseeds.com/veggies/summer.html

Eggplant:

http://www.tmseeds.com/product/Eggplant_seeds__Baby_Rosanna_F1_Hybrid/Eggplant_Seeds?r=103009tmbg&p=2401430&utm_source=aff&utm_medium=bg

Here's a link for planter gardening for small varieties:

http://www.seedman.com/vegecon.htm

This url lists tons of varieties of small dwarf/miniature gardens:

http://www.harvestwizard.com/2008/12/dwarf_and_miniature_vegetables.html

Plant some nasturtiums. Not only do they have gorgeous, showy leaves and flowers, they're a wonderful edible garnish and salad ingredient (taste somewhere between garlic and chive). They also have the advantage of being a magnet for aphids. You can compost any plants that get infested .. and keep aphids off the rest of your garden.

Squash for the blooms which are delicious stuffed and batter fried plus you get the squash, small varieties of hot pepper plants (assuming you use and like hots), slow-to-bolt lettuce and spinach varieties (because of the heat - consider some shade cloth), and I agree move the herbs to pots for more room in the beds.

Dave

PS: on the tomatoes - there are many "bush" varieties that will give you slicing tomatoes so you are limited to just cherry types.

New Big Dwarf tomatoes can be grown in containers if you want slicers.

And a gorgeous dramatic salad can be made with {{gwi:43433}} and raspberries with a light balsamic vinegar dressing. That photo is exactly what mine look like, particularly the color, though they must be kept fertilized for the best color and texture as must all lettuces.

As a home gardener using just a small amt of space, ditto the above focus on bang-for-buck rather than bulk vegetables or greens. Spicy greens like arugula, red mustard, frisee can be added too what you've got or used as garnish--you may need to buy other lettuces for "volume" but these add punch. Same for cherry tom's--the idea is to give the great taste that is memorable and so much better than those commercial grape tomatoes; maybe cukes? as grow up and can get a lot, try unusual mild/smooth varieties. And who can have too much fresh basil in summer? Chard or kale, again, sliced in ribbons for stir-fried garnish, not so much for a whole dish of greens, if you have such a small space.

With the amount of space you have available, I'd say herbs and the tomatoes you would like to have, should just about take up most of the space.

However, I like to cook with the special privilege of being able to go into the garden for something that will add something to the dish, without the need to run out and buy it specifically.

I find that garlic and green onions take up little space and are so welcome nearby. Of course herbs - a must, but you already have those in mind, and most of them can withstand heat. They will need to be restrained - especially mints, oregano or rosemary, but parsley, cilantro, sage, dill are wonderful adds to any garden.

You may have to go small for tomato though, but at least one or two cherry types could give enough to brighten up any salad - just so long as it has room to spread - I let mine wander down the path - so long as it doesn't get in the way of foot traffic.

One other nice add would be celery - takes lots of water, but keeps on producing side shoots - a nice thing to have for a quick pick to help brighten many a salad, without the need to replant often.

Sounds like fun.

Bejay

Where IS the Manhattan Chef? He registered today, posted, and seems to have disappeared.

Thanks to all of you for all the fantastic suggestions. I think there are some that will really work. The garden I plan to plant will provide some functional use in the kitchen but I know with the amount of space I have I will not be able to supply myself with only that. I am the chef of a catering facility where we can do upwards of 1000 people at a time. I am doing it more for the look on the terrace outside. I would love to be able to grow all my own herbs and veg but I would need a lot more room than what I have. In the 3ea 6ft long planters I defiantly will plant cherry tomatoes (possibly the black cherry like the idea of that), if I can find saffron flowers I think that's a good idea as well. Some interesting chilies, assortment of herbs, Japanese eggplant, maybe cucumber and I want to look into the dwarf hybrids and see if there is anything else out of the ordinary that will work. I wish I had more space but unfortunately this is all the room I have to work with. I love all the lettuce suggestions but I don't know if it is feasible to plant them because during the summer months in NYC I think the will get too much sun. I need to plant veg that will be able to survive until the end of summer. Thanks again for all your feedback. I will let you all know how it goes.

In a limited space stick to herbs,(try few you haven't tried before) and a few diferent Habenero pepper plants (they are very hot). maximum taste minimum space .

Don't overlook growing your own mushroom in mushroom boxes. You may need a small cool place indoors, but not exactly sure. Shiitaki mushrooms are rare from what I've heard.

http://www.mushroomadventures.com/

http://everythingmushrooms.com/shop/Mushroom-Grow-Block-Kits/

You can also get a community garden lot in your community. There are some working out of New York City.

http://www.nyccgc.org/

http://www.greenthumbnyc.org/

You'll find better information on your own, this could be a nice start.

Hi Michael
With the numbers you do, it is definitely more about looks!
You're right about lettuces in the heat, and you won't be able to grow enough. If you're after ornamental plants, watch out on the cherry tomatoes. Productive yes, ornamental, no. You'd probably be best with a determinate type.
Eggplant and chilli plants can be very handsome; make sure you get compact-growing chillies such as habanero.
What will happen in your planters when you rip out your big 'showstoppers'? Can you grow anything in winter? I grow perennial bunching onions along the edges of my gardens: in my climate they are always green.

I guess I could grow something in the winter pippimac but I don't even know if its worth it. No one will see it because it will be too cold to go out on the terrace and the amount of produce I would get may not be worth my time if I am only fulling a fraction of my needs but who knows. I think the habaneros are a good idea. I am going to go one day this week to purchase the planters and see what kind of plants the greenhouse we are going to get from has. I would really like to use plants that are already started but I don't know if I can get the variety I need. I will keep you updated. Thanks