Urbanites longing for rural scenery, take heart: wait long enough, and the countryside will come to you. In New York City, urban farms are sprouting up in all kinds of nooks and crannies: abandoned buildings, vacant lots, and, most excitingly, on the rooftops.

An organisation called Brooklyn Grange now runs two rooftop vegetable farms covering 2.5 acres of “land”. Between them, they produce over 50,000 pounds of vegetables a year. It also operates a giant apiary (that’s a collection of beehives) and a mushroom farm in a converted pharmaceuticals factory. 

This timelapse video shows produce growing at Brooklyn Grange’s 65,000 square foot rooftop farm in Brooklyn, which it claims is the largest rooftop farm in the world. 

Such farms help insulate the rooms below, and pump more oxygen into the atmosphere. All that, and they offer the chance for residents to take bucolic minibreaks, too.

Video shot and edited by filmmaker Christopher John.