The old Growing Edge printed magazine ran an article on the Seminole County (Florida) Jail hydroponic garden way back in 1996.
The jail’s hydro garden is still going strong providing the inmates with educational skills on growing plants and supplying fresh food for the jail’s cafeteria.
Abraham Aboraya writes in the SeminoleChronicle.com,
Walk into the Seminole County Jail. Wait for clearance, then go to the hallway to your left. Pass through one door out into the open air. Through one more door right in front, and you’ve found the Seminole County Jail’s secret garden.
It’s a lush greenhouse, filled with enough vibrant green hydroponic lettuce to feed salad to upwards of 1,000 prisoners once a month. Then there are the tomatoes, also hydroponically grown, which feed the staff every eight months. And there are fish too, thousands of Tilapia, which feed the staff, although they’re not hydroponic.
Click HERE for the rest of the story.
Photo credit: SeminoleChronicle.com
This is the type of greenhouse operation that will start being built across the U.S. Why transport tomatoes thousands of miles when they can be grown in greenhouses near the consumers who buy them? Intergrow Greenhouses was started as a small operation in 1998, expanding to their current location in Albion, New York near Lake Ontario in 2003.
The greenhouse utilizes sustainable practices such as eco-friendly predator insects are used to control harmful pests, rain water captured on rooftops is stored in a pond for use in the green house, the rain water is then filtered and recycled for plant irrigation, emission-free electric carts collect and transport the harvested tomatoes ready for shipping, a biomass boiler burning waste wood heats the greenhouse instead of fossil fuels or electricity, and carbon dioxide emissions from the boiler are recycled with the CO2 used to increase photosynthesis and plant production in the greenhouse.
Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray live in New York City, in an apartment, and don’t have any outdoor land to grow a garden, or a patio, or even a fire escape to grow in containers. So in February of 2009, they created WindowFarms to grow in do it yourself hydroponic systems made out of recycled materials. The concept took off and now they have a WindowFarm community growing veggies and herbs in NYC apartments.
In Nigeria, a sustainable farm and school training center is being built which includes a 30 acre training center, a dormitory for 20 students, a simple classroom and dining pavilion for 30 students, a production facility for the tilapia fish farming and hydroponic vegetables raised with fish waste, a water wheel pump to circulate water from the river to the ponds, bio-gas system, and other related infrastructure. In the masterplan, space will also need to be planned for a future demonstration village of eight homes where some graduates will manage fish ponds, gardens, and animals.
Frank Mustac writes in nj.com,
Ben Walmer, principal in the Somerville, N.J. based architectural firm, LiMN Architects, recently returned from rural Nigeria where he donated eight days of his time and professional expertise to help children and families step out of poverty and into a world of hope, the company announced in a recent press release.
The planned sustainable farm/school that will educate Nigerian farmers in sustainable aquaculture and aquaponic practices. The goal of the group was to provide the knowledge and infrastructure necessary for local farmers to raise high protein, all-natural fish and vegetables.
The project must be designed to be electrically self-sufficient because existing Nigerian infrastructure does not supply consistent power to the area … We have to create a system that will use fish, chicken, human, and other organic waste to generate power in prior to being utilized for the fertilization of fruit, vegetable, and fish feed crops.
To read the complete article, click HERE. Photo credit: nj.com
A new hydroponic greenhouse at Rio Rico High School in Nogales, Arizona will help train students in the agriculture science program for possible future careers in raising crops in commercial greenhouses. Arizona is the leader in both colleges (University of Arizona) offering degree programs in Controlled Environment Agriculture and commercial greenhouses growing hydroponic vegetables (Eurofresh.)
Mary Donnelly writes in NogalesInternational.com,
Students from Rio Rico High School were shoveling gravel into wheelbarrows recently while others raked the piles smooth on the floor of two new greenhouses on the east side of Interstate 19, just south of the Peak Canyon exit. Sweaty brows didn’t distinguish their smiles as visions of the tomatoes and hanging baskets filled with flowers they would soon be growing filled their heads.
“It’s good exercise for the muscles,” said Leslie Carranza, a 4th year student in the Santa Cruz Valley Unified School District No. 35 Agriculture Science Program. She is also secretary of the Future Farmers or America (FFA) club at the high school. She would rather be riding horses but loves anything to do with agriculture, she said.
To read the whole story on the greenhouse at Rio Rico H.S., click HERE.
Outdoor vegetable gardens usually get their start in the spring. One of the benefits of living in Southwest Florida is growing vegetables practically year round.
Sixth and seventh graders at Oasis Middle School in Cape Coral started the plants from seeds in early September and transplanted them into soil the past few days.
Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes and peppers were all planted in the new school garden – a total of nine different vegetables. When the vegetables mature and are harvested, both students and staff of the school will enjoy them. Herbs are raised in a hydroponic system and will be given to the culinary arts program at the high school.
Click HERE to read the whole story.
To help hydroponic growers who are thinking of increasing their production area, the National Australia Bank has put together some tips on planning and risk management. These tips would apply to hydro growers anywhere in the world. Click HERE for those tips.
Been putting off that veggie garden you had planned to get to this year? Well here’s yet another reason to venture into growing your own produce.
The UN’s world food program estimates that we will need a 70% increase in food production by the year 2050 in order to feed the projected 9.1 Billion people expected to inhabit the earth (No one talks about over population anymore).
Even after the “green revolution” (and all it’s unintended consequences) we still can’t feed the people around the world. Jump on the link at the bottom for the full story. Tight on space or live in a city? Try your hand at hydroponics. It’s a big water saver (using as little as 1/10th of the water a traditional farmer does) and the optimal health of the plants allows them to placed closer together without increasing the incidence of insects and diseases associated with traditional growing methods.
Click HERE for full story.
Photo credit: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
“To say they merely grow vegetables at Mountainview Gardens is like saying Thomas Edison tinkered with toys. It’s true, but it’s missing the point. In fact, at Mountainview Gardens, they’re creating indoor ecosystems where everything from humidity to ventilation to pollination is carefully regulated. Nearly 7,000 tomato plants, some sprawling 30 feet along a hanging [...]
I wrote an article on this hydroponic facility over eight years ago in the old and now defunct print version of The Growing Edge. It is a half acre greenhouse outside Ithaca, N.Y. that was developed as a joint venture between Cornell University’s Controlled Environment Agriculture department and the local electric company as a prototype [...]
The old Growing Edge printed magazine ran an article on the Seminole County (Florida) Jail hydroponic garden way back in 1996.
Been putting off that veggie garden you had planned to get to this year? Well here’s yet another reason to venture into growing your own produce.
Hydroponics Dictionary
