Yesterday was a great day. I had the good fortune to spend a day at The GreenH2ose in Apopka, Orlando. They run an aeroponic operation, and use the fantastic Towers, from Future Growing LLC.
For anyone that has read Despommiers "The Vertical Farm", this makes perfect sense, and is the future of growing.
I arrived (to) early, to the greenhouse. The first sign of running a vertical farm, is that it does not take as much time as other operations. Actually Katherine Grandy, that runs the greenhouse, started this to be able to combine it with taking care of her kids. But by 9 am, we were ready to go and started of in the Seeding house.
This actually is more hydroponics then aeroponics, since it grows in Rockwool.
The seeds are seeded differently, depending on demands. Some single and some broad seeded.
Green and Red basil, almost ready to be transplanted to the Towers
After that, we went to the big greenhouse, where they have 130 Towers,
Each Tower takes 52 plants, summing up to 6260 plants growing at the same time.
Katherine has chosen to focus on salads and some herbs that works in the Towers.
The functionality of the Towers is that it has a tank in the bottom, with a normal pump. The pump pumps the water to the top of the Tower, and then it "rains" down inside the Tower.
The pump submerged in the tank
Each segment has 4 holes
The water hits the roots, inside the Tower, and makes the roots grow
Here, once again the green and red basil. This is about 2-3 weeks after transplant, and that is about twice as fast as normal growing
Ready to harvest sallads. Katherines famous Spring Mix :-)
All the cred to Katherine, who took all day to explain the mysteries of aquaponics to a strange Swede. She has real passion for the Towers and her operations, and anyone interested in this should book a training with her.
