Inside Urban Green

Chicago » O’Hare International Flies Greener With Space Age Grow Towers

Bravo Chicago! Way to go! It warms my heart to see this visionary project. These look like the same aeroponics towers that created the spectacular rooftop garden atop the Bell, Book & Candle Restaurant in Manhattan. We will see many more of these highly productive vertical gardens in the future.

Many thanks to Seedstock.com for making my day. It's a great "get" by a very cool website.

Press Release via www.hmshost.com

On September 16, 2011, Rosemarie S. Andolino, Commissioner, Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) (left) and Elie W. Maalouf, President and CEO, HMSHost cut the ribbon for the grand opening of the O’Hare Urban Garden, a unique, environmentally-friendly aeroponic garden located in the mezzanine level of Terminal 3, G Concourse. The new 928-square-foot aeroponic garden is a joint effort between the CDA and HMSHost, a world leader in travel dining and shopping. The vegetables harvested from the garden will be used at HMSHost’s O’Hare restaurants and include sweet basil, cilantro, Bibb lettuce and habanero peppers.

NYTimes.com: Business of Food - Fish Farms, With a Side of Greens

Jeff Redmon - Sweet Water Organics, an aquaponics company in Milwaukee, raises perch and leafy green vegetables.

The future looks promising but it remains to be seen whether aquaponics becomes the “go-to” method of growing food in the city. This article from the International Herald Tribune via the NY Times explains more about this urban food growing method.

There may be questions about the future of aquaponics but one thing is becoming increasingly clear. Regardless of the frenetic drum beating by dirt huggers and fantasy farmers, the future is not in shoveling dirt and dung in often contaminated city ground. The future of “urban agriculture” inside the city is in the wise use of water and technology.

via www.nytimes.com

LONDON — In the Lowlands of Scotland, an old fire station donated to the community of Moffat for a symbolic penny has been converted into what may be the farm of the future. Forget about fields. Forget even about established norms of industrial agriculture. Using a new technology known as aquaponics, the Moffat farm, due to start production at the end of this month, will churn out fish and vegetables by the ton, in a space equivalent to a small factory.

Aquaponics — a combination of aquaculture, or fish cultivation, and hydroponics, or water-based planting — utilizes a symbiotic relationship between fish and plants. Fish waste provides nutrients for the plants, which in turn filter the water in which the fish live. Cuttings from plant are composted to create food for worms, which provide food for the fish, completing the cycle.

Read more...

CNN Covers The Rooftop Aeroponic Tower Gardens

It has been most surprising that the ABC TV coverage of the aeroponic tower gardens atop the Bell Book & Candle restaurant in lower Manhattan did not get much coverage by the blogosphere.

CNN, however, thought it important enough to cover the story with a video that The Huffington Post picked up and now I have also.

Though the price at $500 per tower is high as a consumer product, the technology appears to have awesome potential for urban personal food production. Do not let price cloud your opinion. It will come down as manufacturing volume increases and competition arrives.

Incidentally, I previously referred to them as hydroponic gardens in error. The manufacturer calls them aeroponic. I have corrected prior posts. Perhaps it would be easier to simply call them "personal food producing machines".

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Chef John Mooney shows off the rooftop farm above his soon to open restaurant, Bell Book & Candle, in this video from CNN.

More About The Aeroponic Tower Garden

The following article provides more background on the aeroponic Tower Garden and its inventor Tim Blank who gained much of his hydroponics experience working at Epcot Center.

Discovering highly effective urban food producing systems like this further underscores the need for an institution like the Center For Urban Greenscaping (CuGreen).

It's one thing to have a limited access Tower Garden on the roof of a restaurant in New York City. It's another to have the system in an educational institution where it can be used to feed minds and well as stomachs.

We desperately need a physical location where city dwellers (in this case New Yorkers) can see and learn about all of these modern urban agriculture systems on a comparative basis. Help make it happen! We need you!

Bob Hyland urbangreenscaper@gmail.com

via hydroponicaccess.com

Two weeks ago I met the inventor of an amazing self-contained Hydroponic Tower Garden – Tim Blank, from Future Growing, LLC., in Florida. Blank worked for Disneyworld’s Epcot Center for more than a decade. His background in entomology (study of insects) and scientific knowledge about nutrition (working with NASA and the space program) prepared him for the creation of this incredible product. Seven days later I was sitting in an intense workshop in Pennsylvania digesting masses of information about a subject near to my heart – hydroponics and growing real food.

An Aeroponic 'Roof-to-Table' Garden

Rooftop Garden Deluxe [ABC Nightline]

via ny.eater.com

This rooftop garden atop the new Bell, Book & Candle restaurant in Manhattan is one of the most impressive I have seen. It has been featured in the NY Times and this video is from ABC Nightline.   

The aeroponic units are called Tower Gardens and are from a company in Florida named Future Growing LLC. Each Tower Garden unit sells for $499 per the website. This is probably a bit pricey for the consumer market but who knows what it might be if there was volume demand .

This is without question a spectacular rooftop garden and the plants look they were grown in a greenhouse, they’re that good. It appears however from the slideshow (click on The Manhattan Project) that they were actually grown in place on the roof. That is most remarkable to me. 

It will be very interesting to see how this system progresses in the marketplace. It most definitely looks to have a place in the field of modern urban agriculture. I would love to have a rooftop micro-farm like this and will continue to track these Tower Gardens. Stay tuned.

35 Day Time Lapse Video: AeroGarden vs. Dirt

Yes, I would like to know the exact composition of the soil mix and the watering regimen but I don't doubt the basic validity of this video. The AeroGarden has now proven itself to legions of customers all over the country.

Users know that all you need to do is plug it in. Aeroponic appliances will continue to become more affordable as time goes by and one day will likely be as ubiquitous as coffee makers. .

This motivates me to do some time-lapse videos demonstrating the superior growth of plants growing in sub-irrigation planters (SIPs).

One day in the future, we will look back and realize what an incredible hoax has been perpetuated on the American public by the drain hole clay pot cultists. They are clearly not a "good thing".

Saipan School Garden Teaches Science And Technology

With shovels in their hands these kids may look like dirt farmers but read on and you will find that they are learning much more than how to dig dirt.

They're learning about using modern science and technology to grow food. They're also learning about recycling and upcycling.

Read the article and you will find words like hydroponics, aeroponics and scientific method.

Are these words characteristic of your kids school garden (or planned garden)? If not, speak up and speak out! Don't wait until you hear the noise of jackhammers or rototillers that are rarely necessary.

Using modern methods such as sub-irrigated planter systems (SIPs) you can garden on paved surfaces...and in classrooms!  All you need is enough sunlight.

via www.saipantribune.com

Want to know how hydroponics works? What are the best tomatoes to grow on Saipan? How about papayas or lettuce? Why should you watch out for ironwood trees? What's the hardest part of growing veggies? What kind of rats should you worry about?

What's better, hydroponics or aeroponics? Can I make my own hydroponics garden cheaply with recycled materials? What exactly are plants on steroids? Want the answers?

Welcome To The Modern World Kids!

Students from The Burlington Academy of Learning with their garden.

If I had small kids I'd want them going to a school like this that is smart enough to use modern educational tools like AeroGardens and sub-irrigated planter systems (SIPs) like the EarthBox. Each kid should also have a soda bottle SIP to play with.

With tools like these, they will start learning about plant science and the modern world around them at an early age. As most kids do, they will play in the dirt on their own time. 

What is your kids school doing? Hopefully it is not wasting money breaking up concrete, asphalt or plowing the back forty to make a dirt garden when it isn't necessary.

via www.courant.com

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary, How Do The Burlington Academy Of Learning's Gardens Grow?

The New Urban Farmers

The vertical garden in the photo is not identified in the article.

Ed Harwood, CEO and Founder of AeroFarms and I share the same vision about the future of localized urban food production. I believe he and his company are on the right path.

The only difference is my advocacy of also putting the power of personal food production in the minds and hands of individuals via the use of sub-irrigated planter (SIP) systems.

Each citizen has a right to accurate and up-to-date information particularly when paid for by tax dollars. The out-dated information we are now getting for our tax dollars from the USDA Extension Program is a national disgrace. Are you doing anything about it?

via www.greentechmedia.com

Who will feed the world in the future? Urbanites, according to AeroFarms’ Ed Harwood.

Inka Biospheric Systems: A Modern Vertical School Garden

There is now an Inka Biospheric Systems vertical garden installed at Sanchez Elementary School in San Francisco. It was good to see this sign of modernity in the school gardening movement.

In my view the students at this school will learn much more about plant science and urban food production then they do when growing in the dirt.

Systems of this type have broad applicability in space-short urban schools all across America. Kudos to Inka Biospheric Systems and Slow Food San Francisco for their involvement.

via www.slowfoodusa.org

The soil-less vertical garden, which was installed by Inka Biospheric Systems and can be mounted on a chain-link fence, is an option for campuses where space is an issue. As well, solar panels and a wind turbine will power the circulation of nutrient-enhanced water, adding another level of sustainability to this project. Students at Sanchez Elementary will monitor the garden’s energy use, water nutrient levels, and produce outputs over the course of the spring and compile the results in May. The way that the Sanchez Elementary School administration has embraced the garden project makes the school a model on which Slow Food San Francisco can base future Slow Food in Schools projects.