Fourth Indoor Hydroponic Farm For Brick Street In The Works

The St. Pete city farm's new addition aims to feed the community through bi-monthly shares.

MEAGHAN HABUDA

 August, 18, 2017  

If you’ve been itching to get your hands on hyper-local greens and herbs from Brick Street Farms, listen up. The high-tech, Best of the Bay-nominated St. Petersburg city farm, located in the Grand Central District, is gearing up to expand its year-round bounty to the community through a fourth indoor hydroponic farm.

Selling everything from rainbow chard to tarragon — vertically grown inside the controlled environment that is Brick Street’s upcycled freight containers — to the public was part of the plan from the beginning. But keeping up with retail demand hasn’t been easy, according to co-owner Shannon O’Malley, considering the farm has doubled its restaurant accounts since CL first wrote about the operation in November 2015. Among O’Malley and her husband Bradley Doyle’s notable customers is the private kitchen of the Tampa Bay Rays.

Farm 4, which is being built and hopes to have shares available by the end of October (fingers crossed), is meant to serve Brick Street’s new annual membership program. Whereas many community-supported agriculture programs offer harvest shares from November to April, this one keeps the fresh green stuff coming all year long.

Participants receive 26 bi-weekly shares of greens, herbs and edible flowers — as well as raw, local wildflower honey — with their $695 membership purchase (that may sound like a lot, but keep reading). Expect a large paper grocery bag’s worth per share.

“It’s about $13.50 a week for an annual supply of fresh greens and herbs,” O’Malley says.

Pickups take place at the farm every two weeks on alternating Saturday mornings for a couple of reasons: 1) Each share easily keeps in the fridge for that period of time, and 2) It allows Brick Street, which harvests every Saturday, to accommodate more members.

In addition to a rotating haul of hydroponic produce, another perk for members is access to presale tickets for any farm event going forward. O’Malley says they have another Prohibition-style dinner in the works with Locale Market’s FarmTable Kitchen, and that they’re also in preliminary talks with St. Petersburg Distillery to do something. Plus, when farm No. 4 is ready to debut, a big launch event with membership tours is planned.

There isn’t a cut-off date to become a member per se, but the wife-and-husband team encourage folks to sign up before the end of September. A limited number of shares are available, after all.

“We’re just excited that we have something that’s gonna really support the community,” O’Malley says. “There’s been so much demand, but we’re working on increasing our production.”