St. Petersburg Urban Farm Saves Resources By Turning Shipping Containers Into Vertical Farmland
By FOX 13 News Staff
11-05-20
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Brick Street Farms is an urban hydroponic farm located in the heart of St. Petersburg. It upcycles shipping containers into 40-foot grow houses. It started in Shannon O’Malley and Bradley Doyle’s garage.
“We converted our garage to a grow room. We saw an incredible opportunity. We didn’t have the money to convert a warehouse, so we bought a shipping container,” O’Malley explained.
Each container is the same as two to three acres of traditional farmland. It’s six levels of vertical farmland.
“There’s no dirt. There are no bugs. No chemicals. No soil. There are no herbicides. No pesticides inside any of our farm containers,” O’Malley shared.
All of the plants are started with a seed and are grown and harvested inside the shipping container. Every 12 hours, the lights inside the container flip to a different section to give the plants 12 hours of light and dark to represent day and night, so they can rest in between growth cycles.
O’Malley says each farm with about three acres of farmland uses approximately 15-20 gallons of water per day compared to a traditional soil farm that uses 1,000 gallons of water per day per acre.
“Not only are we saving resources, but we are creating delicious, incredibly local food,” O’Malley said.
O’Malley says they plan to bring farms and modular farm containers to cities across the state and country.
She added, “We really are bringing urban farming into fruition.”
Brick Street Farms sells to grocery stores, restaurants, and hotels. Its produce can also be bought on-site at its farm market or online at https://brickstreetfarms.com/.