I Tried the Click and Grow Herb Garden — Here's How It Went

I Tried the Click and Grow Herb Garden — Here's How It Went

Lisa Freedman | 2017

(Image credit: Click and Grow)

Although I do most of the cooking and cleaning, I like to joke that my husband is in charge of keeping all the living things in our house alive. He makes sure I eat real meals like a normal human (not just cheese and gummy candies), he feeds our fish and the dog we sometimes babysit, and he's in charge of all our plants.

This division of labor came about after I killed three too many succulents and an air plant. (Seriously, how does one kill an air plant?) It's not entirely my fault, I like to tell myself — the light in our apartment is never the same!

I have also killed every basil kit I've ever tried, yet I was eager try the Smart Herb Garden by Click and Grow. After all, they make it sound so easy! Here's how it went.

Image credit: Lisa Freedman)

Day 1

The setup seemed simple enough (especially considering I didn't read all the directions before I started. Don't judge! I was too excited!). I unpacked all the pieces, popped the three included basil pods into the device, added water, and was about to plug the machine in when I saw a handy little warning tag.

"Grow light cycle is 16h on and 8h off. To avoid running the light at night, plug it in right after waking up!" it said. Thanks for the tip, tag. Given that it was the early evening, I waited until the next morning to plug it in.

                        Buy: Smart Herb Garden, $60 at Click and Grow

(Image credit: Lisa Freedman)

Day 2

This thing is bright! How bright is it? My husband said it was so bright, he thought I had left the refrigerator door open when he first keyed in the door one night after work!

(Image credit: Lisa Freedman)

Day 3

Growth! Already! I couldn't believe it! My husband was getting grumpy about the light, saying that whatever money we were saving by not buying basil at the supermarket, we were now spending on our electric bill. I calmed him down by sending him this text from the Click and Grow website:

"We've worked with the world's leading LED technologists to invent a natural-looking light system that gives plants enough light to grow while only requiring 6 watts of energy. This keeps the electricity bill for running the Smart Herb Garden a whole year to around 4-5 dollars."

(Image credit: Lisa Freedman)

Day 4

The sprouts were already starting to look like basil! And I hadn't even really had to do anything yet. I regularly checked the bobber, which indicates the water level, and I didn't have to add any water. So far, I didn't have to do anything!

(Image credit: Lisa Freedman)

Day 7

It was time to take the plastic domes off (you're told to do it once the sprouts start to reach the domes). I removed them, and I swear I got a whiff of fresh basil. I was gardening!

(Image credit: Lisa Freedman)

Day 9

My garden was looking so good, I got a little brag-y and decided to use my kitchen's chalkboard to show off what I was growing. My husband said it was hardly food, but despite his jabs, I could tell even he was impressed!

(Image credit: Lisa Freedman)

Day 10

I was getting impatient and wanted to see what my basil tasted like. I ripped off one of the smallest leaves I could find (probably an act that's not endorsed by Click and Grow) and popped it into my mouth. It was flavorless and bitter at the same time. I felt bad for disturbing the plants. I do not suggest this.

(Image credit: Lisa Freedman)

Day 13

Look at all this growth! My favorite part of this experiment was going into the kitchen every morning to see how much my plant had grown.

(Image credit: Lisa Freedman)

Day 15

My husband and I went away for the weekend. Before we left, I filled up the water reservoir (something I'd had to do a few a times now) and briefly wondered if I should add the second included arm, which would move the light higher away from the plant. I decided against it because we were in a hurry and I wasn't sure it was necessary. Turns out, it was. The plant grew as tall as the light and some of the leaves got burned as a result. Ecks. Was this the beginning of the end, I wondered?

(Image credit: Lisa Freedman)

Day 21

With the second arm added in, the plants seemed to be recovering nicely and they didn't seem too mad at me for my lapse in judgement.

(Image credit: Lisa Freedman)

Day 29

I did it again! Argh! We went away for a full week and I thought there was no possible way the plants would grow so much in just seven days. A few of the tallest leave burned. This was on me.

(Image credit: Lisa Freedman)

Day 32

With the third and final arm added into the light, I wondered when it'd be time to start cooking with my basil. I think part of me was waiting for a light to change colors, alerting me to the fact that it was time to eat. There was no such light and I checked the instructions, which let me know that I could have already been trimming and eating the plant!

(Image credit: Lisa Freedman)

Day 33

I trimmed some leaves and made the best-tasting, freshest pesto I've ever whipped up. (I make a lot of pesto, but usually with stuff from the grocery store). Within a few days, new leaves were already growing up from the stem.

(Image credit: Lisa Freedman)

Day 41

The three plants are still growing strong (although some stems are starting to get a little droopy). And I'm up to my eyeballs in basil. Not complaining!

My Final Thoughts on the Click and Grow System

This electronic garden really can turn anyone's black thumb into a green one. It was extremely forgiving of all my mishaps and continues to grow a plentiful supply of fresh basil. While it does a lot of the work for you, it does not do all of it. You do have to add water (the bigger the plants get, the faster the water needs to be replenished). You also have to add the arms to the light (but there is some wiggle room there in terms of timing). And you have to watch the plants and know when it's time to harvest. Luckily, I'm beginning to get a feel for when my basil needs a trim. The biggest problem I'm having now is coming up with enough meals to use up all this fresh basil. (Again, not complaining.)

Of course, if you are even a little bit better at keeping things alive than I am, you should have no trouble with a basic pot.

Queen City Acres Makes A Go Of Urban Farming

Queen City Acres Makes A Go Of Urban Farming 

By SUZANNE PODHAIZER

 Ethan Thompson at MetroRock                                                                      SUZANNE PODHAIZE

Scrutinizing the house in front of me, I thought I must have the wrong address. Deep gray with bright orange and white accents and a kiddie pool in the pristine front yard, the place didn't look like it could be the urban farm I was looking for in Burlington's New North End. But then farmer Ethan Thompson, lean and bearded, rounded the corner. He was wearing a sage-colored shirt depicting a fist holding a spade and the words: "Resistance is growing."

And so is he. Thompson, 37, has a master's degree from the University of Vermont in community development and applied economics as well as a certificate in permaculture design from Yestermorrow Design/Build Schoolin Waitsfield. For years, he has been cultivating produce at two locations — this New North End backyard that belongs to some friends and his own home in the Old North End. He calls his enterprise Queen City Acres.

At first, the food was intended to feed his friends' family and his own. But last year, Thompson realized that it wasn't a viable hobby. "I was putting in a ton of time to manage the garden ... It was very weedy, and I didn't have the time to stay on top of it," he said. "It seemed like a dead end."

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A Queen City Acres plot  |  SUZANNE PODHAIZER

Thompson was on the verge of quitting when he found a YouTube series on profitable urban farming. "I was sitting at the computer, and what popped up is this fellow who's making a living growing food in other people's backyards," he explained. "Seeing how other people had done it, I was finally able to envision how I might do it."

And so he founded Queen City Acres. Thompson expanded the main plot in the New North End to 4,000 square feet. Then, in the same neighborhood, a woman who had tended her garden for 30 years and wanted help offered him another, smaller plot.

Thompson grows several crops in his own yard, including pea and sunflower shoots and pink and gray oyster mushrooms. "People love [them]," he said. "I had no idea to what extent sales would be driven by mushrooms."

Thinking about how to find customers for his new business, Thompson realized that he'd need to get creative. "In the first year, I didn't feel like I could commit to even the smallest farmers market," he said. He wasn't sure he could reliably produce enough food, and he worried that his limited selection couldn't compete with bigger operations.

Therefore, Thompson opted for a pop-up market model. Every Thursday, he totes his food to MetroRock climbing center in Essex Junction and sells it in the lobby. On Friday, he does the same at Scout & Co. on North Avenue in Burlington, just around the corner from his home.

Why these locations? "I was relying on my closest community, which is the climbing community," said Thompson, who also works setting routes at MetroRock. And, he continued, "I wanted to connect to my next closest community, my neighbors."

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Oyster mushrooms|   SUZANNE PODHAIZER

Stopping by the local coffee shop for a few hours a week, he noted, was a better business proposition than delivering vegetables to people's homes or having them randomly swing by his place for a head of lettuce or pint of cherry tomatoes.

In February, Thompson began popping up at MetroRock with shoots to sell and a sign-up sheet for his farm stand community supported agriculture, or CSA, shares. Unlike shares he's received, he doesn't decide what to package up for people each week. Customers pay in the spring and receive that amount, plus a bonus percentage, as credit. Then they choose whatever they want from his selection, whenever they want it. "It's a totally flexible model," the farmer said.

Thompson wanted to avoid the problems he'd had participating in other CSAs. "I'd done CSAs for a number of years but stopped," he said. "I was getting more stuff than I could use and got stuff I wasn't interested in using."

In his research on this agricultural model nationwide, Thompson found that the average rate of retention for customers is only 50 percent. He guessed that other participants had issues similar to his. By giving his customers free choice, he hopes to keep them.

At first, Thompson said, his pop-ups were a little slow, especially the one at Scout & Co. "It rained the first eight Fridays I was out there, and there weren't many people walking around," he lamented. But his fortune changed when he began weekly posts on Front Porch Forum about what he was going to have on offer. "That seemed to make a huge difference," Thompson said.

On a recent Thursday at the MetroRock pickup, a steady trickle of people stopped by to check out the cartons of late-season strawberries, bags of mesclun mix and mustard greens, and piles of radishes and carrots. Thompson said that greens — which grow quickly and can be cut several times — are one of the mainstays of profitable urban farms, as are baby roots. Bulky items or veggies that have a longer growing season, such as potatoes, cabbages and corn, are best produced in more rural environments.

Christine Dong, who works at MetroRock's front desk, remarked that having Thompson pop up with veggies at the gym is a boon for climbers. "It's really beneficial — everyone here likes to eat local," she said. "I love having the seasonal produce ... the mushrooms, the greens."

Based on this year's success, Thompson hopes to expand his operation in 2018 by adding two more plots. And, he said, "I've got feelers out for some sort of indoor space for doing microgreens in the off-season, and for storage."

Cherry tomatoes                                                                                               SUZANNE PODHAIZER

For now, Thompson's main plot produces mostly baby greens such as mizuna, mesclun from High Mowing Organic Seeds and red Russian kale — another best seller. He also grows cherry tomatoes and a few unusual crops, such as Egyptian walking onions and shiso, a mint variety.

The friends who own the main plot have also allowed Thompson to build a simple wash station for cleaning and packing veggies and a walk-in cooler for storage, both critical to the operation. Without that infrastructure, he said, he wouldn't want to be a professional farmer.

The farmed plots, wash station and cooler have taken shape without changing the character of the neighborhoods in which he's farming. From the street, the houses appear typical. Only when you enter the backyards do you notice row after row of tiny greens poking through the soil, a pile of kale drying under fans below the wraparound porch and a helper packing up carrots for the market.

The biggest difference, Thompson surmised, is that folks in the surrounding houses — most of whom are his customers — as well as his climber friends at MetroRock, now know exactly where their food is coming from.

The original print version of this article was headlined "Food in the Hood"

Made in London: GrowUp Urban Farm's Tilapia Fish and Microgreens In Beckton

Made in London: GrowUp Urban Farm's Tilapia Fish and Microgreens In Beckton

Victoria Stewart goes behind the scenes at an aquaponic urban farm in Beckton

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Kate Hofman and Tom Webster

• VICTORIA STEWART 
•  
• When I think of city farms in London I think of tiny replicas of country farms - a few animal pens here and there, a few veg boxes, a farm cafe perhaps. What I don’t picture is what I find at GrowUp Urban Farm in Beckton, E6, which is essentially a warehouse divided into two main rooms, one with huge blue circular tanks filled with tilapia fish swimming around inside, and the other with silver shelves stacked on top of each other and brimming with bright green micro coriander, sunflower shoots and baby kale. On a trip there last week it felt as if I’d been jolted into the future.

GrowUp, currently the largest aquaponic farm set up for commercial use, is the brainchild of co-founders Kate Hofman, a former management consultant who now runs the business, and Tom Webster, a former trained biologist who runs the tech side of things. As well as them, there are 11 employees and some university students working alongside.

For the unfamiliar, aquaponics combines aquaculture - farming fish - and hydroponics - cultivating plants in water - where the greens are fed using waste water from the fish, and this example iin Beckton s what Hofman describes as a “fully ethical and sustainable model.”

Setting it up took months of research, “personal sweat” and equity, and outside investment from Centrica’s social impact fund, angel investors, and WRAP, the waste resources and action programme.

Here Hofman talks about why left management consultancy to set up the business, and why it’s important to be flexible when it comes to using technology to run a business like this one.

How many products do you harvest, and what are they?

As well as our tilapia, which are fresh water fish, we grow pea shoots, baby kale, baby watercress, sunflower shoots, custom mixed salads and frilly baby leaf salad. We also do microgreens: micro radish, micro coriander, micro fennel, micro basil, micro rocket and micro mustard.

Who buys your produce?

We sell our greens directly to restaurants in London, indirectly through a distributor called First Choice, to retailers including Whole Foods and online at FarmDrop, and to a couple of catering customers. The majority of the tilapia goes to a Thai restaurant chain called Rosa’s Thai Cafes.

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Why did you start the business? Did you always want to work in the food industry?

Tom trained as a biologist and went onto work as an engineering and sustainability consultant. After he got really interested in food production, we were introduced by a friend and I managed to convince him that it was a good idea to set up a business. I have always been really passionate about food and about sustainability, but I used to work as a management consultant for IBM. I really liked my job but I didn’t feel like I was doing much with a purpose so I decided to take a sabbatical to do a masters in environmental technology and business at Imperial College, where I came across urban farming and aquaponics. It was like a big lightbulb moment - I loved the way that the system took the waste from one side and used it to grow something in the other.

Is this a new technique?

It had been around for quite a while but this was in 2011 and there were very few examples of commercial farms. For so long in Asia, people have been flooding rice paddies, putting fish in them and letting the fish fertilise the plants and eat the bugs and then draining the fields. So from a business perspective I was interested in how you take this technology and this concept of growing that’s been around for hundreds of years to solve some of the sustainability challenges that are going to happen in our food system.

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Is growing like this the future?

This is part of the future, I think. I do not think that all food is going to be grown like this going forward, nor do I think the future of what we do is huge Skyscrapers growing food on every level. In a book called Hungry City, Carolyn Steel calculated that if you wanted to feed London using vertical skyscraper farms, you’d have to build 200 Shards to produce enough food. So then of course that throws up all sorts of questions like why? How would you find the space? How could you make enough money from producing food to compete with residential or commercial properties? So I don’t think that’s the future of food, but I do think it’s about finding the available resources and space to grow the right food for people and to do that more locally.

When did you first sell your products?

I was first interested in it in 2011, we set the business up in 2013, and we began selling produce about a year ago.

How many products have you sold since you started?

Here we can produce around 20,000kgs a year of all of our greens. To put that in perspective, one wholesaler might sell around 20,000kgs of baby kale every 3 months. So we think that if we can build 9 farms, and each of those farms is 10 times the size of this, we’ll be able to do about 2% of the demand for baby leaf produce. We can produce 4 tons - 4000kg - a year of tilapia here, and in perspective, most commercial farmers would start of upwards of 100 tons. So there are really exciting opportunities for us to expand. This system is also designed just for tilapia, but technically it’s possible to grow other types of fresh water fish too.

What’s the reaction been like?

It’s definitely taken my grandma about 4 years to work out how to describe to people what I do! But anyway I think we get a very positive reception when we tell and show people what we do because it’s really interesting and it’s a little bit zeitgeisty, too - it’s cool how fascinated people are about seeing that you can produce food in this way (as a lot of people have a very idealised idea of how their food is being produced). People have all sorts of questions, including some about the ethical side of farming the fish which we’re always happy to talk about - we have guidelines on how we do that. I think farmed fish offers a really good opportunity to provide a sustainable source of protein, and I think globally we’ve got a growing middle class population who want to eat more protein, and we need to find more sustainable ways of producing it.

How important to you was it to produce something in London?

I’m from London and I’ve lived here all my life, so I’ve always felt that it would be where I wanted to start a business. London has a well deserved reputation as a city that loves food, and whose consumers care about where their food comes from. Starting the business in London has given us access to a fantastic range of customers that we can work with, and allowed us to showcase our business to the world.

What’s it like setting up a business in London?

We’ve had a great level of support from the local borough and GLA (Greater London Authority), but finding the right space for a business like ours is more challenging in London because space is at a premium - there’s no question it’s more expensive! And some of the costs we’re pleased to bear - for example, we’re a London Living Wage Employer - but we see those costs, representing the true price of equitable food production, as part of the challenge of building a resilient food system. If we can make it work in London, we can make it work anywhere!

Which other London producers you admire?

I’m fortunate enough to live near to Spa Terminus and Maltby Street Market in Bermondsey, and every week there are some amazing producers there. I’m a particular fan of Kappacasein - how brilliant to have a local cheesemaker! If I’m out and about I almost always have a bag of Snact Fruit Jerky with me. They make fruit snacks from fruit that would otherwise go to waste and I really admire their ethics - they even have compostable packaging!

How does a typical day pan out for a London urban farmer?

Once I’ve dropped my baby at nursery and walked the dog, I’m into the office on the farm in E6 to catch up with colleagues about farm operations, sales and any other developments that we’re working on. We’re always keen to show new restaurant and retail customers what we do, and give them a chance to taste our fantastic produce, so I might be giving a farm tour or going out to visit a customer. If I’m at the farm at lunchtime then we quite often grab whatever has just been freshly harvested and use that to make up a big mixed salad with whatever everyone has brought from home. Then in the afternoon I might try and grab some time at my desk to catch up on emails or work on a proposal - but I’m equally as likely to be working with my business partner on strategy or talking to a member of the farm team about a process that needs improving.

For more information on GrowUp Urban Farm visit growup.org.uk; Follow them on Twitter and Instagram

Follow Victoria on Twitter @vicstewart and Instagram @victoriastewartpics

Agtech, The New Farming Tool To Boost Food Security

An indoor hydroponic growing system in Singapore. Urban farming is one sub-sector that has seen some ‘new wine’ in the form of indoor farms using fully integrated technology for growing vegetables in controlled environments. Photo: Reuters

Agtech, The New Farming Tool To Boost Food Security

By  PAUL TENG  |  Published  3:00 PM, JULY 05, 2017  |  Updated 3:00 PM, July 05, 2017 

Modern farming depends on technology such as seed, fertiliser, pesticides, water, and machinery. These have formed the basis of the world’s food production systems for staples.

However, it has become increasingly clear to scientists, policymakers and development agencies that physical inputs alone did not guarantee that farmers can make best use of these inputs. Knowledge is required to make farms productive, farming practices efficient, and farm productivity more targeted.

At the same time, information-communication technology (ICT) has also increasingly affected the farming community. ICT is increasingly recognised as the means to capture and share knowledge and in the process, improve the efficiency of using production inputs.

For farming, a major challenge has been how to empower all farmers with the knowledge to use inputs effectively.

Agricultural technology (agtech), together with new digital knowledge capture techniques and new financial technology (fintech) groups, is fast changing farming by creating a new knowledge intensive agriculture. And this has implications for Singapore, which wants to boost the efficiency of farm use and improve its food security.

Smallholder farmers remain the foundation for Asia’s food security. These small farmers were responsible for using the first set of “disruptive innovations” in the 1960s, such as high- yielding crop seeds, fertiliser and pesticides to significantly increase food supplies.

However, the large, disparate smallholder population in Asia is geographically spread out and farmers work in diverse farming situations.

Each farmer in effect practises farming in his own way based on knowledge either newly learnt or inherited. So to get all farmers to equally manage well the use of the technical inputs available to them has been one of the biggest challenges in Asia — until the advent of ICT tools.

A recent report on The Future of Food and Agriculture by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) highlighted the urgent task of assuring that the world can meet the 50 per cent increase in demand for food by 2050. So it is all the more important not only to ensure smallholders have access to farming inputs, but also that they know how to use the inputs effectively.

Promoting Use of AGTech in Singapore

A new impetus for knowledge-intensive agriculture is the increase in myriad tools to practise “data-enabled agriculture” — environment sensors, mobile computing, satellites and imaging, drones, wireless communication and even genetics.

The growth of knowledge in digital form, and the increasing capacity of small farmers to access digital information, provide opportunities not possible before to share timely information on farming environments and the required management knowledge.

This democratises the sharing of knowledge. It also has the added attraction of luring millennials and other new entrants into agriculture at a time when almost all countries are faced with the twin problems of an ageing and declining farming population.

This matter is equally important in small city-states like Singapore as in other large agricultural countries.

Two new words, “agtech” and “fintech” have crept into the discourse on modern farming. But are these “old wine in new bottles” or are they truly “new wine in new bottles”?

The growth in knowledge-intensive agriculture offers opportunities for new technologies, new physical inputs and new financial mechanisms to ensure these become socialised into the farming sector.

Agtech collectively means the individual technologies or a combination of technologies related to farm equipment, weather, seed optimisation, fertiliser and crop inputs, irrigation, remote sensing (including drones), farm management, and agricultural big data.

Agtech has gained widespread attention and considerable investment, with one pioneering company, AgFunder, estimating that in 2014 and 2015 alone, investments totalled US$7 billion (S$9.7 billion).

Urban farming is one sub-sector that has seen some “new wine” in the form of indoor farms using fully integrated technology for growing vegetables in controlled environments of artificial light, temperature, carbon dioxide, water and fertiliser.

Korea and Japan together have over 100 indoor high-tech farms. South Korea even has a government agency to provide oversight and promote agtech.

In Singapore, Panasonic’s indoor controlled environment vegetable farm grows about 40 different types of vegetables and has delivered such high-tech vegetables to supermarkets.

Another start-up, Archisen, is prototyping a different kind of indoor controlled environment farm using an Internet of Things approach and eventually aims to connect multiple such farms with cloud technology.

There are other commericial urban vegetable farms, each showing its unique use of engineering technology.

To incentivise investors in modern agtech farms, enablers would include longer or lower-cost space leases, one-stop approvals to farm in urban space, government start-up funds, and more platforms for sourcing private financing.

Singapore can promote more use of modern agtech by showcasing or piloting available agtech in partnership with local or overseas groups such as “AgFunder”.

But ultimately, adoption will depend on the enabling environment as farming enterprises need to show an adequate return on investment over an assured period.

Connecting The Dots

Fintech companies now use new technology to provide financial services for innovations in farming, either bypassing or complementing traditional financial and technology players such as development banks and multinational companies as the main suppliers of physical technologies and knowledge to small farmers.

But it is the synergy of agtech and fintech that is causing great excitement for knowledge-intensive agriculture.

Countries with active financial centres coupled with proper governance such as intellectual property protection for new technology, will find that the changed landscape provides many opportunities to create new avenues of economic growth.

An example is Singapore, which has a “first mover” advantage in urban farming technology, and has already attracted attention from investors from other parts of Asia.

Singapore, with many centres of expertise in ICT, and being home to many financial institutions, has potential to develop into a major agtech-fintech player to generate new technology-based farming applications for small-farmer knowledge-intensive agriculture in both urban and rural situations.

Historically, farming has seen many disruptive innovations, such as hybrid corn in the 1920s, biotech crops in 1996, and now digital agricultural technologies and genome-edited crops and animals in the 2010s.

As experts at an Asian Development Bank workshop last month noted, knowledge-intensive agriculture has the potential to become the latest and most impactful game changer because it “connects the dots” to link technology, knowledge, the farmer and the financier.

The FAO report on the future of food and agriculture also proposed that new investments and new technologies are needed to meet the 50 per cent increase in food demand by 2050, and doing so will require US$ 265 million in investment a year.

It is unlikely that all this investment will be met by governments, pointing further to an important complementary role of fintech companies.

New platforms for connecting technology developers with investors are already starting to make their presence felt in Singapore.

Government support could help in establishing Singapore as a key player in the agtech-fintech space for agriculture.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Paul Teng is Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He formerly held leadership positions at The WorldFish Centre, The International Rice Research Institute and Monsanto Company. This is adapted from another piece in RSIS Commentary and part of a series on the upcoming World Agricultural Forum (WAF) on July 6-7 organised jointly by RSIS.

Indoor Ag Means Safer Conditions For Farm Workers

Indoor Ag Means Safer Conditions For Farm Workers

Vertical farm CEO says growing greens without pesticides, herbicides and other harmful chemicals one of many pluses of this booming industry

 One of the potential benefits of the booming indoor farming industry is safer working conditions for the people who grow and harvest our food.

“Farm workers will no longer have to work with the risk of pesticide drift,” says Sonia Lo, CEO of FreshBox Farms, the nation’s largest modular vertical farm.

California regulators continue to debate how to best protect farm workers from harmful pesticides and herbicides, but when it comes to food grown indoors, in digitally controlled locations, it’s a moot point.

FreshBox Farms, like other Digital Distributed Agriculture (DDA) operations, uses sustainable growing enclosures, no soil, very little water, a rigorously-tested nutrient mix and LED lighting to produce the freshest, cleanest, tastiest produce possible.

“No pesticides or other harmful chemicals are used, so that means a safer working environment,” says Lo. “Conventional growers try to control and contain the chemicals sprayed on fields, but the fact is, in many cases, those chemical can contaminate groundwater, and air, not to mention expose field workers to harmful substances.”

The leafy greens market in the US is $6 billion to $9 billion per year, but over the next 10 years, industry observers believe that over 50% of traditional growing operations will go indoors and into some form of DDA. As a result, industry watchers are predicting the creation of more than new 100,000 jobs.

"Unlike other high-tech industries, Digital Agriculture offers entry level jobs, with career path prospects, to unskilled labor,” says Lo. “It pays well and is in a pleasant indoor, climate-controlled environment. Anyone who is willing to work hard can get ahead in this industry." 

Vertical Farming: Is The Industry Learning From Its Mistakes?

Vertical Farming: Is The Industry Learning From Its Mistakes?

/AGRITECTURE.COM EXCLUSIVE/

by Chad Sykes

A debate about vertical farming has recently started to find its way into public discussion by many respected people in the industry, such as Joe Swartz from American Hydroponics and Nate Storey, Chairman of Bright Agrotech. This debate hasn’t been lost on journalists either who have started asking the question, what is “the verdict on the value of vertical farming” and “does vertical farming make sense?” I’ve decided it’s time to share my own personal opinions on the subject of vertical farming in an effort to help shape the ongoing debate and maybe help others from making a huge financial mistake.

So, what is the verdict on vertical farming? Well, I honestly think the jury is still out, but there is more than enough evidence to at least suggest what works and what does not. The problem today is that more often than not, the industry is selling a dream and not the honest reality. I’ve been in this industry since the very beginning and watched it evolve, so hopefully sharing my knowledge will prove useful and prevent people from buying into the dream because it can quickly become a nightmare.

THE BIRTH OF VERTICAL FARMING

It was late 2008 when I was first introduced to what has now become widely known as Vertical Farming, or more technically accurate, Building-Integrated-Agriculture. The Company was Angel Eyes Produce, whose CEO Andy Maslin had reached out to me for some help in marketing his Company to investors. At the time I was running a boutique investor and public relations Company taking on unique and interesting clients. Andy was operating out of a small 3,000 square foot warehouse in upstate New York growing a variety of crops indoors under fluorescent light and selling them through his local farmers market. My first visit to his farm was in the winter, with three feet of snow outside his door. I was enthralled, to say the least.

To the best of my knowledge, Andy was the first true pioneer of small scale vertical farming in the U.S. The idea was unheard of at the time and finding willing investors proved to be quite difficult. I couldn’t help Andy raise the money he needed and he eventually fell victim to some people who exploited his efforts. Today, Andy runs 2445 Organics with his family in Massena, New York. I haven’t spoken to him in a while, but meeting him changed my life.

VERTICAL FARMING GOES BIG

Fast-forward a couple years to 2010 and everyone is talking about Dickson Despommier’s book The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21stCentury. In the U.S., the big players in vertical farming that I started closely following were TerraSphere, Aerofarms and VertiCrop. These new farms represented a far more complex model than I had seen Andy attempting with Angel Eyes Produce. This new breed of vertical farms tried to go big and commercial with tons of automation and complex systems. For the next three years a competition of sorts broke out and everyone was vying for the title of the “largest vertical farm.” Most of these expensive, highly automated vertical farms would eventually begin to fail and lessons were learned by these early pioneers.

New players that came into the market watched these failures unfold in real time and developed less complicated and less costly vertical farms such as Green Spirit Farms, FarmedHere, Ecopia Farms and Green Sense Farms. This new generation of vertical farms reminded me a lot of Andy’s farm but these farms were being attempted at a much larger scale. 3,000 square feet gave way to 20,000 square feet and now farms were being built with over 10 layers, whereas Andy’s farm only had two or three in most cases. Investors had finally started warming up to the concept and more and more money was becoming available to start-up’s claiming to have the next greatest vertical farming idea. Vertical farming had finally started to gain some traction. It was an exciting time for all of us in the industry.  

JUMPING INTO THE FRAY

In late 2011, I decided I would join the vertical farming movement and I founded Indoor Harvest Corp. The original idea for Indoor Harvest was to combine a vertical farm with a café. The idea was simple, use the vertical farm as a marketing tool and offer fresh produce under a traditional café model that would serve soups, salads and sandwiches. In developing this idea, it became obvious there was more opportunity in the methods and processes of vertical farming than actually running one. So, while everyone else was going for the title of biggest vertical farm, I realized the industry technology was evolving too quickly to jump in as an operator so I turned my focus towards research and development. I started looking at ways to innovate vertical farming and build relationships and research and development partnerships to expand my knowledge base.

Image credit: Indoor Harvest

In 2012, I began conducting research and development with high-pressure aeroponics. I had been inspired by Richard Stoner’s work with Agrihouse and NASA as well as Aerofarms. However, I wasn’t satisfied with any of the existing designs so I began looking at how the method could be improved and better scaled. Those efforts caught the attention of a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab which led to an agreement and the commissioning of a research platform for OpenAg, formerly known as MITCityFarm.  Working on this project I learned something quite valuable, a grower could manipulate the chemical expression of a plant by combining aeroponics, LED lighting and environmental controls. In late 2014, I took that knowledge and began working with Canopy Growth Corporation to test the potential of aeroponics and environmental controls for cannabis production.

In 2013, I was the first U.S. based Company to join the newly formed Association of Vertical Farming. I was there, mingling and sharing ideas with the people that have now gone on to do big things in the industry. Unfortunately, my subsequent involvement in the cannabis industry has caused political issues for me personally in the vertical farming space.

I could probably write an entire book on my work in the vertical farming space if it wasn’t for all the NDA’s I’ve had to sign. I’ve had the pleasure of working with numerous big names in vertical farming, albeit mainly from behind the scenes due to cannabis politics. I’ve been invited to tour several major name vertical farms and asked to provide feedback. Now I want to share some of that feedback publicly in an effort to promote better adoption, dispel some myths and maybe help the discussion currently taking shape.

Image credit: Verticrop

LESSONS NOT BEING LEARNED

Back when I first started, the vertical farming industry was lucky to get a published article once a month. Today, it’s not uncommon to see a dozen articles in just a single week. It’s safe to say that vertical farming has reached a critical mass. Unfortunately, the hype is creating a dangerous bubble which threatens to put the industry back several years. With Silicon Valley money now pouring into vertical farming because of the hype from technologists, everything is changing. Many of the mistakes we made five years ago are still being made today by these newer entrants. In many cases, people are simply reinventing and repackaging failed ideas. This is happening due to a new influx of investors not familiar with the history of the industry and new entrants copying what they have seen others do. Recently, there was an excellent panel hosted at the Aglanta Conferencewhere vertical farming pioneers discussed the challenges facing the industry. 

Here are a few things I believe the industry needs to hear:

• Small Vertical Farms are at best a hobby that pays for itself, at worst it’s a financial nightmare for the operator. With that said, there are certainly some successful small-scale vertical farms in operation today. However, what has made them successful has little to do with their technology and more to do with their geographic location, local market conditions and how they market their products. Generally speaking though, it’s become the exception to the rule. The margins are quite thin in vertical farming at a small scale. It’s simply not a sustainable business if it doesn’t turn a sustainable profit. Vertical farming is no joke and the failure rate is quite high.

• There are far too many LED and Software/Automation companies in the vertical farming industry, please no more. Regardless of what the investment reports say, large scale vertical farms are developing far slower than any of us expected. They are capital intensive, require huge amounts of planning, engineering and developers must deal with complicated zoning and other regulatory hurdles. What’s fueling the ancillary business growth isn’t big vertical farms, but the rapid growth and interest in smaller vertical farms. In other words, the majority of the industry is built upon a weak economic model. This bubble is eventually going to pop. If I’m building a vertical farm and spending millions I want to make sure my LED supplier is going to be around for the next 10-15 years. That narrows it down to just a handful of well-capitalized companies. If I’m building automation, I don’t care about some cute cell phone app, I’m going to develop on a tried and proven controls platform such as Siemens or Rockwell and I’m going to develop a controls strategy from the ground up specifically to my needs.

• No, Vertical Farming is NOT going to solve the looming food crises. Just stop, this is ridiculous nonsense. Amazon didn’t just move to acquire Whole Foods because they want to feed the hungry starving masses. They did it because more affluent buyers are willing to spend more on higher quality produce, not because they are solving world hunger. It is this demand for a higher quality product by those who can afford it that is driving the vertical farming industry today. Maybe in 100 years when we’re all glowing from Fukushima radiation and our crops won’t grow because of climate change, maybe vertical farms will solve a problem. However, chances are more likely humanity will have to completely rethink its diet to survive and vertical farms will ditch leafy greens and microgreens for a hybrid GMO, high-protein cultivar that science has yet to engineer.

• No, Vertical Farming is not more sustainable, at least not yet. We’ve all heard it, vertical farming is better for the environment because it reduces the logistics of farming. While this may be true for a very large, automated, commercial-scale vertical farm, it is nowhere near true for a small scale vertical farm. The carbon foot print of a head of lettuce coming out of a small vertical farm is terribly high. It’s a tough pill to swallow when someone tells you that your small vertical farm is not environmentally friendly, but it’s not. Sorry. Scaling such a model up would not only be economically bad, it would be environmentally bad as well.

• It’s not the “Vertical” in Vertical Farming that is key, it’s the ability to control the environment with precision.  Much of vertical farming is based on the fact that crops are grown in layers. However, the biggest asset of a vertical farm isn’t the layers, it’s the ability to provide a controlled environment. The focus should be on maximizing that aspect, not on how many layers you can stack. Think outside the box. Select crops that can benefit from this control.

• HVAC, it’s the most often overlooked aspect of Vertical Farming.  While many focus on the growing system, lighting or the software that runs a vertical farm, very few people make the right choices when it comes to HVAC. A plant needs airflow to properly transpire. However, too much airflow is bad as well. When I see an indoor farm with oscillating fans and standalone dehumidifiers, I see a farm that wasn’t properly designed. Vertical Farms are not office buildings, they are more like data centers. A properly engineered vertical farm HVAC system is going to be capable of removing humidity and heat via a central plant that would be designed in a manner that allows airflow management across the plant canopy. There’s no point cooling the isles, or empty spaces. I’d also highly recommend investing in airflow modeling to see where potential problems might be.

• What is your ROI after considering additional CAPEX in years 5 and 10? Today’s vertical farms are bigger, but in most cases are less complicated than their earliest large-scale predecessors. In some respects, the industry has come full circle. We’re basically back to where we started and are now talking expensive automation again. The question everyone must ask now is what is my ROI after say just 10 years? LED lights are going to fizzle out, mechanical systems are going to fail and pumps will need to be rebuilt. It would not be crazy to suggest that up to 70% of a vertical farm system will undergo some level of replacement or repair within a 10-year window. Does your vertical farm design allow for ease of maintenance? How does this fit into your cost model? Did you consider this in your business plan? This is where vertical farming is going to see its biggest challenge in the coming years. Vertical Farming will need to prove that the ROI is worth it before more capital is required to be injected into the business to keep it viable. I don’t see this happening for most of the big vertical farms operating today. Most will end up being maintenance nightmares within five years which will drive operating costs up.

Image credit: Indoor Harvest

VERTICAL FARMING 2.0

Now that I’ve probably upset half the folks in the vertical farming community, not all is lost. I believe firmly that vertical farming can and will work. However, we must be honest about the economic results we’ve been seeing and learn from our mistakes. For those who know me well, I was initially the biggest champion of promoting the small vertical farming model. It was the entire core of my business plan at one time. However, after working in this industry for the better part of a decade, I’ve become wise to what works and what doesn’t. I want to see this industry grow and thrive but we need to have a real discussion about the economics of vertical farming. Here are a few things that I believe are going to be important in the Vertical Farming 2.0 movement moving forward:

• Scale and automation are going to be the keys to success. If you’re not planning on spending tens of millions of dollars, you’re not scaled for success. Future successful vertical farms are going to be the ones that dramatically reduce the handling of the product, people and reduce the number of actions required to package and ship. The groups who figure out how to reduce the handling and steps required are going to be the winners. There is not a single vertical farm in operation today that doesn’t require substantial movement of people and product. The good news is there are people figuring this out and I suspect 2018 will be the year we start seeing these newer, more streamlined methods deployed.

• One size does not fit all, geography, local market, and branding matter. The number one question I get asked from aspiring vertical farmers is, how much does it cost and how much will I produce? If you don’t already know the answer, you need to get a master grower on your team and someone that understands marketing. Then come talk to me after you’ve figured your business plan out. Every city is going to have different opportunities. While I can guide you through building a vertical farm, I have no way to know the multitude of business plans that will work for your selected market and location. This is the number one mistake I see new vertical farmers making, not having the people on their team that have the appropriate local experience.

• If you don’t have a master grower, you’re most likely going to fail. While it looks easy, vertical farming is anything but. If you open an automotive repair shop, you need to hire a mechanic. If you open a barber shop, you need to hire a barber. If you start up a vertical farm, you need to hire a master grower. Do not assume you can watch a Youtube video or have an iPhone app help you figure this out. Farming outdoors is not easy, farming indoors is that much harder. Success depends on having the right people. Farming is not something you can franchise or manage from an operating manual or user interface.

• Pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, niche food markets and plant research are the future of Vertical Farming. Spending millions of dollars to grow just basic lettuce in a vertical farm is not exactly economically viable. I’m sorry to burst some bubbles but the numbers just aren’t that good. The margins just don’t work in most locations. Not unless you’re in Alaska, or in a geographic region where produce is mostly imported. In those situations, there is an opportunity for vertical farms to support niche markets. The real future of vertical farming I believe is in the ability to produce crops with precision and with consistency. Whether that’s using technology to chemically express cannabis for specific pharmaceutical use, or growing high-quality cultivars for cosmetics or research. Lettuce is boring folks, there’s so much more we can do with vertical farming that isn’t being done. The cannabis industry could surely benefit from vertical farming methods, but legal issues hinder such major infrastructure development in the U.S. today.

• Investors, quit chasing the flashy gimmicks and technologist hype. This is for all investors out there interested in vertical farming. Especially the big ones. Quit fueling the bubble and put your money behind actual scaled farm development. Try and avoid the latest flashy white label Chinese LED light, the most recent version of the Hannibal rack/flood table vertical farm, or the cool cell phone app that does nothing to help move innovation forward. Make sure you are talking to people who have been doing this since the beginning. Get to know the whole community, not just the more visible well-funded and marketed players. There’s a lot of hype out there, so be careful. Anyone saying their numbers are amazing are misleading you somewhere. Ask about their 5 and 10-year plans. If your potential investment hasn’t factored in at least a 30% CAPEX refit after 10 years, they haven’t been doing this long enough to know better. Ultimately it is you, the investors that will drive this industry forward, or cause the bubble to get bigger before it pops.

Disclaimer: Chad Sykes is the founder and Chief Innovation Officer of Indoor Harvest Corp, a publicly held Company and is a Director and spokesperson for the Medical Cannabis Association of Texas. This article was prepared or accomplished in Mr. Sykes personal capacity. The opinions and views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of Indoor Harvest Corp, its Board of Directors, its shareholders, or the Medical Cannabis Association of Texas.

SOURCE AGRITECTURE.COM

AppHarvest Selects SUNSET To Re-Ignite Coal Country

AppHarvest Selects SUNSET To Re-Ignite Coal Country

Pikeville, KY– Aug 1, 2017 – Jonathan Webb’s vision of bringing a renewed economic boom to the Appalachians looks to be bright. Wisely he has brought in the industry pioneer and expert to launch his mountain top greenhouse in the heart of America.

Agricultural startup AppHarvest, and Mastronardi Produce Ltd., North America’s leading grower and distributor of specialty and commodity greenhouse produce that operates under the SUNSET® brand, today announced that they have partnered to help develop high-tech greenhouses in the Kentucky and West Virginia Appalachian region.

“We are very excited to be partnering with AppHarvest and to support their plan of bringing high-tech greenhouse jobs to this Appalachian region and fresh, local year round produce to key markets,” said Paul Mastronardi, President and CEO of Mastronardi Produce. “AppHarvest shares our passion for developing local communities and our commitment to providing “fresh from the farm” produce to our customers that we believe is critically important to our success.”

AppHarvest Founder and CEO, Jonathan Webb, said his team is committed to bringing the high-tech greenhouse industry to the heart of coal country and believes that Mastronardi is the perfect partner. "We believe that Mastronardi Produce has the most talented and successful greenhouse team in the world and their SUNSET® brand is one of the top brands in produce today. Our partnership with them will set us up for success and allow us to build a scalable model in the region.”

“Jonathan has identified terrific pieces of land to erect the facilities and secured enormous support throughout the region. His dedication to this project is unmatchable.” Mastronardi stated.

About SUNSET® SUNSET® is a pioneer and industry leader in the gourmet greenhouse industry that grows and    markets    nationally recognized brands such as the Campari®,    Zima®,       Angel Sweet® and Kumato® brand tomatoes.     Family owned and employee managed for over 60 years, SUNSET® prides itself on       producing       consistently flavorful     gourmet     tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. Click here to access more SUNSET® news releases.

Over 10,000 jobs have been lost in Eastern Kentucky since the decline of coal. “The spirit of the region is unmatched and we want to work alongside those hardworking men and women,” Webb said. “Our goal is to provide economic development and opportunity for this region.”

The first project announced is in Eastern Kentucky on top of a reclaimed coal mine site and will be a 1.8 million square ft state of the art glass greenhouse. Webb stated that “as a gateway between the Midwest and South, Kentucky’s borders lie within a day’s drive of 65 percent of the US population and income. Building near these markets will significantly reduce transportation costs and will provide a much need local produce option for these regions.” Mastronardi will be the exclusive marketer for AppHarvest.

About Mastronardi Produce

Founded in the 1940s, Mastronardi Produce is a family-run business that is the largest vertically- integrated producer and distributor of Greenhouse-grown produce in North America. The Company, whose produce is packed under the SUNSET® brand, sources, grows, packages, and distributes over 50 of the most flavorful, award-winning varieties of non-GMO verified greenhouse-grown tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and other non-GMO verified products (including organics) on a year round basis. The Company’s nationally recognized specialty brands include the Campari®, Zima® Angel Sweet® and Kumato® tomatoes. Mastronardi’s proprietary rights to varietals, national distribution footprint, large grower network and industry-leading food safety and traceability programs have positioned the Company to be the produce supplier of choice for customers and end-consumers. For more information, please visit Mastronardi’s website at sunsetgrown.com.

About AppHarvest

AppHarvest is bringing Appalachia into the next generation of agriculture. The core of AppHarvest is built around a vision of employing the strong spirited individuals of the region. The startup is developing large-scale hi tech greenhouses growing fresh vegetables for local communities in the US. AppHarvest will be able to to deliver fresh produce to the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest of the US within a day's drive. For more information visit AppHarvest.co.

At The Innovation Apex of Agriculture

At The Innovation Apex of Agriculture

New crops, automation and big data fueled conversations at the 5th annual Indoor Ag-Con in Las Vegas.

July 27, 2017  |  Patrick Williams

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Photo: Patrick Williams; Logo courtesy of Indoor Ag-Con

Between the metallic dinosaur at the trade show’s entrance, vertical gardens exhibiting multicolored lettuce and leafy greens, and booths showing off the latest in lighting technology, the 5th annual Indoor Ag-Con in Las Vegas, May 3-4, provided attendees an all-encompassing tour of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) and the technology and innovation that surround it.

Produce Grower was proud to be a sponsor of the event, where sessions focused on everything from securing funding to managing lighting needs to ensuring food safety. To learn more about the keynotes and Produce Grower’s general takeaways from Indoor Ag-Con, listen to our event recap at bit.ly/2tJ0yB4. In these pages, we will look at sessions centered around new crops and the future of automation and big data in CEA.

New Crop Opportunities

From drastic flavor modification to growing crops with major health benefits, the Indoor Ag-Con session “Which crops will move indoors next?” spotlighted new crop opportunities in CEA.

By changing one ingredient in a hydroponic mix, Dr. Deane Falcone, SVP, plant sciences and product development at FreshBox Farms, says he and his colleagues have been able to modify the flavor intensity of arugula to create mild and spicy varieties. “[The spicy variety] is very, very spicy, and the mild is almost completely bland,” he says. “That means we have the opportunity to titrate that and ... make yet a third one.”

Additionally, scientists can adjust the phytonutrient content of specific crops to produce anticancer qualities, Falcone says. Studies over the past 10 to 15 years, for instance, have shown that broccoli possesses anticancer activity through compounds called sulforophanes, he says.

Ice plant (Mesembryanthemum crystallinum) and purslane are other crops that growers may want to consider adding to their existing offerings, Dr. Richard Fu, president of Agrivolution, discussed in the session. These crops will not only allow growers in the United States to differentiate their product lines and stick out from the crowd, he says, but they carry health benefits as well.

The inositol in ice plant helps reduce insulin resistance for people with prediabetic conditions or polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and it contains beta-Carotene and Vitamin K. The Super Omega-3 and alpha-linolenic fatty acids in purslane, meanwhile, can help alleviate allergies. To learn more about ice plant and purslane, read Greenhouse Management’s Q&A with Fu at bit.ly/2uFT6EG

In the fruit realm, Driscoll’s, the largest berry marketer in the world, has recently begun growing blackberries in glasshouses and has seen promising results, says Ian Justus, senior manager, controlled environment production. Justus works in research and development and produces high quality and high yields growing the company’s new Victoria variety under glass.

The Victoria crops grow approximately 13 feet tall, which makes them difficult to harvest on foot but conducive to cart passes in the greenhouse, Justus says. Multiple supplemental lighting sources exist in the glasshouses. “We’ve got high-pressure sodium lights at the top, and we’ve got really intricate LED bars down at the bottom,” Justus says.

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Clockwise from left: Dr. Deane Falcone, Dr. Richard Fu, Ian Justus, Alastair Monk, Darryn Keiller, Nate Storey

Photos courtesy of Nicola Kerslake

The future of Big Data and Automation

Many produce growers have some type of automation set up in their greenhouse or vertical farm, and all of them collect data in some way. But how can growers use automation and large data sets to improve their operations, and is there room in CEA for data sharing? These are questions that were addressed in the Indoor Ag-Con session “What impact can big data and automation have on indoor agriculture?”

Operations can track data that measures how fast crops have been growing compared to previous years, and which inputs those crops need at a given point, says Alastair Monk, co-founder and CEO of Motorleaf. Monk says he wants to see a future where every single grower can automatically use intelligent data to control their operations.

A question that came up at multiple points through Indoor Ag-Con and that Monk addressed is “Who owns the data?” He gave the example of a field farmer using a tractor that collects data. In his example, the farmer owns the raw data, but it is then put onto a server, mixed together with data from other farmers. Once the source of the data is no longer identifiable, the data is made accessible to third-party companies. “I think that’s probably the kind of model that indoor agriculture is going to have to follow,” he says.

Currently, automated systems control environments and crop dosing, but companies are beginning to look more at how to improve the productivity, quality and taste of a crop, says Darryn Keiller, CEO of Autogrow. And while much of this information is proprietary, he, too, would like companies to share data to make it “big.”

Keiller equates an improved system, at least in part, with predictive analytics. “Lighting strikes, stormfronts, record temperature drops, solar radiation, reduced cloud cover — all these things effect production practices,” Keiller says. “But what if you could predict those things?”

Rounding out the session was Nate Storey, founder and chairman of Bright Agrotech. He is also the chief science officer at Plenty, which recently acquired Bright Agrotech (Editor’s Note: Read about the acquisition at bit.ly/2sF5fbs). Storey spoke specifically about machine vision, which he explains as the process of using images to glean data such as size, color and changes over time.

In fact, Storey says, machine vision can tell changes over time better than a human can, as well as temperature, nutrient deficiencies, fruit ripeness and environmental conditions. This outlook may not rest easy with every grower, but Storey is confident in it. “Even [with] my eyes, my mind and all of my experience in growing plants, I’m not as sensitive to these issues as we can get with the right set of images and the right analysis,” he says.

TruLeaf Hits Commercial Shelves

ENTREVESTOR: TruLeaf Hits Commercial Shelves

PETER MOREIRA
Published August 1, 2017 - 7:06pm
Last Updated August 1, 2017 - 7:07pm

Bible Hill company strikes deal with Atlantic Superstores

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TruLeaf Sustainable Agriculture, the ag-tech company planning a chain of indoor farms across the country, announced Monday its locally grown microgreen products are now available in select Atlantic Superstores across the Maritimes.

Appearing under the company’s GoodLeaf Farms brand, these products grown in the company’s farm in Bible Hill are now available in a dozen Superstores spanning the three Maritime provinces.

According to the TruLeaf website, the products include broccoli shoots, kale shoots, daikon radish shoots and pea shoots, baby arugula and baby kale.

TruLeaf is seeking to become a leader in sustainable agriculture through the use of vertical farming, which combines proven hydroponic technology with advancements in LED lighting and reclaimed rainwater to allow year-round production of plants indoors.

Vertical farming is nearly 10 times more efficient than traditional agriculture, uses as much as 90 per cent less water, and takes up less land.

TruLeaf, which closed an $8.5-million financing round last December, has been working with Loblaw, the parent company of Atlantic Superstores, on the development of its farms.

“We know our customers are looking for exceptional produce, grown locally wherever possible, which is why we are such huge supporters of local and regional suppliers,” said Loblaw director of corporate affairs Mark Boudreau said in a statement.

“Having fresh local vegetables year round in the Maritimes would have been impossible a decade ago. We’re excited about today’s launch and proud of our role working with TruLeaf over the past few years to bring this innovative farming technology to our Atlantic Superstore customers.”

The announcement comes as TruLeaf begins construction on its 50,000-square-foot facility in Guelph, Ont. which will produce vegetables for the Toronto market. It will be five times the size of the Bible Hill facility.

The company said last year that its $8.5-million funding round would be used to build a plant and access the massive Toronto market.

The round was led by Mike Durland, the former CEO of Scotiabank’s global banking and markets division, and included funding from Neil Murdoch, former CEO of Connor, Clark & Lunn Capital Markets.

The Chronicle-Herald reported in December that the new facility will include a network of sensors and artificial intelligence to automate the climate controls and feeding systems for the plants.

TruLeaf said GoodLeaf Farms has been embraced by local wholesalers and restaurants, and now the brand is available across the Maritimes in select stores.

“We are thrilled to be bringing a new era of freshness to Atlantic Canadian consumers,” said TruLeaf CEO Gregg Curwin.

“We grow our produce in tightly controlled environments to the very highest standards in the industry. It’s a difference you can truly taste — our products are bursting with flavour and nutrition. And by dramatically reducing the time and energy needed to grow produce, it really is a new way to eat responsibly.”

The GoodLeaf products are available at:

• Barrington Street Superstore, Halifax

• Charlottetown Superstore

• Fredericton Superstore, Smyth Street

• Joseph Howe Superstore, Halifax

• Trinity Superstore, Moncton

• Bayers Lake Superstore, Halifax

•Kennebecasis Valley Market, Rothesay

• Moncton Superstore, Main Street

• Quinpool Superstore, Halifax

•Dartmouth Superstore, Portland Street

•Truro Superstore

• Sydney River Superstore.

Vertical Farming: Can Urban Agriculture Feed a Hungry World?

Vertical Farming: Can Urban Agriculture Feed a Hungry World?

Agricultural researchers believe that building indoor farms in the middle of cities could help solve the world's hunger problem. Experts say that vertical farming could feed up to 10 billion people and make agriculture independent of the weather and the need for land. There's only one snag: The urban farms need huge amounts of energy.

Romses Architects

By Fabian Kretschmer and Malte E. Kollenberg

July 22, 201110:58 AM

One day, Choi Kyu Hong might find himself in a vegetable garden on the 65th floor of a skyscraper. But, so far, his dream of picking fresh vegetables some 200 meters (655 feet) up has only been realized in hundreds of architectural designs.

In real life, the agricultural scientist remains far below such dizzying heights, conducting his work in a nondescript three-story building in the South Korean city of Suwon. The only thing that makes the squat structure stand out is the solar panels on its roof, which provide power for the prototype of a farm Choi is working on. If he and his colleagues succeed, their efforts may change the future of urban farming -- and how the world gets its food.

From the outside, the so-called vertical farm has nothing in common with the luxury high-rises surrounding it. Inside the building, heads of lettuce covering 450 square meters (4,800 square feet) are being painstakingly cultivated. Light and temperature levels are precisely regulated. Meanwhile, in the surrounding city, some 20 million people are hustling among the high-rises and apartment complexes, going about their daily lives.

Every person who steps foot in the Suwon vertical farm must first pass through an "air shower" to keep outside germs and bacteria from influencing the scientific experiment. Other than this oddity, though, the indoor agricultural center closely resembles a traditional rural farm. There are a few more technological bells and whistles (not to mention bright pink lighting) which remind visitors this is no normal farm. But the damp air, with its scent of fresh flowers, recalls that of a greenhouse.

Heads of lettuce are lined up in stacked layers. At the very bottom, small seedlings are thriving while, further up, there are riper plants almost ready to be picked. Unlike in conventional greenhouses, the one in Suwon uses no pesticides between the sowing and harvest periods, and all water is recycled. This makes the facility completely organic. It is also far more productive than a conventional greenhouse.

Choi meticulously checks the room temperature. He carefully checks the wavelengths of the red, white and blue LED lights aimed at the tender plants. Nothing is left to chance when it comes to the laboratory conditions of this young agricultural experiment. The goal is to develop optimal cultivation methods -- and ones that can compete on the open market. Indeed, Korea wants to bring vertical farming to the free market.

Nine Billion People by 2050

Vertical farming is an old idea. Indigenous people in South America have long used vertically layered growing techniques, and the rice terraces of East Asia follow a similar principle. But, now, a rapidly growing global population and increasingly limited resources are making the technique more attractive than ever.

The Green Revolution of the late 1950s boosted agricultural productivity at an astounding rate, allowing for the explosive population growth still seen today. Indeed, since 1950, the Earth's population has nearly tripled, from 2.4 billion to 7 billion, and global demand for food has grown accordingly.

Until now, the agricultural industry could keep up well enough -- otherwise swelling population figures would have leveled off long ago. But scientists warn that agricultural productivity has its limits. What's more, much of the land on which the world's food is grown has become exhausted or no longer usable. Likewise, there is not an endless supply of areas that can be converted to agricultural use.

By 2050, the UN predicts that the global population will surpass 9 billion people. Given current agricultural productivity rates, the Vertical Farm Project estimates that an agricultural area equal in size to roughly half of South America will be needed to feed this larger population.

Vertical farming has the potential to solve this problem. The term "vertical farming" was coined in 1915 by American geologist Gilbert Ellis Bailey. Architects and scientists have repeatedly looked into the idea since then, especially toward the end of the 20th century. In 1999, Dickson Despommier, a professor emeritus of environmental health sciences and microbiology at New York's Columbia University seized upon the idea together with his students. After having grown tired of his depressing lectures on the state of the world, his students finally protested and asked Despommier to work with them on a more positive project.

From the initial idea of "rooftop farming," the cultivation of plants on flat roofs, the class developed a high-rise concept. The students calculated that rooftop-based rice growing would be able to feed, at most, 2 percent of Manhattan's population. "If it can't be done using rooftops, why don't we just grow the crops inside the buildings?" Despommier asked himself. "We already know how to cultivate and water plants indoors."

With its many empty high-rise buildings, Manhattan was the perfect location to develop the idea. Despommier's students calculated that a single 30-story vertical farm could feed some 50,000 people. And, theoretically, 160 of these structures could provide all of New York with food year-round, without being at the mercy of cold snaps and dry spells.

The Power Problem

Despite these promising calculations, such high-rise farms still only exist as small-scale models. Critics don't expect this to change anytime soon. Agricultural researcher Stan Cox of the Kansas-based Land Institute sees vertical farming as more of a project for dreamy young architecture students than a practical solution to potential shortages in the global food supply.

The main problem is light -- in particular, the fact that sunlight has to be replaced by LEDs. According to Cox's calculations, if you wanted to replace all of the wheat cultivation in the US for an entire year using vertical farming, you would need eight times the amount of electricity generated by all the power plants in the US over a single year -- and that's just for powering the lighting.

It gets even more difficult if you intend to rely exclusively on renewable energies to supply this power, as Despommier hopes to do. At the moment, renewable energy sources only generate about 2 percent of all power in the US. Accordingly, the sector would have to be expanded 400-fold to create enough energy to illuminate indoor wheat crops for an entire year. Despommier seems to have fallen in love with an idea, Cox says, without considering the difficulties of its actual implementation.

Getting Closer to Reality

Even so, Despommier still believes in his vision of urban agriculture. And recent developments, like the ones in South Korea, might mean his dream is not as remote as critics say. Ten years ago, vertical farming was only an idea. Today, it has developed into a concrete model. About two years ago, the first prototypes were created.

In fact, the concept seems to be working already, at least on a small scale. In the Netherlands, the first foods from a vertical farm are already stocking supermarket shelves. The PlantLab, a 10-year-old company based three floors underground in the southern city of Den Bosch, has cultivated everything from ornamental shrubs and roses to nearly every crop imaginable, including strawberries, beans, cucumbers and corn. "We manage completely without sunlight," says PlantLab's Gertjan Meeuws. "But we still manage to achieve a yield three times the size of an average greenhouse's." What's more, PlantLab uses almost 90 percent less water than a conventional farm.

As a country which has limited land resources but which possesses much of the necessary technology, the Netherlands seems to be an ideal place to develop vertical farming. This is especially true now that its residents are increasingly demanding organic, pesticide-free foods -- and are prepared to pay more for it.

'The Next Agricultural Revolution'

Despommier believes that entire countries will soon be able to use vertical farming to feed their populations. The South Korean government, at least, is interested in exploring the possibility. At the moment, the country is forced to import a large share of its food. Indeed, according to a 2005 OECD report, South Korea places fifth-to-last in a global ranking on food security. Increasing food prices, climate change and the possibility of natural disasters can compound the problem.

These facts are not lost on the researchers in the vertical farming laboratory in Suwon. "We must be prepared to avert a catastrophe," Choi says.

Still, it will be some time before vertical farming is implemented on a commercial scale in South Korea. Choi's colleague Lee Hye Jin thinks that five more years of research are needed. "Only then will our vertical farm be ready for the free market," he says.

Grow Up Here: These Cool Vertical Greenhouses Are Local And Fit Right In Your Home

Grow Up Here: These Cool Vertical Greenhouses Are Local And Fit Right In Your Home

The future of growing technology in Northern Ontario is here

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Greenhouses Canada designs, builds, sells and grows produce with game changing vertical aeroponic equipment. If you have as little as 20 square feet (sq ft) to spare, Greenhouses Canada can help you create a vertical growing space that will grow crops even in the middle of winter. (Facebook/Greenhouses Canada)

By Candice Morel

The desire to purchase locally grown produce is something many residents of Northern Ontario share. Unfortunately, local produce is scarce during the northern winter and many are forced to purchase imported fruits and vegetables.

As a community, we deserve to know where our food comes from and how far it has traveled. The less your food travels from farm to table, the more nutrient content it maintains, making local growing the obvious solution for nutrient-dense fresh produce. 

Greenhouses Canada aims to address this issue by making local crops available year-round in Northern Ontario, even in your own home. 

This local company combines energy-efficient building technology with a passion for food security to revolutionize how communities access fresh food year-round in Northern Ontario. 

They design, build, sell and grow produce with game changing vertical aeroponic equipment. If you have as little as 20 square feet (sq ft) to spare, Greenhouses Canada can help you create a vertical growing space that will grow crops even in the middle of winter.

Aeroponic vertical growing techniques include the most innovative indoor agriculture equipment on the market. Plants are placed in a vertical panel surface while their roots hang in the air. They are then misted with nutrient rich water directly on the root area of the plant allowing crops to grow significantly faster than traditional growing methods while using less water.

Greenhouses Canada’s aeroponic growing equipment can grow anything from leafy green vegetables to strawberries and flowers. With more produce being tested daily, the possibilities of this technology are endless. The system will also produce high crop yield with little to no farming experience. 

After years of research and development, Greenhouses Canada has created the proper recipe for year-round produce growing in all climates. The company will provide training on the growing equipment to those choosing to get started with vertical farming. No matter the size of your project or amount of experience, Greenhouses Canada create an indoor farm that will allow the public to directly contribute to food sustainability and security in Northern Ontario. 

For those who prefer not to grow their own crops, but wish to support locally and ecologically grown produce, there is The Innovation Center. The Innovation Center is a commercial-sized greenhouse that will produce approximately 20,000 plants a week available for sale locally. 

The centre is currently under construction in Espanola and is expected to be completed by late fall. At any given time, there will be approximately 120,000 plants growing at various stages in all seasons. 

The crops produced by The Innovation Center will be available for sale in various food markets in Northern Ontario, including both big and small grocery stores. When you see the Greenhouses Canada logo, you can trust the produce was grown ethically, locally, and transported responsibly and directly after harvest. 

You can also keep your eyes out for The Greenhouses Canada Grow Truck, which will be arriving shortly in Sudbury. This truck will include 15 fully functioning aeroponic panels that are growing food fresh daily for consumption. The truck is 26 feet long, wheelchair accessible and will produce 4,875 plants per month.

If you want a taste of Greenhouses Canada, head out to Frubar’s new location and try a wheatgrass shot, or keep an eye out for the Greenhouses Canada logo at Eat Local, or in The Wellness Boxes.
 
For more information on Greenhouses Canada visit the website and follow us on Facebook for more updates.

Morel is a public relations professional passionate about sustainable solutions and food security in the North. She is currently the marketing and communications director at Greenhouses Canada. 

With Big Names Behind It, Plenty Aims To Rule the Vertical Farming Market

With Big Names Behind It, Plenty Aims To Rule the Vertical Farming Market

Jeff Bezos and others invest $200 million in vertical farming startup Plenty

By Allen Weiner  |  July 25, 2017

A $200 million investment in indoor farming startup Plenty has caught the attention of venture capitalists and those who follow the emerging world of tech-driven, commercial indoor farming. What separates the San Francisco-based agtech company from other indoor farming manufacturers is its claim to be able to grow everything except for tree fruit (lemons, oranges, etc…) and root vegetables. The vast majority of competitors focus solely on greens, herbs, strawberries and the occasional tomato.

Perhaps of even greater significant than its crop yield are the profiles of Plenty’s new investors. The high profile roster for this latest round include Softbank CEO, Masayoshi Son, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Attached to each new investor comes an opportunity. For example, Son could bring Plenty to Japan and the rest of Asia. Schmidt’s VC firm Innovation Endeavors has CropX in its portfolio which boasts an adjacent technology that offers adaptive crop irrigation.

Bezos, on the other hand, stands out because of Amazon’s recent purchase of Whole Foods. The intersection of Plenty with bricks and mortar stores, home delivery of groceries, restaurant delivery and meal kits is a near harmonic convergence. Controlling a prime part of the value chain that goes from farm to table or farm to home puts Amazon in a prime position to level its competitors in a number of markets.

The implementations of Plenty with Whole Foods run from the obvious to the imaginative. It’s easy to see Amazon being able to offer premium produce directly to customers via home delivery, but it also could use Plenty to draw more people into its retail stores. Taking a page from Infarm, which has its indoor farm in a Berlin supermarket, Whole Foods adding sleek vertical farms to its stores would be a lure to its clientele—a predominately upscale  group prone to loving shiny, new objects. Not only would shoppers take notice of this high-touch addition, the farms would have the practical objective of selling fresh goods to fussy shoppers.

Whole Foods’ profile perfectly fits this scenario. In past years, innovation was the company’s strong suit. The Austin-based chain was among the first premium supermarkets to feature in-store, full-service restaurants as well as bars featuring local brews on tap. Noted for working closely with local farmers, it would make sense for Whole Foods to select local organic growers to take ownership of and maintain the Plenty-built vertical farms.

Whole Foods and Amazon could make for an exciting team in advancing the commercial aspects of Plenty. With Softbank’s Son in the mix, Japan and Asia are a solid target for expansion, but Europe is a far larger and more immediate major opportunity. One sign of that Europe is a hot agtech market is seen via Germany’s darling, Infarm. Infarm’s successful implementation in Berlin also has caught the attention of investors and partners. Now working with German grocery chain, EDEKA, Infarm has recently closed a four million Euro round led by Berlin’s Cherry Ventures.

Showing his astute understanding of the market for its vertical farming technology, Infarm co-founder Osnat Michael outlines how his company’s growth has defined the future of indoor farming in Europe and beyond.

“When we started out, we were looked at as ‘idealistic dreamers’. In part, this might have been because we were self-taught and not many believed that we had the necessary expertise needed to invent a new agricultural solution,” Michaeli told TechCrunch in a recent interview.

“The challenge [now] is in finding the right partners. Our initial focus is on supermarket chains, online food retailers, wholesalers, hotels, and other food-related businesses, for whom the superior quality and range of produce — with no fluctuation in costs — makes Infarm an attractive partner. In return, we can reintroduce the joy of growing to the urban population”.

Image credit: Flickr user Euro Slice under creative commons license

Organization Turning Vacant Toronto Properties Into Mobile Urban Farms

Organization Turning Vacant Toronto Properties Into Mobile Urban Farms

By Susan Hay Anchor/Producer  Global News

WATCH ABOVE: The Bowery Project is taking vacant lots in downtown Toronto and transforming the properties into mobile urban farms. It’s the brainchild of longtime friends Rachel Kimel and Deena DelZotto. Susan Hay has the story.

Longtime friends Rachel Kimel and Deena DelZotto have a passion for growing food and giving back to the community. Their joint love for food prompted them to start the Bowery Project, an organization that takes vacant lots in downtown Toronto and transforms the properties into mobile urban farms.

“The developer here, Oben Flats, wanted to do something that gave back to the community and that transformed his site,” said co-founder Rachel Kimel.

“People come and they learn new things and they walk away with something fresh, organically grown and sustainable.”

READ MORE: Urban farming: not just growing food but communities

Currently there are three sites in Toronto growing produce in re-purposed milk crates that sit above the land. This allows for an easy change of location when the land is sold or developed.

“It’s like a pop-up mobile farm,” said Kimel. “There’s something called square-foot gardening and so whatever you can occupy in a crate, we do. Herbs, veggies, edible flowers, lots of greens, mixed greens.”

Several community organizations like the Native Women’s Resource Centre benefit from what’s grown on the sites and from the weekly programming and educational workshops.

“Every year from a site this big (at Sherbourne Street and Gerrard Street East), we grow at least 400 pounds of produce and that gets given away to people who are hungry in the city,” said Kimel.

© 2017 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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In The Garden: Beth Mort of Zinnia Designs Helps People Grow Productive Gardens

In The Garden: Beth Mort of Zinnia Designs Helps People Grow Productive Gardens

Sat., July 29, 2017, noon

Beth Mort, founder of Zinnia Designs, helps clients design productive landscapes. (SUSAN MULVIHILL/SPECIAL TO THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW)

By Susan Mulvihill inthegarden@live.com

You can contact Beth Mort via email at beth.zinnia@gmail.com or visit her websites at zinniapermaculturedesign.com and www.snapdragonflowerfarm.com.

Beth Mort has been around gardening for as long as she can remember. Not only does she enjoy growing bountiful gardens, but teaching others how to do this as well.

“My mom and dad always kept a good-sized garden,” she recalled. “I caught my love for gardening from them and have never turned back because eating fresh food changes your whole perspective.”

When she headed off to Evergreen State College, she majored in botany.

“I probably would have gone down that track if I’d been able to find a full-time job,” she admitted.

She later earned a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Eastern Washington University. But the turning point in Mort’s life occurred when two instructors from Bullock’s Permaculture Homestead on Orcas Island gave a daylong workshop on permaculture, which is the development of sustainable agricultural ecosystems. That led her to complete an intensive Permaculture Design Certificate course at the homestead.

In 2015, she founded Zinnia Designs, with the goal of helping people produce a yield on their property.

“I’m more focused on edible landscaping but can also teach them how to set up and grow a dye garden or raise fiber-producing animals,” she said. “I want to show them how to be productive on their land in a way that is sustainable.”

She begins by having clients answer a short questionnaire.

“It’s a great way to get people thinking about the big picture: their vision of what their yard could be, what they perceive as obstacles, and what they want to get out of it,” Mort said.

If they decide to proceed, she does a site assessment to look at every aspect of their yard, including the factors they can control and ones they cannot. This includes itemizing which enhancements the yard will need, such as mulching, soil improvement, where to locate animals, the use of water, and choosing the best places to plant.

Once Mort has gathered the information she needs, she works on a conceptual design plan.

“I create a base map that includes a sector analysis of how sun, wind, water, animals and people move through the space, and zones denoting how the areas of the property are used and accessed,” she said.

Another service she offers is two-hour training sessions on skills such as growing edible crops, flowers, beekeeping, raising chickens or making compost.

“Building their confidence is No. 1,” she said. “Giving them the basic foundation and vernacular so they can start asking the right questions – and find what they’re looking for – is really important.

“Working with people and gardening together is an extension of that,” she said. “I want them to be comfortable working in the soil, getting used to working with plants, and to address problems rather than just reacting to them.”

Mort also grows and sells cut flowers at the Thursday Market in the South Perry district, located at 924 S. Perry St. In addition, she has established a “bouquet CSA” (community-supported agriculture) program through her companion venture, Snapdragon Flower Farm.

She believes strongly in the principles of permaculture and practices what she preaches.

“Permaculture includes us in nature, and nature in us,” she said. “It is a very logical, thoughtful and observant way of living in your space. It is a joy knowing that people want to grow things and interact with their landscapes.”

Susan Mulvihill is co-author of “Northwest Gardener’s Handbook” with Pat Munts. Contact her at Susan@susansinthegarden.com and follow her at facebook.com/susansinthegarden. View this week’s “Everyone Can Grow A Garden” video at youtube.com/c/susansinthegarden.

Vertical Farming - Food Production Will Become Part of Daily Urban Life

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Vertical Farming Proves Popular For Faribault Company

Vertical Farming Proves Popular For Faribault Company

Photo: KARE 11

Vertical Farming Is Growing In Popularity

Janel Klein, KARE 7:04 PM. CDT July 28, 2017

FARIBAULT, Minn. - As a longtime financial planner, Dana Anderson knows a good investment.

And when he first grew lettuce with a homemade frame in his garage, he started to love a different kind of green.

“(The frame) really was quite crude—it was just two rod-iron fences leaning together,” said Anderson. “But there's a bunch of opportunities there.”

Five years later, that idea is now Living Greens Farm, housed in an abandoned warehouse and getting global attention.

“Now we're building one of the biggest indoor farms in the world,” said Dave Augustine, who left his corporate job a year ago to join Living Greens as CEO, with Anderson as Chairman.

Using aeroponics, Living Greens Farm is growing lettuce, herbs and microgreens vertically, with just 5 percent of the water and 1/200th of the land of traditional fields, all without herbicides or pesticides.

Fast Company says vertical farms will soon be a $42 billion dollar industry.

“Things like this are totally necessary to feed the human population in the future,” said Augustine.

Already, it seems futuristic, with a high tech system that eliminates the risk of bad weather since light, humidity, nutrients and temperature are all controlled by computer. That means crops grow year round in half the time and can be sold the next day, with nearly two dozen stores and restaurants already buying their produce.

And as its crops thrive, Living Greens is itself growing, expanding to more than 15 times its current size. It may next go worldwide, replicating its Minnesota operation in Europe and Asia, in turn creating both food and jobs for those who grow it.

“This is an opportunity to grow a product indoors that the community needs using the labor force that's available,” said Augustine.

As an acre of soil is reduced to just inches, farms—and the idea of what they should look like—are growing up.

Mahindra Automotive North America Announces Third Round Of Urban Agriculture Grants Totaling $100,000 To Six Non-Profits

Mahindra Automotive North America Announces Third Round Of Urban Agriculture Grants Totaling $100,000 To Six Non-Profits

NEWS PROVIDED BY Mahindra Automotive North America 

TROY, Mich., July 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Now in its third year, the Mahindra Urban Agriculture Grant Program announced donations totaling $100,000 in funding or Mahindra farm equipment to six southeast Michigan non-profits on Thursday evening, July 27.  The presentations took place at the second of three shows in the Mahindra Summer Concert Series at Lafayette Greens in downtown Detroit. These concerts build on the musical foundation laid by the Mahindra Group's Mahindra Blues Festival in Mumbai, India, which launched in 2011 and is the largest and finest presentation of legendary blues artists in Asia.

Marhindra Automotive North America executives with the Urban Agriculture Grant winners: Front row, from left: Kieran Neal (Neighbors Building Brightmoor); Lionel Bradford (The Greening of Detroit); Holly Glomski (Pingree Farms); Coleman Yoakum (Micah 6 Community) Seated on tractor: Rick Haas (President & CEO, Mahindra Automotive North America) Behind tractor: Ashley Atkinson (Keep Growing Detroit); Rich Ansell (VP, Marketing, Mahindra Automotive North America); Patti Allemon

By awarding these grants, Mahindra Automotive North America (MANA) renewed the company's commitment to this region's robust urban agriculture movement, as well as continued to fulfill its parent company, the Mahindra Group's global corporate social responsibility initiatives. 

Since the program's inception in 2015, Mahindra has donated a combined total of $300,000 in cash and farm equipment to ten non-profits in support of sustainable farming and gardening in Detroit.  In 2017, the Mahindra Urban Agriculture Grant Program expanded to accept applications from urban agriculture programs in Pontiac. 

"The progress our urban agriculture partners are making, with assistance from Mahindra's grants, is very commendable," said Richard Haas, MANA's President and Chief Executive Officer. "I am amazed by the innovative ideas these groups present for funding. We couldn't be prouder of the impact the company's support is having on accessibility to fresh, nutritious produce at affordable prices to residents within each organization's service area."

This year's program also marks the second grant-making collaboration between MANA and Mahindra North America (MNA), which manufactures and markets the company's line of tractors and farm equipment in the United States and Canada.

Cleo Franklin, MNA's CMO/Vice President of Strategic Planning, said, "Through this urban agriculture grant we have the privilege of collaborating with our sister company in donating a tractor.  The tractor will be put to good use in supporting a nonprofit organization's efforts to have a positive impact on the city through their urban farming program. Driving positive change is an inherent part of our company's culture and core values, and is reflected in the good works of these organizations." 

This year's recipients and the programs the grants will support, including four that received Mahindra funding in 2015 and 2016, are listed below.

• Full Circle Foundation ($7,075): to fund a summer intern employment program for developmentally disabled teens and young adults (2015 & 2016 grant recipient)
• The Greening of Detroit ($20,000): to support the Build-A-Garden program that provides assistance to gardeners across the city. (2015 & 2016 grant recipient)
• Keep Growing Detroit ($20,000): to install technology that will enable low-income individuals and families to use government issued EBT bridge cards to buy produce and seedlings from the Grown in Detroit program. (2015 & 2016 grant recipient)
• Neighbors Building Brightmoor ($22,000): to partially fund, along with Mahindra North America, the purchase of a Mahindra tractor with attachments (2015 & 2016 grant recipient)
• Micah 6 Community ($8,000): to build a 2,000 square foot greenhouse at the Webster Community Center in Pontiac. (1st year recipient)
• Pingree Farms ($26,010): to purchase a Mahindra tractor for use at the 13-acre farm site. (1st year recipient)

"Mahindra is committed to lifting up and celebrating the communities in which we operate," said Anand Mahindra, Chairman of the Mahindra Group. "There are few better examples of our RISE philosophy in action than the work Mahindra Automotive North America is doing in Detroit. MANA's pioneering Urban Agriculture Grant Program continues to lift up Detroit residents by giving them access to fresh, sustainable produce and inspiring work opportunities for the underserved."

Mr. Mahindra continued, "Also, MANA's new summer music series celebrates creative expression and community-building in the Motor City. To see these two initiatives working harmoniously is to truly know Mahindra."

An estimated 1.2 million pounds of fresh food have been grown and distributed to Detroit residents through the efforts of the groups that received Mahindra grants or equipment over the past two years. Among other outstanding results, the company's donations supported the opening of a Garden Resource hub in Southwest Detroit, and the purchase of a delivery vehicle to support the entrepreneurial efforts of the Full Circle Foundation's trainees at the Edible Garden. 

About Mahindra Automotive North America

Mahindra Automotive North America (MANA) is Mahindra's North American automotive headquarters.  In addition to leading all North American activity, MANA is a comprehensive automotive design, engineering, and vehicle development center.  Established in 2013 and located in Troy, Michigan, MANA's team of veteran executives, engineers and designers, working with affiliate Mahindra automotive teams in India, Korea and Italy, is playing a key role in growing Mahindra's global automotive business. Visit: www.mahindranatc.com

About Mahindra

The Mahindra Group is a USD 19 billion federation of companies that enables people to rise through innovative mobility solutions, driving rural prosperity, enhancing urban living, nurturing new businesses and fostering communities. It has a leadership position in utility vehicles, information technology, financial services and vacation ownership in India and is the world's largest tractor company, by volume.  It also enjoys a strong presence in agribusiness, components, commercial vehicles, consulting services, energy, industrial equipment, logistics, real estate, steel, aerospace, defense and two-wheelers. Headquartered in India, Mahindra employs over 200,000 people across 100 countries. Learn more about Mahindra on www.mahindra.com / Twitter and Facebook: @MahindraRise.

SOURCE Mahindra Automotive North America  |  Related Links  http://www.mahindranatc.com

How to Start a Garden – The Ultimate Guide

How to Start a Garden – The Ultimate Guide

Jen Reviews |  Share

I have gardened for many, many years and have many, many books ranging from communing with nature spirits to controlling pests with their natural enemies.

What are the most important lessons I have learned over the years? How would I advise someone to begin for guaranteed success?

People garden with different objectives in mind.

Some are seeking a serene oasis, a time they can spend alone in nature, even if it is just a tiny plot on their urban lot. Many do not know of the serenity gardening brings until they have one.

Some simply want an ornamental garden, pretty landscaping to admire.

Some people just want tomatoes and basil for spaghetti sauce.

A widowed mother with three young children my primary goal was to grow fresh organic food we could eat during the growing season, enough to store for the winter, herbs to heal our illnesses and injuries and flowers to fill the house.

I didn’t have extra time on my hands to be weeding the garden every evening, which may be a peaceful mantra for some after a day at the office, but was a disastrous waste of time in my book.

Nor was I interested in scouring plant leaves for camouflaged sacs of insect eggs and pulling slimy caterpillars from tomato plants they were devouring at alarming speed.

So I read and experimented, experimented and read. And after many years I came to understand what it takes to start a garden that yields the crops I want with minimal effort.

Table of Contents

• Garden with Nature
• Follow the Sun
• Don’t Try to Keep Out what you Can’t Keep Out
• It’s All in the Soil
• Organizing the Garden
• Buying Seeds, Starters, Bulbs and Seedlings
• Companion Planting
• Supplies
• Glossary

Garden with Nature

The first rule is to garden with nature, not against it. What type of soil do you have? Is it sandy or is it clay or is it a mix? What is the acidic level? How long is your growing season? How hot does it get? How cold does it get? How much rain do you get?

You will want to select plants that thrive in your soil in your climate.

It’s not hard to do. There are thousands of plants out there. It is nothing to be bemoaned if for, example your soil is clay and you cannot easily grow potatoes, which prefer sand. Well, then grow corn, cabbage, squash, echinacea, and black-eyed susans.

Most leafy greens prefer a good rich soil and the clay stays cooler longer than sand so it extends the growing season for this cool-weather crop.

Too, there are many different purposes you can grow plants for apart from beauty and food. I have grown plants for natural dyes and fibers.

I have grown plants for making gifts like sunflower wreaths, table centerpieces or raspberry liqueur filled chocolates.

I have grown plants to make insect repellent, set broken bones, heal sprains and clear congestion.

So when you are considering the plants you can grow in your area, broaden your horizons.

A good place to find out what grows well in your region is your extension office. This is what they do and they are paid tax dollars to do it, so don’t hesitate to stop by or call them.

I had an extension agent spend an afternoon on my farm discussing the site I had in mind for my vineyard. It would have taken two years of college classes and many growing seasons to learn what I learned from her in one afternoon.

Be aware, however, that many of the university agricultural departments in part subsidizing extension offices are themselves subsidized by large agricultural corporations that profit from the sale of fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides.

Here, for example, is the 2017 Midwest Fruit Pest Management Guide which recommends extensive spraying of pesticides on the very fruit you will be eating.

It is worth opening just to the first page to give you an idea of how much the university agriculture departments contribute to the knowledge base of extension offices.

Their advice may be skewed toward priorities antithetical to a sustainable view of the planet. Take what you need and ignore the rest.

Check around. There are probably co-ops of sustainable and organic farmers in your area happy to help as well.

Pick up a farmer’s almanac too.

Back to your soil. We will talk about the beauty of compost fertilizing your soil and breaking up dense clay clumps that deprive roots of needed oxygen and drown them in mud.

Compost can also augment your sandy soil with some substance so that water doesn’t just rapidly drain through the soil leaving your plants thirsty only moments after it’s rained. Although there are many varieties of potatoes: red, gold, white and blue, perhaps you don’t want to be eating potatoes until your ears fall off.

You can add sandy soil to clay soil and clay soil to sandy soil, but the truth is unless you change the soil’s ecosystem, which happens over time when you shovel in compost, the soil will probably ignore your efforts and return to its natural state.

So unlike many guides out there, I am not going to advise you to believe that you can actually do much to permanently change the soil by adding amendments.

I have heavily compacted soil around my side door that seems to have served as a construction debris dump when my cabin was built. Attempts to change the clay by adding some of the sandy soil from other parts of the yard proved futile.

I didn’t want to use my compost, reserving it for the garden. At last I found gypsum, renowned for being nontoxic and for breaking up clay. Although touted as natural and nontoxic, I am a mistrustful soul.

Still, I did not intend to grow a food crop there, so I wasn’t terribly concerned about an unknown negative effect on the soil. I figured the soil would heal itself once I got some healthy growth activity going.

The immediate results looked promising and some plants were able to struggle through, but the results were, as with all of the other soil amendments I have tried short of compost, short-term.

Our focus on composting will be to add nutrients to the soil, which is always good as plants will deplete the soil of nutrients as they grow.

Consider a forest floor. Fragrant with the aroma of decaying leaves, it is replete with nutrients. Rain and wind have worked to bring down twigs, leaves, and nuts from the trees and pummel them all back into the earth along with animal scat. Fungi and bacteria feeding on the plant life further the decomposition.

The forest floor becomes even richer and will yield fiddleheads and morel mushrooms for a divine Spring breakfast. Where the tree canopy is not too dense, berry bushes will take over in the summer.

Nature regenerates itself and that is what we will emulate in the garden.

Follow the Sun

Where are you going to place your site? And how large should it be?

First, what are you hoping for?

If this is an ornamental garden, go with the contours of your land. An excellent book to assist you here is Ann Lovejoy’s Organic Garden Design School, published by Rodale in 2001.

My advice here is going to focus on the small home garden that includes herbs and vegetables for the kitchen. I say small because that is how you should start out.

You can easily expand it once you know how much effort it is going to take and have identified what else you might like to grow in a single season.

Go out to your proposed site and take a look at where the sun is in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. Bear in mind that if it is winter, the arc of the sun is going to be a bit different than in the summer.

What you are trying to determine is where any trees might be in relation to the sun that might block your garden for periods of the day. You can use this to your advantage.

I like to plant leafy greens where they only get morning and evening sun and the blazing midday sun is blocked by a copse of tall evergreens. Direct sun makes lettuces bolt, that is, the center core shoots up to reach the sun, to the detriment of the tasty leaves that would otherwise grow.

If you have the luxury of a lot of land, by all means take a shovel and dig up the soil at a few different sites to see what you’ve got. The best soil is a mix of clay and sand, a rich loamy silt that will hold water and nutrients, without forming into hard clumps of mud. The acid level should be a pH between 5.5 and 7.5. It probably is, but a simple soil test kit from the garden center will conform this.

Do not at any cost choose a site humans have contaminated with poisons of any sort. That includes Round-up, termite spray, and debris from a burn pile. If you wouldn’t eat it by the forkful, you don’t want to grow edible plants in it. Plants absorb nutrients from the soil and they will absorb toxins as well.

Consider too, who might be living near your garden. You won’t be able to keep them out, but if you have rabbits living nearby, at least make them have to cross a broad open field if you can. This is something they are reluctant to do as it makes them visible to hawks and other predators.

To save work, you will want the garden near your compost and your kitchen and reachable by a water hose.

Don’t Try to Keep Out what you Can’t Keep Out

You might mistakenly believe the woodland creatures or those in the shrubbery of your suburban neighborhood to be of lower intelligence but trust me, they were actually born highly psychic and are greedily contemplating the abundance from your garden even now as you are indoors innocently planning it.

There are gadgets and gizmos and wives tales of many a fix to deter animals, but save your money and just nod kindly at the neighbor telling his tall tales. The scarecrow with the banging pans, the sensor flood lights, the hose blasting shots of cold water, the fox urine, the Irish Spring soap, the locks of cut hair… these things may cause a deer or groundhog to hesitate once, but the second time they will simply ignore it.

You might try a kinetic sculpture like one of these. You could strategically place bells on it to further terrify the foraging beasts.

Then even if it doesn’t work to deter deer or groundhogs, birds or rabbits, you will still have a cool piece of artwork to console you.

A lot of the advice about deterring animals appears to have a solid premise, but don’t be seduced. I have an entire book on deer proofing my garden by planting only plants that deer don’t eat.

But I have seen them eat them.

The other premise is that deer don’t like to be near plants with a pungent smell because it will mask the smell of any predators they are on high alert for. But I have seen them linger near the mint as they demolish the corn.

And I have seen them leap over posts freshly smeared with fox urine.

With much effort, I erected a slant fence around my vineyard upon the advice of a USDA pamphlet, indicating that tensile wire a foot apart at seven levels spanning a 75 degree plane confused deer. They wouldn’t jump it.

One of my gun-slinging neighbors showed up drunk one evening itching to shoot into the horde hovering patiently on the hill across from my vineyard waiting for me to finish my chores and leave.

In a deep Southern slurring drawl he argued, “But deer don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no optical illusions.”

Turns out he was right. Or if they did know anything about optical illusions, it was how to ignore them.

I do plant dark orange and gold French marigolds around the perimeter of my garden in the belief that the fragrance discourages rabbits. I don’t know if it does or not. This is the first year I have had a lot of rabbits, but the ground hogs beat them to the feast.

French marigolds do deter whiteflies from tomato plants though, and after they are fully established, they control nematodes, so along with their burst of color, they are welcome in my garden.

Your best defense against warm-blooded pests is a good fence and a smart, frisky, hunting dog that keeps vigil around the garden.

Your best offense is a catch and release trap. Or, uh, so I am hoping.

Turns out that the ancient androgynous groundhog who has been content living alone under the smokehouse these past sixteen years up and gave birth to a litter of strapping lusty sons.

Did you know that young groundhogs become teenagers and move out before their first summer is over? And that they each strike out and build a summer home and a winter home and multiple exits and entries to each?

And that throwing hot peppers and rocks down these holes does not discourage them at all? They just toss them right back out.

I can personally corroborate the veracity of much of Michael Pollan’s results in his war on woodchucks described in his garden manifesto, Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education, Garden Press, 2003, available through Amazon.

My farmstead is now littered with piles of rocks surrounding holes leading to long tunnels under each outbuilding and my cabin. It was after I was startled by the scratching awfully close to my dining table that I bought the trap.

I was already a bit put off that the ground hogs did not spare any of the five varieties of squash I had planted.

I had been particularly inspired by the previous summer’s crops of acorn squash and winter squash. They were tasty and lasted well into the winter months. So I got carried away and ordered five varieties.

I don’t mind sharing ten percent of the garden with my woodland neighbors, but I lose my will to share beyond that. Maybe if they helped with some of the work on the farm, I’d feel differently.

But when I heard that unnerving scratching, I mean how does an animal bury beneath a cellar? That ‘s when I started seriously shopping for a catch-and-release trap to be delivered as soon as Amazon could get it to me.

I caught that fat sucker too.

First thing I read when I was reading about how to trap a woodchuck was how much they like watermelon and wouldn’t you know, for the first time ever, I had a watermelon growing? Indeed it was tiny, but it was perfectly formed and showed tremendous promise.

It was growing just outside his door, the entry to the long sandy tunnel running beneath my house. He would have to step over it until he felt like eating it.

This perpetual threat was eating at me and I threw the juiciest produce I could conjure into that trap and set it immediately outside his hole.

I caught him not long after I set out the trap. Nervous that somehow the door would open, I put him in the back of the car and drove him to the abandoned farmstead in the hollow a couple miles down the road.

I drove pretty fast. The sun was setting behind the mountain and my imagination was at its peak.

Next I caught a possum. That scared me a bit as well.

He kept his very sharp teeth bared as he looked at me. His fur was matted with goo and blood and he had a wild look about him that made me uncomfortable.

The trap I bought is supposed to be humane. I’m not sure what happened, but there was some bloody hair pasted to the bottom piece of metal.

I don’t mind possums around, but I drove him out to the abandoned farmstead too, for practice and to rule out possibilities of revenge.

The next day when I woke it seemed like maybe the skunk and one of the groundhogs had got in a standoff during the night. This got me to thinking: what if I caught a skunk? What if I caught a skunk?

I couldn’t leave him in there and I had no idea how I’d get him out. I still don’t.

But it’s winter now and I’ve been traveling, so I am just going to have to ponder this one and redouble my efforts in the Spring if I want to reap the bounty from my garden.

It’s All in the Soil

Healthy soil hosts a web of life from tiny one-celled bacteria, fungi and protozoa to the more complex nematodes and small arthropods to earthworms, insects, and small vertebrates.

These organisms interact beneficially with plants.

By-products from growing roots and plant debris feed soil organisms. Soil organisms help plants by decomposing organic matter, cycling nutrients to make them more available to the plant, enhancing soil structure and porosity and controlling the populations of soil organisms, including crop pests.

Healthy soil means healthy plants.

The way to healthy soil is to add compost and not till the ecosystems, the webs of life, to shreds.

Buddhists, who do not believe in killing sentient creatures, manually crumble soil, so that earthworms are not killed.

Farmers use tractors pulling tillers and most gardeners use rototillers to turn the soil. I use a shovel rather than till.

Compost is just earth that has been made from decayed organic matter. It is called black gold because it is a sure-fire medium for producing healthy plants.

Nothing is more valuable to a gardener and it’s free. It solves the problems of what to do with dinner scraps and yard debris and it helps everything grow abundantly.

I have a pretty big compost pile that should steam but it doesn’t. Because I travel, I do not have animals, whose feces would go along way to heating up the pile, but eventually, I suppose the enormity of the weight helps a good deal, it creates lovely compost.

The compost pile requires turning with a pitchfork, the romance of which appeals to me whereas the actual doing it, does not. I highly recommend a compost tumbler.

This is a good video on how to make compost. The tumbler makes it even simpler.

I try to till and compost in the Fall, so that the soil is open to receive the compost and the compost is open to the winter snow and sun which help integrate it into the soil.

You will have to turn over the soil in Spring. Turning the soil aerates it. You need only shovel down about six or eight inches or till across the garden two or three times to get it to the consistency where it will allow germinating seeds to poke through. You can turn the compost into the soil again in early Spring.

Organizing the Garden

I would recommend a garden no larger than 25 x 30 feet to begin.

Most gardeners plant in neat rows as it is easier to weed.

Habitual walking (and of course driving heavy machinery) across the soil compacts it and makes it pretty much useless for growing anything but plantain, called by Native Americans, “white man’s footsteps.”

On the subject of weeds, you should understand the following.

Soil organisms are not distributed evenly about the soil. Each species exists where it can find the right amount of space, nutrients and moisture. This is generally around organic matter.

Thus, my sandy soil is as sterile as the desert away from plants.

But around roots there is a region called the rhizosphere where bacteria feeds from old plant cells and proteins and sugars released by the roots. Protozoa and nematodes feed on the bacteria. They cycle nutrients and help retain beneficial ones, change the structure of the soil to help the plant better access water and nutrients and suppress disease by feeding on pathogens and excreting metabolites toxic to them.

Gardeners weed to remove the competition for nutrients. However, root systems can interact in a synergistic way, providing nutrients for each other.

Tall weeds can also provide welcome shade to plants sensitive to the relentless rays of a midday blazing sun. So unless the weeds are blocking needed sun or overtaking my plants, that is, the weeds are strong and healthy and my plants weak and stunted, I let them do their thing.

If you are not going to use a rototiller and you don’t care that much about weeds that will grow among the rocks, you are not bound by the rules of symmetry and can plant in circles if you wish. You can make a rock or brick path in your garden to walk on. You can build rock walls or mounds of rock that retain moisture so crickets and small toads can live. They are priceless predators of insects who would otherwise forage your plants.

Lately I have been allowing narrow grass aisles to grow between my plots, but you do have to keep the grass down or it will attract too many grasshoppers. They will quickly devour a number of plants.

If you are more comfortable with straight rows and weeding as much as you can, by all means go for it.

Some say that a man’s footsteps are all a garden needs for fertility. Along the same line, a friend told me of an old man she knew with an abundant garden who took only one cup of water to feed his garden each evening. The point is, follow your passion and it will yield good things.

I like to intersperse flowers, herbs and vegetables and to follow companion planting suggestions.

Planting too much of a single crop creates an ecosystem vulnerable to pests and diseases of that crop and eradicates the natural system of checks and balances of a diverse ecosystem.

Over time, growing a single plant will also deplete the soil of the nutrients that plants needs. Farmers alternate their crops, often planting a cover crop that will add back in the nutrients the former planting has taken.

Certain pests like certain plants.

In your garden too, you should not plant the same crop in the same area. Last year’s pests are waiting.

Buying Seeds, Starters, Bulbs and Seedlings

I can’t say definitively where to buy seeds. I feel like I’ve had good luck and bad luck with every place from which I’ve bought.

And that’s not to say it was a problem with the seeds not germinating. It could be that birds ate the seed. Or that I pulled up the seedlings thinking they were weeds.

It’s an odd thing, and just one of many spellbinding revelations you will discover watching the world up close and personal, but almost identical plants will grow next to the seedlings you’ve planted.

After awhile, you can get cocky and think you know which one is which and before you know it, you’ve got a bitter weed growing rampant where the arugula would be if you hadn’t yanked it.

By the way, don’t be yanking plants. When you are old you might end up with very painful elbows on cold, damp days. Move as a dancer, with thought and balance.

I did grow a notable crop of amaranth, an edible red grain the Hopi also used for body paint from seeds I bought from Seeds of Change.

I also grew some very pretty Peruvian chili peppers a couple years in a row that glimmered like jewels in my garden. They were very hot and kept well dried for many years.

I think they were Peruvian. Maybe they were Bolivian. But they don’t carry them any more so it doesn’t matter.

I have also got some very cool sunflower seeds from them and good broomcorn seeds.

I like Peaceful Valley Seeds because they carry organic seeds.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Johnny’s Selected Seeds, but I think it’s just because they carry a xylene-free weatherproof marker, which is something otherwise impossible to find.

It’s a good idea to have a diagram of your proposed plantings before you start, but sometimes I also mark off the seeds as I plant them by writing their names on a popsicle stick and placing them at the edges of their little plot.

I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t have a xylene-free marker. Xylene gives me a spinning headache that makes me believe it is probably not a substance I want the rain to wash into my garden soil.

I’m not obsessive-compulsive, just circumspect. You will find if you breathe deeply and are open to sensing the world around you while you are gardening, you will become sensitive to the rhythms of the earth. You will feel rain approaching.

The reason the farmer’s almanac advises against planting root crops while the moon is waxing is because the moon is pulling the earth’s water closer to the surface during that phase, and root crops like depth and dryness. Plant them when the mood is waning and them gravitational forces are weaker.

The moment of their planting, as in astrological signs, makes an imprint upon their lives and influences their growth.

Biodynamic farmers also believe that the earth is part of a single organism, a living universe. They, too work with the energy fields of the planet for abundance, mixing plants in their compost known to have synergistic properties and making a fertilizer of compost tea at a particular favorable time in the earth’s rotation.

Back to seeds. I like to look through the catalogs with the cheesy graphics that come in the mail starting around January when it is cold and stark outside.

I have no idea how many times I have ordered and tried to plant a “crimson carpet.” Maybe I never did. I don’t have any.

I hope to this year.

I love the idea of heirloom seeds and get lost for hours on the websites for heirloom seeds thinking I will plant this or that.

Looks like there is a whole cult of people dedicated to preserving species, which is a pretty cool idea and makes me want to accept the few they divvy up to me and responsibly grow them and harvest their seeds.

But I also want to be an astronomer and a physicist and an enologist and a traveler and, well… you get the picture. I’m afraid I would not follow through and disappoint them.

Although I am truly afraid to ask anything about their origin, I can generally trust that the seeds I get in bulk at my farmers’ co-op will grow.

They are very practical farmers. I also trust in whatever seeds they have decided to stock in regular-size packets.

Their prices tend to be less than online stores too.

Chances are good there is a farmers’ co-op near you. Don’t be intimidated. You don’t have to wear overalls to go in there. You can tap their knowledge about a lot of things too.

They will generally only carry sound seed potatoes and onion sets that are going to grow well in your area.

So shop around and buy a good variety of seeds. If seedlings don’t come up in the time it says they will on the back of the package and you haven’t had super crazy out-of-season weather, then just plant something else there.

Epictetus, a Greek Stoic philosopher born in A.D. 55, said, “Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.”

True now as it was then. Have back-up seeds.

Some plants, like lilies and rhubarb, grow from bulbs. You can get these, as well as seedlings, at the farmers’ co-op or a nursery.

You will want to buy seedlings for crops that require a longer growing season than you have or for crops you want a head-start on. Seedlings can grow in a greenhouse before the ground outside warms up enough to allow anything to sprout.

When you buy your seedlings, you will need to “harden them off,” which means to help them acclimate to the cold world so they don’t just freeze to death.

Plants by their nature need to be planted in the ground and do not like a lot of change. They easily die of transplant shock, so it is important to try to keep as much of the old soil on them as you can and introduce a similar environment if possible, added by a bit of fish emulsion or liquid B-12.

Keep them watered and out of the wind at first. Hardening off involves setting them outside for progressively more hours each day until they have been able to weather a few of the coldest nights you are getting.

Once they have proven strong enough to endure that, you can plant them in the garden.

Ask around and check customer reviews to learn about your local nurseries for buying seedlings.

Once you have been gardening awhile, you will learn to recognize an unhealthy plant and to look for certain types of pests hiding on them, but until then, you’ll just have to go to a reputable place and ask the person near you.

It’s not exactly easy to find organically grown seedlings. You can of course grow your own seedlings indoors. But unless you are around 24/7 or have greenhouse conditions in your home, it is a ridiculous amount of work.

I buy what I can get and hope the soil and sun detoxifies whatever the plant’s previous owner has done.

While we are on the subject of buying plants, if you don’t know I should explain the difference between annuals and perennials now.

Annuals are plants that you have to plant or grow from seed every year. If you leave annuals in the ground and let them grow long enough to produce seeds and those seeds drop to the ground, take hold and sprout the next season, you can let them grow there of course and that’s great.

But don’t count on that happening.

You can also collect the seeds from your annuals and try to use them the next year, but again, until you learn to recognize when seeds are ready to harvest and ideal storage and nurturing conditions, don’t count on this as a money-saver.

Perennials are plants that will weather your winter and just keep on growing. They may go dormant, that is, fall into a deep sleep during the winter months and look quite dead, but they will perk up in the Spring and sprout buds. Don’t dig them up.

This is true of a lot of herbs, like rosemary and marjoram, some flowers like lavender and all of the bulbs that I can think of.

Research what you want to figure out what to do. Bulbs multiply at their roots and can be pulled up and divided in the Spring. Replanted them with more space around them and, ta-da, you’ve got many more.

Companion Planting

When I am considering the year’s plantings, I usually look through an old thumbed-through book called Carrots Love Tomatoes written by Louise Riotte and published by Storey Communications in 1975. It is based upon observations of plants that grow better together, due to the nutrients their root systems exchange and because the pests they naturally attract are pests that control the population of pests of their companion.

Because they are healthy, they are less vulnerable to diseases too. Disease happens when a healthy plant is compromised, generally from insect attack or lack of nutrients.

Plants can be compromised from temperature and humidity or arid extremes. Disease comes looking then. A good companion plant can bolster strength in troubled times, so it’s a no-brainer to follow these principles and a lot of fun.

Anyway, that’s how I recommend beginning your plantings. After a few seasons, you will formulate your own conclusions about invisible interactions happening. You may find that chickweed likes lavender.

Or you may feel a little splash of color would be delightful between the meadows of basil you have planted and the garlic.

This video explores the beneficial effect of interspersing your food crops with flowers.

You will appreciate that you have cast dahlia seeds when you are mesmerized by the swan-like curvatures of the garlic, with their long needle-noses, astounded to find they are having dancing parties behind your back. They freeze in their new graceful positions when you turn to look.

You take photo after photo on the cell phone you should never garden with. And these photos you show your friends, though barely capturing the thin arc of the garlic are replete with colorful dahlias.

Many gardeners subscribe to companion planting principles.

When do you plant? Look in your farmer’s almanac. It will tell you what you can plant in your area when.

Cold weather crops that can be planted early include onions, potatoes, radishes and beets.

You can follow up with planting seeds for hardy greens and then the more delicate greens.

About then, the soil will have warmed up enough for the rest of the seeds to germinate and to accept your transplant of seedlings.

That’s not to say a late killing frost doesn’t come along and undo what you’ve done. Measures can be taken to save plants if you have warning. This might be something you want to research in advance.

Recommendations range from spraying a preparation with valerian to warm the plants to erecting a row cover.

Glossary

Annuals – Plants that die off at the end of a growing season. They must be planted anew every year
Companion Planting – The practice of planting sympathetic crops next to each other to improve crop yield.
Compost – Organic matter which has decayed and turned into rich soil
Perennials – Plants that live through the winter, though they often appear not to.
Seedlings – the first shoots of a plant’s growth. They are often grown in small cells until they are large enough and strong enough to plant in the garden.
Weeds – plants you are not intentionally growing.

Supplies

You need very little, apart from a composter and seeds or plants to garden. A good shovel, possibly a hoe, a trowel and good pruners are essential.

Take good care of your tools and make sure they are always clean. Be sensitive to what you are doing. If you cut off a diseased leaf, clean the shears with soap before you use them on another plant or you are likely to spread the disease. Keep them sharp so that your cuts are clean, not sloppy and tearing, thus weakening the plant.

It is important to be comfortable. I once only wore Japanese farmer pants, which were loose and made of light but durable cotton and had pockets in the knees where you could slide knee-pads, but I can’t find them for sale anymore.

If you find some, buy enough for the rest of your life.

Dirty as you are going to get it, I highly recommend the full coverage of a long-sleeve shirt. Not only does it protect you from the sun, but it will spare you the nasty sting of sweat bees if you dally in the garden a little too late in the morning.

So now that you look awesome and have a cool compost tumbler in your back yard, grab your shovel and trowel, maybe find a straw hat and head out to create a magical garden.

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Artemis Takes on The World

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We’re currently helping indoor farmers get to profitability and beyond in 8 markets around the world.

Artemis Takes on The World

It’s no secret — the indoor farming market is huge… and growing! As Allison detailed in this blog post, indoor farms in the US produce over $21B in revenue annually. And the US only represents 0.2% of the global greenhouse vegetable market. This is the the same industry that is aggressively growing to help increase food production by 70% to feed 9B people by 2050.

Global Expansion

Artemist has set out to provide the world’s best management software from its inception. In order to be the world’s best, you have to be a global company. Within just a few months of our launch, we were proud to support incredible customers in South America, Sri Lanka, Canada, and the United States.

We’re not stopping there — we’re excited to announce that in addition to continuing to add customers in our existing markets, this month we’ve entered new markets, adding customers in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia!

Supporting Customers

The biggest challenge any growing company faces in adding new customers is supporting them while keeping existing customers both excited and engaged. Over the past month we’ve introduced a new onboarding process to ensure customers see value from Day 1 as well as easier ways for our customers to use our software. We’ve also welcomed Regina Bellows to our team as our dedicated Customer Success Manager.

Managing customers across so many time zones can lead to sleepless nights. One of the things I love about Artemis is everyone here is customer-obsessed. We take turns monitoring support channels all hours of the day and night so a customer never feels like they’re left in the dark when they run into a question. I think it’s probably one of our customers’ favorite things about us.

Let’s Chat!

While we’re excited with our progress to-date, we’re not stopping here. We continue to be excited about how we can use data to evolve one of the world’s largest legacy industries. I’d love to understand more about your farm, your challenges, and how we can help you solve your problems with data. Please email me at jschmitz@agrilyst.com or call at +1 646–719–0304.

Take-aways

• The global greenhouse market is large and growing.

• Agrilyst is growing along with the market, now working with clients across four continents.

• We‘re keeping a close eye on support to ensure our customers are getting the most out of their software investment.

Artemis is the virtual agronomist powering the horticulture industry. We invite you to join the #DigitalHorticulture movement on social media and share your stories of farm innovation.

If you enjoyed this story, tune in for more here and be sure to check out our website: https://artemisag.com/

Malaysia: Farming In The City

Malaysia: Farming In The City

Urban agriculture is able to cater to food demand for the urban population, if it is practised in a proper way. FILE PIC

By DATUK DR MAD NASIR SHAMSUDIN - July 21, 2017 @ 9:52am

AS world population increases, with urbanisation moving in tandem, more people are expected to live in the cities. By 2025, it is estimated that 60 to 85 per cent of the world’s population will be considered as city dwellers.

In Malaysia, it is predicted that the urban population will increase to 75 per cent in three years.

Rapid urbanisation is pulling poverty and food insecurity into cities, given the fact that urban dwellers are actually net food buyers and depend largely on cash income to access food.

In fact, the urban poor are vulnerable to food price shocks and always suffer most from higher food prices, which eventually could lead to food insecurity since food composes a substantial part of urban household expenditure.

Food production has always been associated with rural environment.

In fact, to feed the urban population, it is assumed that relying on rural food production would be sufficient. However, this turned out to be rather inaccurate — urban agriculture itself is able to cater to food demand for urban population, given that it is practised in a proper way.

Urban agriculture is defined by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as any agricultural activity which grows, raises, processes and distributes agricultural produce, regardless of land size and number of human resources within the cities and towns.

Studies from both developed and developing economies claimed that urban agricultural activities can contribute to the availability of fresh and nutritious food items, reduction in food expenditure and having direct access to varieties of food products.

Studies in 15 countries show that urban agricultural activities are closely related to food security, dietary diversity and nutritionally adequate diet.

Furthermore, urban agriculture also plays an important role to the climate change problem. It can green the city and improve the urban climate, while encouraging the reuse of urban organic waste and reducing the urban energy footprint.

Having recognised the importance of urban agriculture, the Malaysian government gave its full support towards this activity. This can be seen from the formation of the urban agriculture division under the Department of Agriculture Malaysia in 2010 to promote, among others, agricultural activities in the city to reduce the cost of living of the urban community.

Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) has designed and developed several affordable vertical farming methods, which can be adopted by the urban poor.

The technology is suitable for flat dwellers with limited and unsuitable growing space.

Vertical farming is the practice of producing food and medicine in vertically stacked layers, inclined surfaces or integrated in other structures, such as in a skyscraper, used warehouse or shipping container.

The modern idea of vertical farming use indoor farming techniques and controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) technology, where all environmental factors can be controlled.

These facilities utilise artificial control of light, environmental control (humidity, temperature, gases) and fertigation.

Some vertical farms use techniques similar to greenhouses, where natural sunlight can be augmented with artificial lighting and metal reflectors.

Since urban agriculture has the potential to gain momentum in Malaysia, it is therefore essential that appropriate strategies be put in place to ensure availability and affordability of safe and healthy foods.

There is also a need to promoting the production of such foods in urban areas, thus enhancing the livelihoods of actors, along the food value chain.

The contribution of urban agriculture to food availability and healthy nutrition for the urban population is an important asset, in addition to providing a source of income and livelihood for its participants.

Moving forward, policymakers should consider a number of approaches to make this activity socially and economically viable.

Among others, introducing technology and technology know-how to grow vegetables in flats and apartments, and identifying land for farming by urban dwellers.

This can be done by local government agencies, where they can identify vacant lots and make this information publicly available and authorising contracts with private landowners.

Datuk Dr Mad Nasir Shamsudin is professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM).