Latest articles from Hydroponics Today (http://www.hydroponics-today.com) http://www.hydroponics-today.com 2010-07-30T15:12:41+01:00 text/html 2008-07-06T15:00:15+01:00 http://www.hydroponics-today.com http://www.hydroponics-today.com/urban-farms-grow-amp-a36.html Greensgrow Farm is a little bit country and a lot urban. Situated on the reclaimed - and cleaned up - site of a former steel-galvanizing factory in Kensington, the nonprofit organic farm grows a wide variety of produce, including heirloom lettuces, peppers and tomatoes, and also acts as a crop clearinghouse for small farmers from South Jersey to Lancaster County. "I want to ensure the supply line between rural producers and urban consumers," said "chief farm hand" Mary Seton Corboy. Greensgrow was co-founded 10 years ago by Corboy, a former chef with a master's degree in political science who had little agricultural experience but definite ideas about the good an urban farm could accomplish: The enterprise aims both to shorten the distance from farm to city table and to educate the public on the importance of buying fresh and local. text/html 2008-07-04T14:34:50+01:00 http://www.hydroponics-today.com http://www.hydroponics-today.com/1974-newton-grad-hopes-a35.html It works on a multilayered aquaponic system. A fishpond holds water and nutrients that are pumped into a 15-foot, space-age steel arch with a coconut-fiber mat growing surface. The water is then channeled back into the fish pond, where it is purified by microorganisms. The water pumps are powered by solar panels and wind turbines. Everything is recycled, and it's efficient -- as little as 10 percent of the water required for normal gardening would be needed -- and even that could be provided by bathwater or from other normally unusable sources. text/html 2008-06-26T03:44:36+01:00 http://www.hydroponics-today.com http://www.hydroponics-today.com/interest-grows-in-hydroponics-a34.html Randy and Leona Slama started growing their own lettuce after their daughter had a skin reaction to store-bought and organic varieties. The red oak leaf and romaine lettuce the Slamas grow in their Shay, Kittanning Township, greenhouse is done hydroponically -- in a nutrient-infused water solution -- making it safe from potential contaminants such as insects and animals. "It's very controlled," Randy Slama said. "You don't need pesticides, you don't need herbicides, there's no weeds." text/html 2008-06-25T03:33:09+01:00 http://www.hydroponics-today.com http://www.hydroponics-today.com/shoppers-browse-island-farmers-a33.html "Hydroponics will be the way of the future," said Norm Whitlow, who brought a selection of heirloom tomatoes, green peppers and Swiss Chard grown on his farm in Palmetto. Since February, he and his wife, Kathy, have grown several varieties of heirloom tomatoes using hydroponics - foam growing pots containing crushed coconut shells, not soil. Shoppers find them delicious. text/html 2008-06-23T16:11:59+01:00 http://www.hydroponics-today.com http://www.hydroponics-today.com/home-grown-greater-houston-a32.html The Bayou City Farmers’ Market in Upper Kirby has barely been open for an hour on this Saturday morning and this is Pole’s first time as a seller. He doesn’t even have a sign up. But he does have a plate of freshly sliced heirlooms with a shaker of sea salt on the table. Just one juicy taste, and the line gets longer. Timora Pole is busy weighing produce and bagging the ripe veggies, while Ed Pole makes change as fast as he can. No one leaves the line with less than a pound of tomatoes. The Poles, like many growers, started out as hobbyists. Their Humble home sits on a half acre at the end of a cul-de-sac, complete with a greenhouse Ed Pole has fitted with his own hydroponics system. text/html 2008-06-20T04:22:19+01:00 http://www.hydroponics-today.com http://www.hydroponics-today.com/north-american-greenhouse-hothouse-a31.html In light of recent food safety issues such as the tomato salmonella scare, the NAGHVG wants customers to know that "Certified Greenhouse" vegetables such as tomatoes, bell peppers and cucumbers are grown indoors according to standards that include food safe, controlled hydroponic production and sustainable indoor growing practices. text/html 2008-06-14T14:02:15+01:00 http://www.hydroponics-today.com http://www.hydroponics-today.com/at-epcot-hydroponics-and-a30.html One of the lesser-known secrets of the theme park is its "Behind the Seeds" tour, an hour-long walking tour of the site's sustainable greenhouses and fish farming operations. The purpose behind the project--which was the very first attraction at Epcot--is partly to provide fresh produce and fish to Epcot's many restaurants. But as Tiffany Sterrett, the biotech intern who led the tour explained, "It's also for demonstrating things that could be done (in agriculture), and what could be used in cities and warehouses." Essentially, she continued, the idea is to showcase how to grow great food in places where there is poor soil or no soil. The vegetables and fruit growing in the greenhouses, in fact, aren't planted in soil at all, but use entirely hydroponic methods. Here, a tomato plant hangs down from a rotating rack, its roots having just emerged from a system in which the roots are sprayed with a nutrient mix as the plant glides along the track. text/html 2008-06-14T13:59:02+01:00 http://www.hydroponics-today.com http://www.hydroponics-today.com/tomato-shortage-isnt-bad-a29.html While many restaurants and grocery stores are putting up signs alerting customers that tomatoes will not be available on sandwiches and salads until a national recall has ended, some businesses are seeing a brighter side. Farmer Q’s Market on Washington Street in downtown Marquette is one of the few that still has the familiar red fruit on the shelves. “We are totally still selling tomatoes,” said Susan Brian, the owner of the market. “We do have tomatoes from out of state, but they are hydroponic and not from the areas that have the warnings.” text/html 2008-06-14T13:56:25+01:00 http://www.hydroponics-today.com http://www.hydroponics-today.com/the-great-indoors-the-a28.html Vertical gardens are helping turn sick office space into a breath of fresh air. Those lucky enough to have sipped a pre-flight G'n'T in Qantas's first class lounge at Sydney International Airport couldn't have failed to notice that several of the interior walls are growing. Called "greenwalls", the vertical gardens cover 280 square metres and feature 8400 plants, a living wall of ferns and flowers that, in the words of the horticulturist Mark Paul, "not only soften what might otherwise be a fairly hard environment, but make an appreciable difference to air quality". The lounge gardens are one of a hundred or so greenwalls installed by Paul's Sydney firm, Greenwall Company, in the past six years. "Demand is definitely on the increase," he says. "In the beginning the biggest jobs were under 10 square metres: now they can be up to several thousand square metres. Most people put them in because they are pretty green fixtures, but people are slowly realising their potential for cleaning air." text/html 2008-06-12T03:38:14+01:00 http://www.hydroponics-today.com http://www.hydroponics-today.com/welcome-to-thanet-earth-a27.html You've heard of the factory chicken. Now meet the factory vegetable. Grown in their millions in trays of nutrient-enriched water inside a heated, artificially-lit greenhouse large enough to house ten football pitches, they are as far as you can get from 'natural' home-grown food. But this week, workers are putting the finishing touches to Britain's largest hydroponic greenhouse - an astonishing construction in white steel and glass. By the time the site is complete in 2010, another six massive greenhouses will have been constructed, providing a home to more than 1.3million tomato, pepper and cucumber plants - grown hydroponically, without soil.