Imagine a world where the produce you eat comes from a local grower rather than a distributor clear on the other side of the country, or worse, the world.
That was once the case. But because we've allowed for concrete jungles to sprout, we've eliminated much of the land area we once used for farming. (Locally, Irish Acres on SR 441).
Imagine the repercussions this choice has caused: increase in cost of produce due to distribution charges, gasoline, farmers and handlers pay, pesticides, taxes, the list goes on.
And had you asked me two days ago whether I thought we could reverse this type of situation, I would have said it was very likely impossible. I would have been wrong.
In a conversation with my brother last night, I learned about a revolutionary new way to approach farming. It's called VertiGro, and it's just what it sounds like.
Farmers who think outside of the box have recently discovered that with an eighth of an acre (that's literally a fraction of ONE acre) of land*, they have successfully grown as many as 2500 heads of lettuce.
I put the asterisk on 'land' because I need to define this more clearly. The land I speak of is nothing more than an area of surface in which one can build on.
So you own a row house in Baltimore? You can VertiGro on your roof. You live in an apartment building in New York? Get some of the other tenants to go halfsies and build a green room on the roof to VertiGro and supply fresh produce to the whole building.
Here, watch the video:
There will be more written on this in the coming days. My brother has a friend who has a VertiGro garden started not far from where I work. I'm hoping to go by there today when I leave here so I can see this stuff first hand.
That was once the case. But because we've allowed for concrete jungles to sprout, we've eliminated much of the land area we once used for farming. (Locally, Irish Acres on SR 441).
Imagine the repercussions this choice has caused: increase in cost of produce due to distribution charges, gasoline, farmers and handlers pay, pesticides, taxes, the list goes on.
And had you asked me two days ago whether I thought we could reverse this type of situation, I would have said it was very likely impossible. I would have been wrong.
In a conversation with my brother last night, I learned about a revolutionary new way to approach farming. It's called VertiGro, and it's just what it sounds like.
Farmers who think outside of the box have recently discovered that with an eighth of an acre (that's literally a fraction of ONE acre) of land*, they have successfully grown as many as 2500 heads of lettuce.
I put the asterisk on 'land' because I need to define this more clearly. The land I speak of is nothing more than an area of surface in which one can build on.
So you own a row house in Baltimore? You can VertiGro on your roof. You live in an apartment building in New York? Get some of the other tenants to go halfsies and build a green room on the roof to VertiGro and supply fresh produce to the whole building.
Here, watch the video:
There will be more written on this in the coming days. My brother has a friend who has a VertiGro garden started not far from where I work. I'm hoping to go by there today when I leave here so I can see this stuff first hand.
Comments