Tower Farm Technology
With the initial technology being first established by NASA in the 70’s, Seedleaves are now pioneering Aeroponic horticulture as a sustainable alternative to traditional agriculture, bringing vertical farming right to your door. This cutting-edge technology uses pre-germinated seedlings to cultivate plants in an air mist environment, eliminating the need for soil altogether. What does this mean for you and your business? Well, the plants can grow in almost any urban space, including in homes, in schools, venues, hotels, offices and in many commercial spaces.
The origins of Seedleaves goes back decades, with Applegarth Farm & restaurant opening to the public ten years ago. The site, situated in 45miles south of London, has now emerged as an all-encompassing fully-fledged cookery school, restaurant and deli. The demand for fresh, local produce prompted the idea to install a vertical greenhouse on site, which utilizes natural sunlight instead of requiring electricity for lights, which a typical indoor vertical farm would use. Thus, Seedleaves, and Urban Growing Club (UGC), being born.
We spoke to Will Benson from Seedleaves about the wonderful things they are doing at the UGC - their main initiative is providing schools with everything they need to grow fresh fruit and veggies indoors, growing at a rate three times faster than traditional soil agriculture!
How it works & its benefits
Once a week, the Tower Farm bowser is topped up with liquid and nutrients, the tower then shoots this up and out, dispersing it evenly across each plant. This method of farming requires significantly less water and resources whilst simultaneously producing sizeable yields – for example, a 6,000 square foot Tower Farm greenhouse can produce up to 14,000 plants a month, which is 950% more produce than growing in soil. Better still, the nutritional value and taste of profile of the food is just as good as growing in the ground, without the inconveniences of weeding and attracting slugs!
Urban Growing Club 6 Month Planting Plan
Will expressed his passion for bringing this technology into schools to educate children about where our food comes from, demonstrating self-sufficiency and hosting cookery school lessons using their home grown produce. Bringing this eco-friendly farming initiative into underfunded schools will equip students with a multitude of transferable skills which will promote independence and the adoption of lifelong sustainable practices.
Urban Growing Club are currently looking for companies to sponsor this technology to be installed in schools, if this is something you are interested in, or you would like a Tower Farm installed in your own space, speak to the specialists in soilless growing here: https://schools.urbangrowingclub.com/
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