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Coco Coir media the friend of the environment fast overtaking other medias.

 

Coco coir is fast becoming one of the most used growing media in the world today. It’s cheap, it does not get taken from the environment and best of all it does not go to landfill. I’ll explain in more detail in a minute. Read more

HGTV opens Green home to the public

The second annual HGTV “green home” is open to the public. Every year a new “green home” is constructed, showcasing the latest trends in green design.

“From a hydroponics garden irrigated with recycled storm water to the use of solar energy and extremely energy-efficient appliances, there are so many environmentally friendly features to come out and see,” Tradition president Wes McCurry said. “Not to mention this is a very fashionable house with beautiful interior design.”

This home is one of a select few that have received Platinum certification by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. The highest level of certification that can be attained.

The house is open daily from Read more

Hydroponic rooftop garden grows fast and green

Atop the new brick building attached to the renovated Garden Theatre downtown is the future of urban farming, as longtime citrus grower Bert Roper sees it.

At the rooftop hydroponic garden, hundreds of gourmet lettuce plants float on foam mats in a tank of nutrient-enriched water, intended to make the red oak leaf and tender bibb lettuces fat and happy.

Long vines of gourmet cucumbers hang like leafy draperies along transparent walls. Bushes of cherry tomatoes sprout from white plastic pillars. Columns of green and purple basil plants tower from floor to ceiling.

Not all in the garden is green Read more

Urban growers go high-tech to feed city dwellers

Terry Fujimoto sees the future of agriculture in the exposed roots of the leafy greens he and his students grow in thin streams of water at a campus greenhouse.

The program run by the California State Polytechnic University agriculture professor is part of a growing effort to use hydroponics — a method of cultivating plants in water instead of soil — to bring farming into cities, where consumers are concentrated.

Because hydroponic farming requires less water and less land than traditional field farming, Fujimoto and researchers-turned-growers in other U.S. cities see it as ideal to bring agriculture to apartment buildings, rooftops and vacant lots.

“The goal here is to look at growing food crops in small spaces,” he said.
Read more

Hydroponics News November 21st, 2008

Urban growers go high-tech

Terry Fujimoto sees the future of agriculture in the exposed roots of the leafy greens he and his students grow in thin streams of water at a campus greenhouse.

The program run by the California State Polytechnic University agriculture professor is part of a growing effort to use hydroponics _ a method of cultivating plants in water instead of soil _ to bring farming into cities, where consumers are concentrated.

Because hydroponic farming requires less water and less land than traditional field farming, Fujimoto and researchers-turned-growers in other U.S. cities see it as ideal to bring agriculture to apartment buildings, rooftops and vacant lots. Read more

Woodbury Farm Market Celebrates 50th Anniversary

WOODBURY – Woodbury Farm Market, 717 Main Street South, is celebrating its 50-year anniversary.

Owner Sue Donato told Voices she remembers her parents, Eugene and the late Eleanor Cozzolino, working very hard, building their business and enjoying what they did.

In 1958, Woodbury Farm Market was located across the street from the current site of the business. The family moved the business across the street in 1976 where they sold fruits, vegetables and plants.

The Touch of Holly gift shop, long a popular stop, is run by Sue’s sister, Wendy Linholm.

Sue and her husband, Joe Donato, expanded Woodbury Farm Market’s offering in July, adding Donato’s Hydroponic House of Greens to the garden center greenhouse.

Joe Donato told Voices his interest in hydroponics came from, “our passion for growing, creating organic and pesticide-free greens, helping to preserve our earth, working green, extending our seasons, creating high quality products with the best taste and preserving the earth for future generations. This is a dream come true for us.”

Read More/Source

Hydroponics News November 15th, 2008

‘Green’ gardening with hydroponics

For anyone missing a green thumb, a farmer is making growing things a little simpler by subtracting a key ingredient.

Joe Donato with Donato’s Hydroponic House of Greens says, “Hydroponics is growing vegetables or flowers in water as opposed to soil.”

Even though the baby heads of lettuce look like they’re sitting in soil, they’re not. The roots are surrounded by clay bits or coconut husks. Then the tray is flooded with water, so the vegetable can soak up the nutrients.

“You give the plants exactly the nutrients they want so there’s no soil-borne insect because there is no soil,” says Donato.

Instead of insecticides, the Donato’s use actual insects to keep bad bugs away from their plants. Donato adds, “We use beneficial insects that are good insects that use bad insects.”

Contrary to popular belief, the vegetables don’t taste watery.

Donato says, “they taste better and there are more vitamins.”

He also uses an organic based fertilizer and recycles the water that is used in this process. Another green advantage: it’s all locally-grown, so there is no transportation involved.

Greenhouse takes heat, reuses it

Co-generation system makes hothouse part of province’s power grid

The Star reported yesterday that more greenhouse operators in Ontario are trying to save on fuel costs by switching to coal. Today’s story takes a look at one tomato greenhouse in Leamington that’s taking a greener, more innovative approach.

ESSEX COUNTY–Tiny eggs bonded to a paper tag begin to hatch, unleashing 150 parasitic wasps that go about their mission with deadly precision.

Like falcons bred to chase seagulls from airport runways, the wasps target, attack and destroy one of the few and most damaging pests found in modern vegetable greenhouses – the tomato-destroying whitefly.

“We breed our own biological control,” explains Darren Didychuk, president of Great Northern Hydroponics, a large greenhouse operator in Kingsville, Ont.

There are hundreds of egg-laden tags attached to tomato-plant stems throughout the 50-acre operation, where bug warfare has proved a more efficient and eco-friendly alternative to chemical pesticides and herbicides.

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Here’s how to care for houseplants indoors

It’s November and there is no denying that the outdoor gardening season is at an end. Though I’m an avid outdoor gardener, I am not an avid indoor gardener. Sure, I have the standard issue Philodendron, Spider Plant, Wandering Jew and “Christmas” Cactus, but that’s it. This year I am going to expand on my indoor gardening for three reasons; this column, the passing of my last cat, and my youngest is old enough not to eat my plants – I hope.

I have had most of my houseplants for almost 10 years, so it’s not like I can’t grow anything indoors, it’s really been an issue of space and time. I used to have put my plants high enough so they would not get chewed up by infants or cats. I really didn’t mind if the cats chewed on them, I just didn’t like the finished product of their grazing. But most houseplants are poisonous, so if animals and children are around it’s better to keep them out of reach. Now that the demographics in my household have changed, I can put them where I want and taking care of them will be much easier since I don’t have to climb a ladder to reach them.

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Hydroponics News November 8th, 2008

Herbs fresh from your kitchen garden boost flavor

THERE’S NOTHING QUITE LIKE stepping outside the kitchen, scissors and basket in hand, to snip fresh basil, rosemary and other culinary herbs from your own herb garden. • Their delightful aroma lingers on your hands and fills the kitchen with rich scents of the meal to come. For a few moments, you feel like the Barefoot Contessa or Emeril Lagasse. • You’ll feel smart, too. For a fraction of the cost of store-bought herbs, you can easily grow your own at home — even if all the gardening space you have is a windowsill.

Culinary herbs are easy to start and maintain. Though many are grown in Florida as annuals from September through May, there are perennial herbs that weather the hot, humid summer with a little TLC.

Read More?

Hydroponics Grow Chambers

Using Sphagnum Moss as Your Hydroponics Medium

If you want to try a somewhat unconventional, but still very effective growing medium for hydroponics, you should consider sphagnum moss. Though it is commonly thought of as a soil conditioner, sphagnum moss along with some quality sphagnum moss nutrients can prove to be tremendously effective for hydroponic growing. It is possible to use sphagnum as your sole growing medium, but it is typically used in conjunction with another growing medium, such as perlite. Read more

Tomato Farms want Tasmanian Bees

Tomato growers are eager to hear from the Federal Government about a proposal to boost their yields and save on labour.

The Australian Hydroponic and Greenhouse Association has put in an application to introduce bumble bees from Tasmania to the other states for pollination purposes.

They’ve applied before and been knocked back, because of worries about how the bees would affect the environment if they escaped from the greenhouses.

But north-west Tasmanian tomato grower Marcus Brandsema says this application is watertight.

“There are always issues when you’re introducing a species into a country that wasn’t there initially – nobody wants another cane toad,” he says.

“But the study that has been forwarded to the government looks at the whole issue in very great depth to make sure that they are going to be a benign introduction.”

Source

UK Greenhouse produces veggies year-round.

Highly demand for salad vegetables all-year round has led to the creation of a massive greenhouse development in Kent in the UK.

Seven high-tech greenhouses – each one covering land equivalent to about 10 football pitches – are being constructed at a cost of 80 million pounds on a 91-hectare site in the county of Kent, Thanet, in southern England.

The project is a joint venture between the UK’s biggest fresh produce supplier, the Fresca Group, and three major specialist Netherlands companies. They are Rainbow Growers (peppers), A&A (cucumbers) and Red Star Trading (tomatoes) that had watched the consumer trend, seen the value of the UK market and initiated the scheme.

The aim of the venture is to produce home-grown tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers all-year round and the project has been given the name Thanet Earth that the developers hope will reflect its “Planet Earth” green credentials.

Up to now, the increased call for salads in and out of season has been met by transporting produce from other countries in Europe or further still. The Thanet Earth plan will help to reduce the “food miles” required to meet the demand, says Fresca. It will also mean much greater freshness because the interval between picking tomatoes and other crops and their arrival in the shops will be much shorter.

Each of the computer-controlled 140-metre-long greenhouses is equipped with environmentally approved combined heat and power units instead of conventional boilers, and these will have several benefits, such as providing electricity.

Reducing energy use and resulting carbon emissions are, indeed, part of the UK government’s long-term plans.

Insects are expected to play their part in the scheme.Worker bees are going to be released into the greenhouses to pollinate the plants, and natural predators such as wasps will be used to deal with pests.
Advanced hydroponic techniques are to be used to grow the plants that will eventually number more than a million when each super-size greenhouse is fully operational.

Hydroponic growing techniques are relatively common in various countries including the Netherlands but, said a Fresca spokesman, they have not been tried on such a massive scale in the UK before.

Thanet Earth is expected to be fully functional by 2010.

Planting will start in September and by October the first produce will be start to appear on supermarket shelves.

Source

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