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Thread: This 2-Acre Vertical Farm Produces More Than ‘Flat Farms’ That Are Using 720 Acres

  1. #31
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    John Galt's Avatar Banned
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    Quote Originally Posted by nathanbforrest45 View Post
    Perhaps if we develop a system as outlined by Dr. Who you can still grow plants in soil. But it would be soil on each floor. You really don't need a lot of depth in order to grow vegetables. If you can grow plants in containers you certainly could modify high rises to become giant containers. They can be purpose built to include irrigation systems, composting floors and the like.

    The only issue would be lighting and if you absolutely require sunlight or can you use man made lighting.

    One factor may be taxation. "Greenbelt" or farm land is taxed at a much lower rate than commercial or industrial land. Here in Florida and I assume elsewhere, land owners will raise a few head of cattle or grow some tomatoes in order to keep their property "greenbelted" and therefore subject to a lower tax base.
    There is no better source than the sun, but if urban areas were to implement these ideas for some of the reasons already cited, solar panels on the roof coupled with the system you describe would work well.

    Depending on the climate, there are a variety of issues with indoor growing, but it's doable.

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    carolina73's Avatar Senior Member
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    Quote Originally Posted by John Galt View Post
    There is no better source than the sun, but if urban areas were to implement these ideas for some of the reasons already cited, solar panels on the roof coupled with the system you describe would work well.

    Depending on the climate, there are a variety of issues with indoor growing, but it's doable.
    It will cost the consumer if you are talking about competing with cheap imports.
    It will save them money in most cases where they talk about organic grown product.

    I love fresh tomatoes off the vine but if I compare even my outside garden, to what I can buy the tomatoes for during the local season, then I don't think there is much savings.
    Disclaimer: I live in the sand. Composting helps but I can only generate so much waste, so I have to buy soil every year if I want to avoid chemical fertilizers.
    In New England, I could throw seed in the dirt and do nothing all summer long but eat cheap vegetables.
    Last edited by carolina73; 12-10-2020 at 09:44 PM.

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  4. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by carolina73 View Post
    It will cost the consumer if you are talking about competing with cheap imports.
    It will save them money in most cases where they talk about organic grown product.

    I love fresh tomatoes off the vine but if I compare even my outside garden, to what I can buy the tomatoes for during the local season, then I don't think there is much savings.
    Disclaimer: I live in the sand. Composting helps but I can only generate so much waste, so I have to buy soil every year if I want to avoid chemical fertilizers.
    In New England, I could throw seed in the dirt and do nothing all summer long but eat cheap vegetables.
    I'm in the Northeast, and I've been building soil for decades. I've grown on top of shale base by getting free wood chips from the tree companies who work in the area. I would pile them about 2 feet thick, and dig holes as you would in the ground. I would put my soil mix in the holes and grow tomatoes, squash, etc.. My soil mix was one part peat/perlite, and one part my compost...worm castings from leaf composting.

    I had container plants at the same time, using just the aforementioned soil mix. It takes about three years for the chips to fully break down and create soil, but all gardens are long term projects. And your point about buying soil is valid...you can cut the time by paying more.

    If you have deciduous trees on your property, the leaves in a compost bin attract worms immediately. The result is too rich to grow in, but it makes great product to be mixed with peat moss, or even dried horse manure. If you have sand, then you won't even need the perlite.

    In the projects described in this thread, it would take an initial investment as most gardens do. I think this is one of those 'lesser of two evils' scenarios where the gardening would take place in cities. It helps to avoid the import of veggies from other states, or surrounding farms. Long term indoor growing is very high maintenance, so I'm not sure if the results are actually worth the effort?


    In my region, the growing season is short. Our safe date is June 1. As a kid, I lived in a zone with a safe date of May 1. I seem to remember eating tomatoes all summer long. Now it's September before we eat slicing tomatoes, August for cherry/grape tomatoes.

    If I take a chance and put plants in by May, it would guarantee a frost. When I wait until June, then there would be no frost in May.

    Mother Nature seems to hate farmers/gardeners.

    This was the first year of my use of wood chips, and containers.


    garden1.jpg


    pepper.jpg

    This is another location with no soil. It was a red shale base. I trucked in a lot of chips, and this was used as a squash garden. After a few years, it was all soil.

    squash garden.jpg
    Last edited by John Galt; 12-11-2020 at 08:22 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by John Galt View Post
    They don't show the labels. I noticed the 'bloom' product cited 'no urea'. Typically, urea is a cheap form of nitrogen, not phosphorus.

    I don't see the same claim on the vegetative product about urea, which would make sense as there would more N in this solution.


    Given that I can't see the labels, is the bloom product using phosphoric acid, or an organic ingredient. Interesting that they cite 'low salt', as I was going to mention that issue when reusing water with non organic products.
    @John Galt The fertilizer (Grow, Bloom, and Formula X) are all urea free and test at 90% organic. The Bloom (and Formula X) has a small amount of phosphoric acid along with an organic base. The nutrient salts used are basically lab grade. The Necessary Plant Energy is 100% organic (Tricarboxylic acid is naturally produced by plants). Does this help?

    *edit* We did an experiment with a corn farmer and he literally doubled his yield, I could relate the specific #'s (they're actually pretty mind blowing) if you would like...
    Last edited by jigglepete; 12-11-2020 at 03:19 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by John Galt View Post
    Agree. There are systems that use waste water from tilapia ponds to water a variety of grow systems. Not sure if it's the soil, or the organics I use in my gardens, but my crops have a lot more taste than anything from the store.
    They do this in mass quantity (acres of NFT systems with 500 gallon talapia tanks) in Australia, the only drawback being they drain to waste as opposed to recirculating the run off.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Peter1469 View Post
    A while back I posted a thread about hydroponic food growing in cities. A city could literally provide much of the food it needs that way.
    I recall that, interesting article.

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    Quote Originally Posted by nathanbforrest45 View Post
    Detroit was pushing for urban gardening in a big way. So many neighborhoods were being torn down because the houses were simply rotting away they wanted to take that land and turn it into parks and gardens. Its amazing how much you can actually grow on a one block by one block plot. That equals an average of 2.5 acres. Mother Earth News has run articles on growing enough food to support the average family on a city housing lot.
    Using hydroponics, and a "square foot gardening" technique, you could reduce that space to a 10x20...

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    Quote Originally Posted by jigglepete View Post
    @John Galt The fertilizer (Grow, Bloom, and Formula X) are all urea free and test at 90% organic. The Bloom (and Formula X) has a small amount of phosphoric acid along with an organic base. The nutrient salts used are basically lab grade. The Necessary Plant Energy is 100% organic (Tricarboxylic acid is naturally produced by plants). Does this help?

    *edit* We did an experiment with a corn farmer and he literally doubled his yield, I could relate the specific #'s (they're actually pretty mind blowing) if you would like...
    It's almost impossible to find an 'organic' high phosphorous food that doesn't have phosphoric acid. I just started using liquid bone meal, which is fantastic. I'm able to reuse soil over and over again, and I see the bone meal residue in the soil from last year. Indoor 'herb' growers evidently use the liquid bone meal to flush their soil if they aren't using organics.

    Thanks for the info Pete.

    You can message me the home page from the company you work for, and I'll peruse your products.

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    Quote Originally Posted by John Galt View Post
    It's almost impossible to find an 'organic' high phosphorous food that doesn't have phosphoric acid. I just started using liquid bone meal, which is fantastic. I'm able to reuse soil over and over again, and I see the bone meal residue in the soil from last year. Indoor 'herb' growers evidently use the liquid bone meal to flush their soil if they aren't using organics.

    Thanks for the info Pete.

    You can message me the home page from the company you work for, and I'll peruse your products.
    See post 18

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