John: This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
I have another exciting episode for you today.
Today we're at the Chicago ORD or O’Hare airport.
You can see the busy people running around, trying to catch their flight or actually I
have to catch my flight real soon.
But what we're here today to show you guys is something real cool that's happening and
growing on at the airport and here it is.
This is the Chicago Department of Aviation O’Hare Urban Garden.
So this is a picture of it, and there's a little description of it.
But, it's an urban garden here between terminals two and three inside the security area.
There's a little map and that's where I'm headed right now.
So then we can check out and learn more about this urban garden inside the airport.
I mean if they can grow it in the airport, they can grow anywhere, so let's over there
and check it out.
You can see all the people with luggage moving steadily to their gates, but above it all,
you'll notice something real cool, that's O’Hare Urban garden that we're going to
check out in just a second.
The Chicago O’Hare urban garden is right behind me and it's basically growing aeroponically
vegetables actually that are used in the airport for travelers that are actually buying meals
at some of the restaurants.
That's pretty sustainable right there, growing it where you need it and having a fresher
and higher quality and better tasting food as well.
Now let's head over here and check it out.
In the garden area besides actually the amazing plants growing, they have all these nice posters
here.
So the Chicago Department of Aviation Sustainability Initiatives.
So it looks like the Chicago Department of Aviation has a whole lot of programs going
on.
For example, actually they got apiary or they got bees.
They got 33 bee hives here at O’Hare airport with approximately 1.3 million bees and it's
the largest apiary at any airport in the world.
I want to encourage other airports to put in apiaries and do more green and sustainable
and grow some food.
In addition they got some vegetated roofs here at the Chicago airport, although they're
not edible.
They also do recycling and sustainable construction practices.
In addition they use some clean air vehicles.
They have a water and energy management to reduce the water runoff and to reuse the water.
Of course, they got the O’Hare urban garden here, which is using a tower garden system
that uses green technologies that recycle earth minerals and water.
So O’Hare urban garden uses as little as five percent of the water using conventional
and organic farming and here is another sign on the O’Hare urban garden.
This that garden contains over 1,100 plants and utilize a very small footprint.
Of course here says that this was a collaborative project between Chicago Department of Aviation
and HMS Host corporation to develop a cutting edge environmentally friendly 928 square foot
aeroponic garden in the mezzanine level of the ORD rotunda building.
So check it out, this is really cool.
The O’Hare Urban Garden supply fresh grown produce to O’Hare restaurants located a
short walk away inside the terminals.
Such as that Wicker Park, Wolfgang Puck, Stephanie's Tuscany, Tortas Frontera by Rick Bayless and
Stanley's Kitchen and Tap.
So next the moment you've been waiting for, let's turn around and check out this aeroponic
system they got growing and man they have a wide variety of crops growing on.
Right over there looks like they got some Basil growing.
Each one of these towers is, this is basically an aeroponic system which is fairly similar
to hydroponic system.
You're using a nutrient solution but most the time the roots get to have air and not
the fertilizers.
Each one of these towers, man, they're like geez, pushing ten feet tall with the base.
There's basically a large base kind of looks like a half wine barrel about that approximate
size.
Then they got a tower in here.
Now the tower has forty four plants each.
A ring as you can see there's a ring there has a four spots and they rotate each ring
to have them offset from the one below it so things can grow out nicely.
Actually right there we're looking at some arugula.
Let's talk about the lighting there.
Up above the lighting you hear the classic hum of HPS or high pressure sodium lighting
and and this is one lit up place.
About the only thing I can say that I wish the energy that was driving these lights was
coming from a renewable resource such as solar panels on the roof because we are here at,
I don't know, six AM in the morning totally dark outside and it's actually totally lit
up in here and I know the HPS lights they take some money to run.
I don't know if it's from a financial standpoint aside from being real cool, I don't know if
it's really super viable to be growing this much stuff under lights and if they were I
probably pack in a whole bunch more of these guys to grow a lot more food.
So there's about forty four plants on each tower here all the way up.
This one's arugula.
This one they just started planting lettuce red butter head.
Over there they have some leaf parsley.
Over here they have some Basil.
All these all these plants look absolutely amazing.
Some onion chives, and here's some red tomatoes.
If we look closely in there I see some ripe tomatoes back there.
I don't know if you guys can see those.
I can't even, I can barely reach in, I can't even get them.
So it's just out of reach of all the railing here.
Over on this one looks like they planted some edible flowers, there's some gourmet lettuce
and man this stuff looks real good, and let's see some cilantro as well.
How the system is run is through a nutrient solution and here's their nutrient solutions
in some big sixty, five-five, sixty gallon drums here that they use a pump system with
some kind of filtration to basically water and provide the nutrients to all the plants.
This system is by a future growing L.L.C.
you can learn more about them at futuregrowing.com.
Over in this area looks like they have the seed starting area.
So this is pretty amazing they're actually starting the seeds and the plants that are
actually going to go in to the tower gardens.
It looks like they are growing those in rock wool of the disease in the standard rockwool
and seeding in the rock wool.
These are like flood tables they're just going to water it, the water's going to run down
the table get absorbed in the rockwool and then run out the other side through the little
drain.
Looks like they're growing their starts here, so probably they're growing one little area
right there is forty four plants, enough to fill the whole tower.
This looks like it is on a continual cycling system.
The cycling system is they'll just keep harvesting and they'll keep planting new stuff as needed.
In this one they have a jalapeno peppers.
And there's some oregano.
This one's really interesting, never seen this one done before in aeroponics or hydroponics.
Starlet runner beans alright, so they even grown.
So they're growing heirloom here in the Chicago airport and who said you couldn't grow runner
beans without a trellis.
I don't know, we'll see how these guys get when they get a lot larger.
Deftly going to be interesting.
The oregano, looks like the oregano’s doing amazingly well.
I think you probably keep clipping off that and have tons of food.
The sage, and in general, some of these herbs or herb type plants are actually doing quite
well.
Green basil, cilantro, colored Swiss chard, looks like a rainbow mix, purple Basil.
So looking a little bit anemic, they're not quite as good as the green basil around the
other side.
Of course some edible flowers.
So these are edible viola flowers.
I often preach about the edible flowers and the violas and also things like pansies are
edible.
Now it's a good opportunity we're going to have some people that actually were coming
to admire the garden and we're going to interview them to see what their thoughts are on this
awesome urban garden here at Chicago airport.
We're here with some fellow travelers today and how did you guys come up now upon this
garden?
Girl 1: We were deciding to explore the airport and then we say, Caroline actually spotted
the sign saying Urban Garden, so we decided to check it out.
John: Cool, what did you guys think of this?
Caroline: It's really cool.
Girl 1: It's cool.
Girl 2: We thought it was very unique and a really cool idea how it supplies food and
stuff for the restaurants nearby.
John: Awesome so do you think other airports should do something like this and grow some
food also?
Girls: Yeah I think so.
John: How about even like your local shopping mall?
Do you think it'd be cool to have something like this there to feed people at food court?
Girls: (agreeing) Definitely.
John: Alright, awesome.
So do you guys eat a lot of locally grown food or a lot of fruits and vegetables or
do you guys eat a lot of like, go to McDonald's a lot or how's that?
Girl 1: Combination of both I think.
John: Combination of both.
Girl 2: Yeah.
John: I'm really into teaching people about where food comes from and food comes from
the ground, not necessarily aeropontic systems like this, but any food that you can grow
is definitely a good thing.
So do you have any last comments on the gardens here at Chicago airport for my viewers?
Girl 2: No.
Caroline: Hope to see it in other places.
Girl 1: Yeah.
Hopefully this can kind of expand and go to other places.
That would be really good.
Girl 2: Yeah.
John: Alright great, thank you so much.
So I know you're thinking you might want to get some of these towers yourselves and if
you want to do that you can get them from the company that makes them and it's mytowergarden.com
and it's Tower Garden, grow with it, and it has a U.S. patent, and check it out, made
in the USA.
So definitely this is really cool so I hope to come back in the future and see this garden
continuing to grow next, actually I'm go ahead and sit down and give you might thoughts on
this garden here at Chicago airport.
I definitely thought that this Urban Garden here in the airport is definitely really cool.
They're growing lots of stuff and they're getting people familiar with food and how
it can be grown and I think that's an amazing job right there and they have a lot of sustainability,
probably more than most airports around the country.
I believe that other airports, but not only airports, even shopping malls and other places
should have green initiatives to start conserving resources and even grow more food wherever
they're at.
This is one example of a project that is up and coming, it makes a nice artistic art piece
and curiosity for people passing by but also for us hard core growers, it's really cool
to see that there are other people that are concerned about the current U.S. food supply
and want to increase the quality of the food by growing it yourself and making it more
local.
When you grow it yourself it also tastes much better and is also much fresher and there's
less input to grow the food on sight than having it literally shipped across the country
in the winter time when you can grow lettuce inside in the heated areas here in Chicago
or most other places in the world.
So I hope you enjoyed this episode, learning more about the Chicago Urban Garden at the
airport.
Once again, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
We'll see you next time and keep on growing.