[music] Alright!
This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, today we have another exciting episode for
you, and this is going to be a fun one at that.
We’re here at O’Hare Airport here in Chicago, and what we’re looking at behind me is the
O’Hare Urban Garden.
This is where inside the American Terminal between Terminal 2 and Terminal 3, they have
a rotunda, and up on the top level actually they’re growing food indoors.
I think this is an excellent idea, and what they’re using to grow food indoors is the
Tower Garden set-up.
So while they do use the Tower Garden set-up in a commercial application, there is also
a home tower garden.
And what we’re going to do today is actually show you guys what’s growing indoors under
HPS lights, and also how the tower garden works, and also my opinions on it.
So let’s head over to the O’Hare Urban Garden and share with you guys what’s growing
on.
Alright so here it is, O’Hare Urban Garden, HPS lights, really bright in here, it’s
night time as you guys can see outside, and it is a it is a balmy, like 16 degrees outside
today in Chicago, but things are growing beautifully indoors, so that’s the first clue if you
are living in a place where it’s cold, grow indoors in the winter.
I don’t necessarily recommend using HPS lights, especially this many, that takes a
lot of power, I would recommend some standard fluorescent bulbs and growing some sprouts
and/or microgreens in the winter here.
So as you guys could see, what they’re using here is the Tower Garden by Juice Plus, and
how this works is pretty simple, basically there’s a water reservoir in the bottom
it’s like a big half a wine barrel size with a lid on it, and then there’s basically
a plastic tube that goes all the way up, and in each tube there’s multiple holes so that
they can plant a number of plants in the tower.
And it looks like things are growing fairy well here, this is actually some Swiss chard
in this one, here they have some nasturtiums, over behind there they have some tomatoes,
and this one is chives, and I like that it’s actually labeled, each one is actually labeled,
because many people might not know the different crops that are growing, I mean I do, but most
people like “Oh that’s what arugula looks like when it’s growing?”
and it’s totally cool that they’re growing things inside and actually using some of the
produce in the restaurants actually at the airport.
As you guys can see this arugula is going to be used at Tuscany Café, and the chives
here will be used in Wicker Park.
So it’s totally real cool that they’re doing that, but let’s talk more about how
this system works specifically, and I can actually hear the pumps come on, so multiple
times per hour or however often during the day, there’s a pump that takes the water
from the bottom there, and then pumps it up the middle of the tube, and then basically
the water drips down the tube all the way down so that all the plants get watered.
So one of the things that I’m noticing as I’m walking around this tower garden set-up
is actually some of the excess salts and the build-up of the hydroponic solution that they’re
using today, so let me go ahead and show you guys some of the salts that are actually drying
and crusting up.
So check it out, if we look closely at this one here, we can totally see right there,
some of the salts that are crusting up and drying on the plastic housing.
In addition on the bottom of the unit there you can see more salts crusting up.
Now this primarily happens because they’re using fertilizer that’s synthetic chemical
fertilizer, and as you guys can see they’re actually in the blue barrels behind me, and
this is not the natural way food is grown.
Now while I do think it’s definitely good to grow food and grow fresh food where it’s
needed, I personally believe that it’s much better to duplicate nature instead of trying
to emulate nature like they’re doing in hydroponics.
So I would prefer to use a soil-based system instead of a hydroponic system like they’re
doing here.
I prefer the Garden Tower instead of the Tower Garden.
Be sure to check my past videos on that, it’s actually less expensive than the Tower Garden
set-up actually that they’re using here behind me.
The personal Tower Garden set-up you can purchase, they cost around $500 and I think that is
a lot of money for what you’re getting.
I’d much rather you guys put $500 towards building some raised beds in the backyard
or investing in some fluorescent tube lights and some good sprouting materials and actually
taking the time to learn how to grow your food.
I mean the benefit of the Tower Garden that you guys are seeing behind me is that it’s
pretty turn-key, they provide all the nutrient solution for you and all this kind of stuff
and you just do it.
But you know I’m concerned that the food that you’re growing with this nutrient solution
may not be the highest quality food.
I mean I’m looking at some of these items growing, and while some do look fairly healthy,
some kind of look a little bit anemic to me, and it’s not like the plants are getting
everything they need, because they probably don’t have everything in the nutrient solution
mixture over there.
In addition, if you take a look at the chemical fertilizers that are water soluble, they provide
runoff, and the excess actually goes into the soil, into the dirt, and especially due
to the standard conventional agriculture, many of it runs down into the Gulf of Mexico
which creates dead zones, which is not a good thing.
So once again, I would always encourage you guys to grow organically, and in accordance
with nature whenever possible.
So if you do live in the Chicago area or another place where it does get cold in the winter,
besides growing indoors, you can erect simply a [inaudible] house outside and grow some
cold tolerant crops, especially when heated with a compost pile that’s heating up your
[inaudible] house outside, I do have past episodes where I visited Will Allen’s place
in Milwaukee, [inaudible] where I actually show how he does that, and actually I have
another video that I’ll actually post down below in a link in the description so you
can see how they’re growing even in the winter time in the snow if you don’t want
to grow inside you can still grow outside.
I always encourage you guys, no matter what to just plant some food and grow some things
indoors, because I know many of you guys are not in the winter time, you know grow some
little herbs in a window sill, grow some microgreens or some sprouts indoors, those are the best
things that you can be growing in the winter indoors.
So hopefully you guys enjoyed this quick episode learning more about my ideas about the Tower
Garden they have here at O’Hare Airport.
In general I think it’s a great idea to grow food where you need it, but I’m not
a big fan of the hydroponics that they’re using here due to all the salt build-ups,
and where does all that extra salt go when they clean the tanks out?
Hmmm.
In any case, I’ve got to go catch my flight, once again my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
We’ll see you next time, and remember keep on growing.
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