Hilltop farm offering fresh ways for urban produce for Mid-Ohio Food Collective
Urban gardening has been around for decades ? if not longer ? but the Mid-Ohio Food Collective is trying to go a step further with its Hilltop operation ? growing urban produce with no soil.
The Hilltop farm on Wheatland Avenue uses a variety of methods to grow produce, both with and without soil.
Hilltop’s Verti-Grow planters are stacked with five Styrofoam pots on top of one another, with 200 such planters, each of which can produce up to 25 plants in 1 square foot.
“What we'll be able to grow in this space right here might be five to 10 times what you could do in conventional in-ground growing,” said Mike Hochron, the food collective's senior vice president of communication.
With so many relying on their services, the food collective must ensure the freshness of their food. Their Hilltop farm site, which reached substantial building completion about two months ago, is committed to making this goal a reality.
Alongside the plot of Verti-Grow planters are GardenSoxx, a cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative to in-ground growing, created by Cleveland native Rod Tyler. This planting technique uses 70% less water than traditional in-ground growing.
A further feature of the Hilltop farm is their greenhouse hydroponic space, where farm director Trevor Horn said he hopes to foster workforce development.
Within this greenhouse, there are 36 troughs, each with a water channel. The channels are sourced from a 120-gallon pool, which is refilled weekly. A BlueLab panel controls features like acid wash, a fertilization barrel and calcium nitrate, which are used to grow plants without soil.
Produced plants are nutritionally identical to those grown in soil, and they pack an aesthetic punch.
“Aren’t these the most beautiful lettuces you’ve ever seen? They don’t even look real,” said 41-year-old Hilliard resident Hallie MacDonald, owner of Fresh Greens Houseplant Design and MOFC volunteer.
As access to healthy soil diminishes, hydroponic farms are becoming a practical alternative.
More: Mid-Ohio Food Collective debuts refrigerated lockers for free 24-hour grocery pickup
“It’s all based off soil science,” Horn said. “You’re looking at soils tested and trying to replicate it in some manner.”
The plants are transported to a food market as soon as they are harvested and made available at once.
“They’re a shop-through style pantry. It’s essentially like a grocery store,” said 30-year-old Grove City resident Jessica Wheeler, the farm's training manager. “It’s a chance for families to come through, put their name in, and then they can go in once it’s their turn and shop there as if they were in a grocery store.”
MOFC has eight such market locations listed on its website, with locations in Columbus, Reynoldsburg, Grove City and Bladensburg.
The team at the Hilltop farm is committed to sharing this knowledge and has hosted workshops to educate community members about the space-saving growth technique.
“As much as we can grow in the yields that we do, it's not really worth a whole lot unless we can teach other people how to do it,” said Horn. “Our goal is precision agriculture, to make sure we're growing as sustainable as possible.”
Now that they have achieved substantial completion, the Hilltop team hopes to start offering tours and educating the community this fall.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Mid-Ohio Food Collective takes extra step with urban gardening
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