extrapolating...

since my first post, i’ve heard from an experienced farmer, a smart potter (if that doesn’t seem relevant, think of creating something from a lump of clay and the ability it involves to foresee the way things will change shape, combined with the flexibility to conform along the way), and several experienced chefs, all of whom care deeply about quality food, and all of whom want to be involved. i’ve also had an offer of land use in just about exactly the area i was thinking about. all this commotion seems to merit another foray. so allow me to elaborate, and simplify.  

my first layout of this concept reveals (to me, and anyone bored or courteous enough to read my ramblings) the “cool” of the concept, without taking into account some of the ethical considerations (which, i assure you, are plenty), practical and financial considerations, and the potential ramifications of the project. here are a few.

first, let’s do ethical. it’s so much fun. i don’t know why this specific didn’t make it into the first post – perhaps i was just so enthusiastic that i failed to include it (this happens sometimes). it has been my intent since my mind wandered to this concept to donate minimally 10% of all food produced to the nyc charity City Harvest, which works to provision the city’s hungry. this isn’t for tax write-offs or accolades. it’s my belief that hydroponic applications have the potential to solve the problem of global hunger. indeed, it’s been postulated by many advocates better-informed than i that it could, given the concept’s adaptability to geographical and environmental conditions. the use of our produce to demonstrate this potential of hydroponics is as integral to the vision as any other point.

let’s talk about nature, too, since that’s the ethics hot button. hydroponics has come under criticism for being disconnected from nature, and that’s clearly legitimate, because in many senses it is. the romance of tilled earth and of planting it has put the “farm” in more than a few farmers. hydroponics won’t, shouldn’t, and can’t replace traditional farming. we’re not talking about a takeover. we’re talking about a supplement. let’s talk about cows.

no, i don’t want to raise hydroponic cows (and i’m not going to try to invent lactoponics or anything, so relax). we love to eat steak and burgers and try not to think about cows and – if we do accidentally think about it – we like to imagine that cows are happy. i’m not in the mood to run statistics on it, but i’ll bet that less than one tenth of one percent of the people in this country are fortunate enough to eat beef that came from happy animals. sure, there are happy cows. you’ve seen a pbs special about it, maybe you’ve even read michael pollan. (you should.) there are farmers that let cows “graze,” which, if you thought about it, you’d probably describe as the main activity of a cow. but i don’t think i have to convince you that most beef doesn’t come from those pioneers. (who, incidentally, are raising beef the way… well, the way the actual pioneers did.) if we were of a mind to have cows, as some people are, but we wanted to plant as well, would it make tons of sense to buy 100 acres, plant 80 of them (so we can hope for income from plants), and then cram the cows into the last 20 in barns and feed them grain pellets? wouldn’t it make more sense to let the cows eat grass, like they’re supposed to, on 90 of those acres, and then plant the last 10? like i said, i’m not in the mood for cows. i’m merely out to suggest that hydroponics has the potential to improve the land supply, beyond its proven efficiencies, by simply looking at the bigger picture: it uses less. which makes all the more room for cows, and for farmers that need the smell of fresh-tilled earth in their noses. there’s no reason we can’t all be happy.

another consideration in terms of nature is organics. let’s lay out all the cards. just like the beef people don’t want you thinking about factory farms, the hydroponics people (don’t you just know so many?) don’t want you thinking about organics. basically, growing organically is tough in hydroponics. the plants don’t use just water, obviously; there needs to be food for them. the easiest way to do this is to add a bunch of mineral salts (think “potassium sulfate,” “calcium chloride,” “sodium nitrate,”) to water, and call it nutrient solution. these mineral salts, to look at it first from the dark underside, are sometimes obtained as chemical byproducts from ginormous petrochemical companies. (and remember, we’re trying not to use petro- things.) the exact opposite of that is a form of advanced aquaponics. if you’ll remember my brief mention before: fish eat and poop and get sold and plants eat fish poop and clean the water and also get sold. we’ll talk about logistics elsewhere (and there’s a whole mercury conversation we could have too), but as to organic, it couldn’t be cleaner.

so why would anyone bother with petro mineral nutrient blah blah? well, it’s way cheaper, it’s way less work, and it’s easy to analyze (how much nitrogen, how much molybdenum (which, yes, is in there)). oh, and systems that use these minerals produce more plants. bass-gardening, let’s call it, is more risky, since unless you have regular access to a real laboratory, you can’t know how much copper or ammonium or calcium is in that liquid; you just hope the poop is rich enough in everything to feed the plants. which it usually is. but as to certified organics, it’s on the edge of impossible, under the current system, to get a hydroponic farm legitimately certified. and how could you expect it to? plants eat minerals, which are inorganic. which is the opposite of organic. even the bass garden is complicated; are you going to feed the bass organic fish food?

fortunately there’s middle ground in my opinion. more and more mineral salts are becoming available which are not derived from petrochemicals, so you can avoid the bass setup and its many variables, but still be eco. ultimately, all these minerals are available “naturally” anyway (which is why plants survive so well in the wild). calcium phosphate, for example, exists in cow’s milk and in the enamel on your teeth. we can avoid petro, and we certainly won’t be using insecticides or pesticides or irradiation or genetic modification (“heirloom,” remember), or any of the other things that people who buy organics want to avoid. we should be able to establish some social and economic value in a system like this. we’ll just have to create our own certification system. we’ll call it something annoying like “hydroganics.” there’s also “bioponics,” where you introduce bacteria (as would exist in soil) and often use fish poop and things like this. within this concept it is possible to be certifiably “organic.” to my mind this concept is too risky for a startup, but for an operational farm with reinvestable capital, it’s simply a matter of evolution potential.

the point is, we’re moving forward with the understanding that, while of course we’ll be as green as green can be, the actual product will be food that people can feel good about eating, even if we can’t get a certified organic sticker on it.

well i’ve blown up a huge entry on ethical considerations, so really cool practical stuff and really important financial stuff will have to wait. but since i never could wait (especially on the fun stuff), let’s at least have a preview of practical considerations, and ramifications (in addition to those few below i’ll repeat, “new york vanilla”).

there won’t be 12 greenhouses, and whatever’s left won’t be an acre each, for sure. (as pursuing this concept becomes more and more enticing, practicalities are more and more important.) if you did things right and things went perfectly, on one hydroponic acre of tomatoes you could end up with 300 tons a year. and i simply don’t want to deal with 1650 pounds of tomatoes a day. consider that heirlooms are less productive and that we’ll be just starting out; i don’t even want to contend with 500 pounds a day when i haven’t even checked on the lettuce, herbs, berries, vanilla beans, and everything else. let’s just say, to start, 6 houses, maybe a third of an acre each – 15,000 square feet, so maybe 100 feet by 150. lettuces, tomatoes, strawberries, herbs, something else, tropical. (we’ll group plants with similar environmental requirements – tomatoes and cukes, for instance – into shared houses. except strawberries. they get their own.) we’ll have seeding areas for each plant in the same house as the mature plants; it’ll cut down on transport and therefore transplant shock, and it’ll save us a dedicated house. and of course, while it’ll all be nft, not every house or even every section of each house will have the same, uniform, waist-high gullies. strawberries will be higher, so they’re easier to harvest, tomatoes will be trellised, etc.

some other fun things that i think of: there will be a house on the grounds, where i’ll spend time living, and where we’ll have a kitchen for making jam and baking things to take to market and for making a noontime meal every day for the staff, so everyone can come and sit at a big wooden table and be convivial. like humans. i’m even getting a big cast-iron dinner bell, count on it.

obviously there’ll be a large shed. a barn, even. should be able to do without the silo, though.

we can’t expect and don’t want to set out being that guy who “meets all your produce needs,” either. we’ll pick a few things that really get us going and be the guys who bring you the very best of those few things. tomatoes and watercress and thyme are exciting, but mint and strawberries are even more exciting. still more thrilling is the idea of lemon verbena, since it’s so exquisite (honestly i could live in a house that smelled strongly of it all the time and be a happy happy man) and its season is so depressingly short. the main focus of my research right now is what to grow and how much of it. as that becomes clearer, it’ll be possible to focus on financials, from the perspectives of both setup and revenue.

next time, we’ll go over what goes with what in which house and how much, and we’ll progress into finances. for right now, though, here’s a crop list.

• tomatoes – heirloom and heirloom cherries
• cucumbers – heirloom varieties, and fun ones too, like mexican sour gherkins
• leafs – bibb lettuce, watercress, arugula, leafy herbs, spinach
• strawberries – heirloom varieties like suwannee, etc, and maybe some alpines (it’d be really awesome if we could grow these in high enough concentration to make alpine strawberry jam, because really, no one does this, and it would be tremendously good)
• herbs – lemon verbena!, mints (like black mitcham), thyme, rosemary, marjoram, tarragon, and oregano and all that; maybe we’ll foray into hydroponic bay laurel and break new ground there as well (honestly though verbena is really exciting)
• vanilla – the house won’t be limited to vanilla, and it’ll be a fun one; there are many tropicals we can look at including. the vanilla house might be just the place for the verbena, too, which likes that weather
• maybe brambles
• maybe peppers or peas, beans, brussels, or broccoli

in the meantime, i’m going through my seeds to see what i should plug into my home hydroponic system, for season two. (i was going to go with suwannee, i’m just not sure if suwannee is going to go with me.) who am i kidding; alpine strawberry will probably win.

things are growing all around.