Lansdowne Urban Farms
Come on out tonight! Our Parris Island Cos Romaine is ready and delicious!
In the next 10 days, we will have Black Magic Kale and Lettuce Leaf Basil and a new Japanese Green called Chijimisai that is loaded with flavor and nutrients. This stunning new superfood contains four times as much vitamin A as carrots! It is also a great source of minerals and protein. You will not be disappointed.
Good question.
We will annnounce openings and available greens in four places:
We hope to be open for business as much as possible, but in light of the unpredictable nature of the business, we want to be flexible. If you need us to bring greens to your home in Lansdowne, we can do that. If you want to stop by the farm at 23 South Lansdowne Ave. and pick up produce, we can do that as well. Let us know.
Our food is delicious, we want you to get it.
For the time being, without food to sell, it simply does not make sense to use our resources to keep the Farm store open. We are managing the limited growing capacity we have with two hydroponic units, and the growing cycle takes about four weeks (from seedlings started two weeks earlier). Once ready, we have about 10 days to sell those greens at their optimal eating stage. Then the process starts again.
We hope to build some smaller units in the next few weeks to spread out our growing a bit. We also want to create a universe where people eat food when it’s available to them. It’s the same concept as eating strawberries in May and June, but in January, when they sat on a truck for five days to get to you. Fresher. Better. Closer.
Our work at the farm continues daily. If you see us working inside, we might have the door locked, so please just knock.
If you want to arrange a private tour, just email us.
Thank you for your support as we work to bring fresh, hyper-local, nutritious food to our community.
One of the most fun things about Lansdowne Urban Farms is that we give ourselves permission to think about different ways to grow food. We have only one requirement, that we use no soil, it has to be grown hydroponically. We are growing food in buckets and even in downspouts purchased at Home Depot. If you want to discuss, drop us an email and we will arrange a time for a safe visit and we can show you how to easily build units to grow food year-round.
We made it though our first Monster planting. We did not do everything right (lol) but still managed to grow and sell a very decent amount of Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce, Black Magic Kale and Lettuce Leaf Basil for our first time out. If you were among our first customers, thank you. If not, I hope you will try our amazing produce soon.
Now on to Round #2!
Today (Tuesday), Thursday and Friday are our first open hours to the public. Come see why we think our Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce is better than anything you can buy in the store and way more nutritious.
It’s really important to us that we are considered a farm. It’s time to re-think everything. Yes, you can have a farm in the middle of a small Central Business District (CBD). There are people in that District that deserve fresh, nutritious food so why not grow food right around them?
On a more serious note…we are also legally a farm. We know Google is not all things…thank goodness.
PS. Thank you to the Lansdowne Zoning Board who was willing to think out of the box and approve us to grow food hydroponically in the CBD.
Here are what the 4 levels of the Monster look like right now. Level 1 (top level), Lettuce Leaf Basil; Level 2, A little bit of everything; Level 3 Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce; and Level 4 (bottom level) Black Magic Kale.
On February 22, I posted this great picture of Zachary and I. Just 21 days later, our first big crop steals the frame.
Yes, we talk to our lettuce.
This is level 2 in our vertical NFT production unit. Full heads of Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce will be here in just weeks!
I was reminded this morning that I am always tossing around the term NFT rather casually, as if everyone else is as familiar with hydroponic farming as we are.
“NFT this,” and “NFT that,” without even considering that everyone might not know what NFT means.
Aren’t these the conversations you have in your home at 7:00 AM?
To explain, NFT stands for Nutrient Film Technique, a hydroponic technique where a very shallow stream of water containing dissolved nutrients required for plant growth is recirculated past the bare roots of plants in a watertight gully. These NFT channels, pictured below, provide an efficient method to carry the nutrient-rich water to all types of hydroponic crops.
And now you what NFT means!