On The Farm

At the beginning of this year I had made a few goals for myself. One of them was to eat more vegetables. I have always loved them (some more than others) but I didn’t eat much of them because my husband doesn’t like almost all veggies. It seemed like too much work to cook them when I was the only one eating them so I just didn’t. But this year I resolved to change that. I knew I needed more veggies in my diet and it was a silly reason keeping me from eating something I enjoyed and that was so good for me. I have been doing pretty well and now I eat way more veggies on a regular basis than I ever have before. Even better, my husband eats some now too :)

One way that I have branched out a bit and started trying new veggies was because of some friends of mine. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that our friends have a hydroponic farm called Glo n Gro. Recently I made another visit out to the farm and this time I brought my camera. It wasn’t a very pretty day for photos but that didn’t stop me. I was a little mad at myself though because the last time I went the trees were all covered in gorgeous leaves and it was a sunny day. Why didn’t I bring my camera with me that time?! Silly me! But, it is what it is.

First of all, driving out to the farm is simply breathtaking. They have the most beautiful setting. It makes me want to move to the country! When you see the organic produce sign, you know you’re in the right place:

As you pull in you will see all of the plant towers.

Don’t they look cool? Right now they aren’t as full and they are during the summer because somethings are starting to wind down for the year but they still look amazing. And check out those storm clouds! It was cool because it was raining on the way out there and then as soon as I got there it stopped. I took my photos and it started raining again just as I was leaving. Perfect timing :)

I believe this tower has cilantro on top and I can’t remember what is on the bottom. Each tower has a pump in the bottom that circulates the water through the tower to get it to the plants. They also have heaters in them which allows for growth during the winter as well. Not everything grows in the winter, mostly just lettuces.

They also have some animals that will greet you when you come visit. Three dogs, three parrots, and a cat. The dog pictured above is named Buddy. The birds were also outside in their cage and I could hear them talking most of the time. It makes for a fun experience :)

The cilantro is so pretty! I have some of this in my fridge right now!

 

This tower is all filled with spring mixes and kale.

This tower has kale and bibb lettuce. I have tried so many new types of greens. I had never had raw kale before and I have found that I really like it. Today we used some in a smoothie and we have also made kale chips which we really liked. It’s good for me to try new things!

The bibb lettuce up close. We have been eating this on all of our sandwiches lately.

The swiss chard is gorgeous as well. This is another veggie I hadn’t tried before. The one that I took home had red, orange, and yellow stalks. It was so pretty I had a hard time eating it!

The cabbage is fantastic too, isn’t it?!

Who knew veggies could be so pretty?

Each of these plants start off as seeds (duh!) and then they first grow like the photo above until they are big enough to be put into a tower. These are mostly lettuces now since that is all that will grow in the cold.

When you come out to purchase your veggies, this is what you are given. They take the plant (this is a spring mix) directly from the tower, roots and all. You can actually take these home and put them in water and they will keep for up to 3 months! It’s great for us because I never could eat some veggies fast enough before they went bad (I don’t get much help from Jason!). Now, I can eat them at my leisure.

And that is my little tour of a hydroponic farm. Every time I go out there I wish I had a tower for myself. But for now, I will just be glad I have friends that have them so I can eat fresh stuff year round!

What about you? Have you ever been to a hydroponic farm? How was it the same or different?