AIR DATE APRIL 27, 2023

Title: Hydroponics & Aeroponics

Emily speaks with hydroponic and aeroponic gardeners about the benefits behind these alternative gardening methods.

Guests

Urban Smart Farms, Owner and Farmpreneur – Diego Dutra

Cypress Springs Elementary, Principal & Teacher – Anne Lynaugh & Jane Lauzon

LMNDeavors, LLC, Founders – Joe & Lisa Marie Nash

Hydroponics and Vertical Gardening Allow Us All to Become Gardeners

Hydroponics is a way to grow your own food without needing access to soil. When I spoke with Joe and Lisa Marie Nash at LMNdeavors, they described it as “making sure that you’re eating safe food, that you know what’s going into your food.”

Diego Dutra owns Urban Smart Farms. He sees hydroponics and vertical gardening as a way to “educate and promote sustainability.”

Jane Lauzon teaches at Cypress Springs Elementary and started the gardening program there. A hydroponics program is getting added to create more opportunities for young students. The Nashs are involved with this project.

Why Does Hydroponics Offer Gardening Solutions?

Dutra points to the Tower Garden as to why aeroponics, a more advanced form of hydroponics, is such an effective technology. “There’s a pump that pumps the water up to the shower cap and that trickles down hitting all the root system,” he told me. “The plant only takes in what it needs at different growing stages, and that’s why we can save so much water.”

Dutra told me you can grow a head of lettuce with hydroponics with only two gallons of water, but it would take 15 gallons using traditional methods.

The Nashs told me that you don’t need to have a green thumb or any experience to get started with hydroponics. All it takes is about an hour per week of attention to create safe, nutritious food.

“I like the freshness of it,” said Joe. “I like knowing what’s in my food. I like knowing what’s not in my food, and I like the idea that there’s not a lot of waste.”

School schedules never seem to have enough time, so at Cypress Springs Elementary, they meet early in the morning. “It allows us the time to tend the garden once a week, possibly harvest or plant new,” said Lauzon.

Immediate Results Encourage Habit Changes at Home

At Urban Smart Farms, you can find training videos, demo classes, and other educational resources to help get your hydroponics setup started. “When somebody wants to grow with me, I grow beyond them and I give them all their free seedlings,” said Dutra. “That makes it easy to get growing the same day.”

“You just get whatever you need,” Lisa Marie said. “You don’t have to worry about overbuying and something just sitting in your refrigerator going bad. And if you have too much, you can always share with your neighbors, make friends.”

Hydroponics is a cost-effective investment, but schools are often running on tight budgets and don’t always get grants for programs like hydroponics and gardening. “We always could use donations,” Lauzon said. “Parent donations, community donations, donations from places around the school like nurseries or anyone that would have availability.”

“We also need the community to support our Twitter account and our Facebook and like these activities we’re doing so that we can promote them even more,” added Anne Lynaugh, principal of Cypress Springs Elementary.

You can learn more about the Nash’s efforts to bring hydroponics to our community by visiting orlandohydroponics.com or joedoessolar.com. If you want to get in touch with Dutra, his website is urbansmartfarms.com.