Page 12 - RealDirtENG2020

Bruce Sargent
Other ways to farm indoors
Growing food indoors is becoming popular in ways other than by using a greenhouse, as people look to minimize risk from climate change, and to buy more of their food locally.
In vertical farming, plants like lettuce, herbs, and leafy greens are grown indoors in vertical stacks, instead of side by side the way they grow in a eld. Farmers can provide the exact amounts of water, light, and nutrients that a crop needs—and because the crops are growing vertically, farmers can grow a lot of food in a small area.
Container farming is similar, but it uses smaller, self-contained units that often resemble a shipping container to grow lettuce, herbs, and leafy greens. They’re an affordable way for people to grow their own food in areas like Canada’s north, where it is too cold to grow vegetables most of the year. Even some farmers
in southern Canada are using container farms so they can start offering consumers fresh local crops all year long.
12 The Real Dirt on Farming
GBP Creative/Gary Bremner
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FACT
Greenhouses can grow 10 to 20 times the amount of vegetables on the same area as a eld-based farm40.
Growing under glass
More and more of the fresh produce and owers which Canadians enjoy are grown in greenhouses, under glass, rigid plastic or poly- lm, practically year-round. Tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers are Canada’s biggest greenhouse crops, but farmers are also growing lettuce, green beans, eggplants, microgreens, and herbs, and increasingly, fruits like juicy, sweet strawberries indoors.
Southern Ontario has the highest concentration of greenhouses in North America, and the province has the most vegetable greenhouses in Canada, covering almost 3,100 acres – that’s about 7,750 Canadian hockey rinks41!
Flowers and potted plants are also greenhouse crops
in Canada, with farmers producing over one billion greenhouse owers and plants in 201842. Tulips, gerberas, chrysanthemums, snapdragons, and lilies are among
the most popular cut owers grown in Canada, whereas outdoor geraniums, herbs, and hanging baskets, as well as tropical and green plants, are the leading potted plants.
Greenhouse growers typically use a soilless growing system, called hydroponics, where plants are grown
in media such as rockwool or coconut ber. Inside a greenhouse, farmers provide heat, water, nutrients, and sometimes extra light to boost natural levels of sunshine to nourish plants. They also use bugs, like bumblebees, to pollinate plants, and ladybugs to control harmful insects.
That consistent indoor climate means production 10 out of 12 months of the year43. There’s no worries about bad weather; and farmers can plan their production reliably to make sure that they have enough products to meet consumer demand.