A Visit to a Florida Hydro Vegetable Farm

We visited the Hydro Harvest Farm in Ruskin, Florida, recently. It is an amazing sight to see this unique growing operation on one acre producing veggies that would normally take six acres. The plants are grown in styrofoam containers stacked six high on a pole and watered through a piping system over the top. Enough water has to be delivered to each stack in order to flow through the top container all the way to the bottom. Of course it is all automated, so no standing around with a hose in the farmer's hand all day. The plants are grown in a mixture of vermiculite and perlite, no dirt..soil.

Hydro Harvest Farm sells the home-grown vegetables in their farm market. The prices are understandably a little higher than in grocery stores, but are called organic. People seem to want to buy the products because this is the fifth year for the growing operation whose season is from October-June in Florida.

You're invited to check out my attempt at entertaining you with this movie I made of our visit. Enjoy.