US (WI): Rivierview Gardens' pool transformed to greenhouse grows well

In October last year, Riverview Gardens, a financially self-sustaining social enterprise, focused on job training for people in need, transferred an abandoned swimming pool into a high tech greenhouse operation for the cultivation of leafy greens and vegetables on floating rafts.

For a few months now they are harvesting their Living Lettuce. It is grown on rafts over water. A small amount of growing soil is used on the rafts as seed starter. “The roots pop through the raft and will grow down, six, seven, eight inches into the water,” Gil Shaw, the farm’s manager of hydroponics and orchards told PostCrescent.com.

Photo: Facebook.com/riverviewgardensappleton

“Were bringing off 300 to 400 heads of lettuce a week. We’ve done as much as 500 to 600 for promotions and our capacity is 2,000 heads a week. It's delivered the same morning it's harvested."

The greenhouse staff is about to harvest the first crop of tomatoes and peppers, which are grown in buckets along the edge of the pool using hydroponic methods.

Workers in the greenhouse are a mix of those receiving job training, some paid as transitional employees or volunteers. The number varies, but often there are five or six workers in the greenhouse, many of them veterans.

Click here to learn more about the first months of production in an article on PostCrescent.com..

See also:
Riverview Gardens
www.riverviewgardens.org
https://www.facebook.com/riverviewgardensappleton

Source: postcrescent.com