One day, a restaurant at John Rivers’ new educational farm in Orlando’s Packing District neighborhood could serve fish raised there with vegetables grown on the property fertilized by the same fish’s waste.
That intense farm-to-table dining experience is still a while off at the 18-acre 4Roots farm under construction off John Young Parkway, but the greenhouse where hundreds of tilapia will be raised in tanks and vegetables will grow is reaching completion. A classroom building has also sprouted up. It will be topped with solar panels producing more energy than the building will use, all while rainwater will be collected in cisterns for irrigation and flushing toilets.
“The entire farm is a closed loop system,” said Rivers, who is founder of the 4 Rivers Smokehouse restaurant chain. “Everything from energy collection, water collection, fertilization, growth of food, growth of protein, and it’s all used, and it goes in one big circle around. So there’s zero waste.”
The first seeds for lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini, broccoli, and other vegetables would be planted in November if everything works out with power and irrigation installation and there are no other holdups inside the roughly 15,000-square-foot greenhouse, said head farmer Josh Taylor. The greenhouse will feature windows while limiting people inside to protect the crops from pests or disease. The 7,700-square-foot educational building, with four classrooms, is targeted for completion in December, with students there in January, Rivers said. It will feature windows looking out on the farm.
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