Aeroponics – Tribe Awesome

Aeroponics Outreach – MIT City Farm

Elise Meike — Sat, 09 Aug 2014 18:18:13 +0000

In our on going search for awesome projects and leading technologies in aeroponics, we found MIT City Farm. Their goal is to bring aeroponics to the forefront of agriculture and change the way food is grown on a large scale. Caleb Harper, the Founder and Lead Researcher showed us the systems they use and the technology they are creating to improve and analyze it. They also believe that open source is the most efficient and most effective way to achieve the optimal solution for farming. Tribe Awesome agrees. One system uses a technique called shallow water culture, which immerses the roots in a thin film of flowing water. This system allows for a high vertical density structure.

Their other system is a high pressure aeroponics setup. They use high pressure pumps and sprayers to atomize the water and nutrients. This is like fogponics (what we do) as the water is suspended in air. However, the droplet size is slightly larger in high pressure aeroponics compared to fogponics. We are not sure if this makes a difference, and are looking to do an experiment on droplet size.

Thank You MIT City Farm!

Aeroponics Outreach – Chapala Gardens

Briana Das — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 18:03:47 +0000

To meet other people working in the world of aeroponics, we looked at other systems that being used on a commercial scale. During our search, we came across Chapala Gardens, a group of green thumb innovators committed to creating a healthier community through gardening.

Recently, we visited their headquarters in Santa Barbara. Jake, one of the three partners gave us a tour and showed us the systems they sell.

Chapala Garden’s rooftop tower garden in Santa Barbara.

Their style of aeroponics with the Tower Garden^® is different than the fogponic method we use. The tower is around eight feet tall, with a wide base that serves as the reservoir. A pump in the reservoir pushes water to the top of the tower where it drips down on the suspended roots.

This is the reservoir:

This is an empty set of tower blocks:

This is a different view of an empty tower block that shows the holes that water drips through:

Like our systems, the Tower Garden requires a seedling. At Chapala Gardens, they grow and sell their own seedlings (pictured below).

To learn more about Chapala Gardens, visit their website at http://www.chapalagardens.com/

To learn more about the Tower Garden, visit the Juice Plus+ website at https://california.towergarden.com/

Aeroponic Tomatoes- Update

Elise Meike — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 20:26:23 +0000

We have an aeroponic tomato plant update! We have been harvesting our very own aeroponic tomatoes. They taste really good! Maintenance of the tomato plants has been manageable. We have had to keep their water levels up and making sure they have had enough nutrients. While we were on a trip for 10 days, we encountered a small problem. The water in our system was replenished every few days but we decided to have our plant caretakers not add new nutrients while we were away. This caused a lack of calcium and resulted in blossom end rot in a couple of the tomatoes that were growing at the time. The tomatoes still tasted good, but there was a part that had to be cut off. After replenishing the nutrients, the new tomatoes looked much better.

Happy tomato eating!

These are the new tomatoes… Yum!

Aeroponic Beans

Elise Meike — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 01:00:40 +0000

Yesterday, we harvested a bunch of aeroponic beans. They looked and tasted great!
If you are looking for another set of plants to put in your aeroponic garden, beans have worked very well for us.
We are growing bush beans, not pole beans. Pole beans grow like vines and would spread on the ground in the Awesome Aeroponics system, which is not ideal.

Happy bean growing!

Hot Weather Care

Elise Meike — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 21:06:13 +0000

The weather is getting warmer! That means you need to be more aware of how your aeroponic system.

Heat can hurt your plants. If your plant looks wilty or if it is a warm day, you may want to move your plant into the shade.
To give your plants a treat, put a couple ice cubes in the root chamber. The plants will appreciate it!
The fogger in the system adds heat to the root chamber. The roots that are normally in cold ground are receiving extra heat. This makes your plants extra susceptible to hot weather.

Good luck!

Workshop Weekend – June 22

Elise Meike — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 17:00:02 +0000

If you came to our aeroponics class at Workshop Weekend in Oakland on June 22, we hope you enjoyed it! You were awesome students! We had a great time teaching you.

We would love to hear from you here, on our forums. This website is new so please help us out by giving us feedback, questions or ideas.

If you are interested in learning more about aeroponics, find resources here.

Here, you can see the maintenance needed to maintain your aeroponic garden.

You can view the presentation from our class here.

Thanks for being such an awesome class!!!

Workshop Weekend class, June 22, 2013

Featured Awesomeness

Erik Meike — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 09:51:57 +0000

Our featured awesomeness of the month is Raul Lozano from Valley Verde. He works hard every day to bring low maintenance home gardens to low income families. He believes that in order to have a healthy life, you have to start with healthy food. For every garden someone purchases, he brings one to a less privileged family in the Santa Clara community. Please check out the awesome work he’s doing at http://valleyverde.org/.

Camp Awesome

Leona Das — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 04:36:00 +0000

During the week of June 17 to June 21, we held an Awesome camp for the four members. Every day we worked hard to bring the inner awesomeness out of everyone. We accomplished many tasks, including starting the process of creating a non-profit organization, setting up a bank account, preparing for workshop weekend, and creating this wonderful website. We also visited an aquaponics enthusiast and teacher, Rick Frey, of Oakland. He showed us his extensive aquaponics system and explained how it works.

Upcoming Workshop Weekend

Erik Meike — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 18:43:09 +0000

The next Workshop Weekend has been announced for June 22 & 23 in Oakland, California. As usual, we will be teaching our Awesome Aeroponics class, thanks to one of the awesome organizers, Gil Zamfirescu. It’s great fun and an excellent chance to find your inner awesomeness. Sign up now while there is still space. We hope to see you there!