In an area of Texas known by locals as “East of Weird” because of its proximity to progressive Austin, a farm is yielding many bushels of fruit and vegetables on a spot no larger than a parking space.
Being a “computer guy from San Antonio,” now-farmer Larry Johnson says he didn’t know anything about plants — he just wanted to do something outside. Rather than look for a bucolic setting with fertile soil, Johnson found a small acreage southwest of Bastrop and began to design a farm much like he would a software program. As a result, his farm can’t be considered a stretch of land — unless one is looking up.
“We manufacture high-density vertical garden systems,” Johnson said of the EZGro Garden company he founded. “The system is designed to grow 700 plants in 15 towers in a footprint of 2 feet wide by 18 feet long.”
“It’s a closed irrigation system with a nutrient-rich water solution that comes in through the top,” Johnson explained. “Water is pumped from the floor level and comes up inside the towers and then cascades back down through the pots, bringing nutrients back to the tank.”
He said it takes five gallons of water about a minute to go from the top pot to the bottom — a speed he says assures that nutrients flow equally through each pot.
But Johnson’s admission that he can “make a system, but I don’t know plants” led him to the computer again — this time to search for a vegetable production expert. He found Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service’s Joe Masabni, a vegetable specialist located in College Station, who agreed to evaluate the EZGro Garden system.
More information is available at: http://today.agrilife.org/2015/06/10/texas-farm-goes-vertical-to-net-tall-yields/
