“The Farm” Brings Urban Gardening, Young Farmers to Aurora
Nick Marasco is admittedly passionate about the environment. Marasco, of Yorkville, recently took the first group of Triple Threat Mentoring student volunteers on a tour of The Farm, the non profit’s indoor urban garden in Aurora.
Marasco taught environmental and physical science at Neuqua Valley for 14 years. As the full-time gardener at The Farm, Marasco is working with Triple Threat Mentoring staff to include urban gardening in the organization’s over 100 programs offered yearly.
“I saw the value in the urban farm,” Marasco said.
The Farm is housed in a 5,000-square-foot, city-owned warehouse off of Route 25 just north of Illinois Avenue. Towers slide into a series of upright or vertical racks that take up about 800-square-feet. The racks are filled with mint, strawberries, kale, lettuce, Swiss chard, sweet basil, and a variety of greens.
The racks are mobile and will be transported to Aurora’s Farmers Market at the Aurora Transportation Center this summer to sell a variety of produce.
The system was installed in January and started to grow food in February.
Tables are outfitted with metal frames that allow seedlings to be placed into a recycled plastic media before fitting the plants and the media into the towers. Student volunteers are able to plant the seedlings after minimal instruction.
LED lights turn on for 12 hours overnight when the kilowatt hour is at a savings. The light boxes are constantly, but slowly moving across the racks.
The closed loop system circulates water that drips down the vertical towers feeding the plants. The system uses 90 percent less water than outdoor gardening.
Marasco wants to “get kids to eat what we are growing.” They recently started preparing flavored kale chips for consumption. A goal of The Farm is to “get nutrition into the community.”
Seedlings grow in flood tables under lights at The Farm before being placed in the grow towers. The indoor farm is environmentally-controlled agriculture and is completely hydroponic. Seedlings are cloned from other plants that are thriving in the vertical towers.
The Farm is a result of Triple Threat Mentoring partnering with the city of Aurora, and is completely funded by the Dunham Fund. The non profit is looking to develop educational partnerships that will allow area youth to engage in urban gardening at The Farm and in the community.
