As a young person growing up in a remote mountain town, Vertical Harvest of Jackson Hole presents a unique opportunity: a supply of locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables year-round, produced with minimal environmental impact in a place of incredibly harsh winters and dry summers.
It is a vital step to making this valley’s food supply both more sustainable and environmentally conscious. Our beautiful home, while stunning, is an expensive place to live: Vertical Harvest will grow food from within the valley and greatly reduce the need to ship food into Jackson.
If that prospect is not exciting enough, consider the impact of vertical gardening on a broader level.
If vertical gardens can be integrated into urban areas, they can greatly influence urban living. The hard grayness of a city soften at the edges as people develop a closer relationship with their food. In a culture reliant on convenience, projects such as Vertical Harvest can make a difference.
For the youth living in a small town, what does this mean?
Considering most of us aren’t independent of our parents, it means raising awareness. The success of this project can touch an entire community the size of ours and has the potential to travel beyond our mountains and across the country, around the world.
I don’t expect anything to change in a heartbeat, but if you are trying to instill a “think globally, act locally” attitude into your life, projects like Vertical Harvest of Jackson Hole are a great start. Talk to your parents, your friends, or merely think about it for a few moments, the impact could be great.
How can you help? Become a member, buy the produce once available, or visit the greenhouse website to better understand the project and make it a reality.
Vertical Harvest presents many exciting opportunities:
- Employs citizens with disabilities
- Extends a four-month growing season to a 12- month growing season
- Hydroponic growing systems use less water and energy than planting in soil
- Provides learning opportunities to students, locals and visitors
- Produce will be available at retail on site at at local grocery stores
Visit www.verticalharvest.org for more information.
I applaud what you are doing in Jacksonhole. Many here in Missouri and across the US are looking into Aquaponics, one step beyond Hydroponics, because it is even more efficient and economical in the long run, with the added benefit of harvesting fish (Tilapia). Your org. may have already done your homework on Aquaponics, but if you haven’t, it would be well worth the effort to research it. The Mayor of Chicago is giving a thumbs-up to an Aquaponics start up in part of the old stockyards. I will be cheering you on from Springfield, MO. Denise