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Wednesday, April 27th, 2016

Growing underground: the fresh herbs sprouting beneath Londoners’ feet

Author:     Damian Carrington
Source:     The Guardian (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Tuesday 26 April 2016 02.00 EDT
 Link: Growing underground: the fresh herbs sprouting beneath Londoners’ feet
Stephan:   Here is some good news. Remember the stories I have done on vertical growing in urban buildings? This is another version in London, using World War II air raid shelters 120 feet under ground. Note particularly the role of LEDs. Other than their feel good quality stories like this are important because the are demonstrations showing that a project that produces increased wellness can work, and be profitable as a business. I have nothing against profit, only that it create wellness, and that wealth be fairly distributed, because that also produces increased wellness.
Growing Underground’s list of produce is long and includes pea shoots, rocket, wasabi mustard, red basil and red amaranth, pink stem radish, garlic chives, fennel and coriander. Credit: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

Growing Underground’s list of produce is long and includes pea shoots, rocket, wasabi mustard, red basil and red amaranth, pink stem radish, garlic chives, fennel and coriander.
Credit: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

The UK’s first underground farm is protected from the vagaries of the weather but not, it turned out, from another perennial problem for farmers: trespassers.

The appearance of spray-painted squares on the floor of the former air raid shelters under Clapham in London mystified Steven Dring, co-founder of Growing Underground: “Then someone said to me ‘that’s where the speakers were going to go for a rave’.”

Stronger doors were quickly put in and the farm is now producing daily crops of herbs which go the the capital’s fresh produce market at New Covent Garden and a home delivery service. The aim of the company, said Dring, is to help […]

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1 Comment

  1. John Otvos on Wednesday, April 27, 2016 at 3:25 am

    Dr. G @ Nutritionfacts.org whom I follow ‘religiously’, did a short video a few years back on herbs that had more phytonutrients, when grown hydroponically since they were denied the soil background and therfore put out more of the stuff good for we humans so as to protect themselves, i.e., the plants. And who said that consciousness was the sole domain of we peeps?