The Future of Sustainable Floriculture!

Growing Dahlias in Aquaponics

Many of our Instagram followers and flower friends in general know that Sarah and I are striving to grow our flower crops in the most organic and sustainable way possible! That involves both traditional, in the field, soil based growing, that most flower farmers engage in AND it includes innovative novel ways to grow flowers. One of those ways is Aquaponics. This is an old technique, used by ancient cultures to cultivate plants near or in water sources where aquatic life can fertilize the plants. It’s truly mimicking nature to employ Aquaponics in a greenhouse and grow vegetables, fruit, and flowers this way.

Up until recently we had to bootstrap the funds to drive this project forward and progress has been slow, but real. We are excited and proud to announce that Grateful Gardeners has won it’s first grant award as a farm! USDA’s SARE program (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) has awarded us a farmer grant to study the “Growing of Dahlias for Cut Flower Production Via Autopots and Aquaponics”. The diagram below gives a brief overview of what the method will look like. The hope is that we can grow dahlias in autopots (a specialized growing container that controls water flow) in a commercial greenhouse space, year round and will allow a flower farmer to offer organically grown dahlias to florists and designers 12 months out of the year. It could be a real game changer! So keep an eye out on Instagram, social media platforms, and our blog for updates on this research project! We believe it is the bright future that local flowers deserve!