COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — The Mid-Ohio Food Collective’s smart farm in Columbus’ Hilltop neighborhood is celebrating a year of growth.
NBC4 visited the seven-acre site last fall. At the time, crews were getting the ground ready for construction.
“Our motto is, ‘Make every acre count,’” farm director Trevor Horn said. “Everything that we grow out here in this space goes directly to our markets, either at Norton or Gantz Road. And we alternate those weekly depending on what’s ready to be harvested.”
Now, the site has 300 vertical towers. This allows teams to grow thousands of heads of lettuce at a time.
OSU’s Urban Solar Generation course uses the land as an educational tool.
“They’re actually out here taking soil samples, looking at things like compaction (and) organic material,” Horn said. ” They’ll send those back to the lab, do some research on and give us an idea of a starting point so we can start growing in the ground out here.”
On the grounds, visitors will find new life in old shipping containers. Workers can grow more produce in a controlled environment. The setup is slightly similar to the campus greenhouse.