High Ridge Hydroponics
Vendor
We're a vertical hydroponic farm in Norwalk, CT. I designed and built a farm inside of a repurposed shipping container. We grow all year round with about 85% less water consumption. We can deliver orders within 24 hours of harvest for superior shelf life. Our Microgreens are grown indoors and NOT in soil, so we have no need for pesticides, herbicides, or any harmful chemicals. We use technology to recreate the optimal growing environment for our plants all year round, no matter the exterior weather conditions. We are able to monitor and control the environmental conditions which allow us to improve our growth recipes and make our process more efficient. My goal as the owner of High Ridge Hydroponics is to create a REPLICABLE method of indoor agriculture that can be "copy and pasted" into communities that need healthy food most. I am working on two projects starting here in CT, with the largest city in the state, Bridgeport.
Extended Growing Season
We grow in a climate-controlled shipping container using vertical farming methods. This means that we are able to get SEVEN times the production in the same square footage as a traditional field farm would. By using technology like LED lights, HVAC infrastructure, temperature/humidity sensors, and a web application we can control the climate to be 75F and "Sunny" every day of the year with 18 hours of light and 6 hours of darkness every single day of the year. This results in the plants growing faster and healthier than they would if they were grown outdoors. Microgreens are super concentrated in nutrients, and flavor and are considered a superfood. While we aren't certified organic, we are hoping to gain the certification this year!
I am from Ridgefield and graduated from Fordham University in the Bronx with a Degree in Environmental Science in 2017. After graduating, I moved home and began exploring hydroponic growing methods in my parent's basement, growing various types of lettuces, herbs, and tomatoes. In 2018 I began working for Homefront Farmers in Redding, CT where we built a 3,000sf greenhouse at their new property. In May of 2018, I moved out West by Lake Tahoe where I worked and lived on the second-largest Aquaponics farm in the country at the time, Dayton Valley Aquaponics. This was part of a 6-month internship program where I became passionate about hydroponic farming methods. I worked on the farm 5 days a week and went to the farmer's market in Reno on Saturdays. I lived with the other farmers in the farmhouse and walked to work every morning. We prepared meals together at night with vegetables we harvested earlier that day. My experience working and living at the farm in Nevada left me inspired and connected to the food I ate like never before. I gained an extreme appreciation for farmers, sustainable agriculture methods, and the process of how food is grown. Fresh out of college I was used to eating frozen chicken nuggets from the freezer aisle, not fresh chicken from my backyard that I harvested with my own hands. This experience changed my perspective on the food system in our country and I returned to CT with a vision to create an indoor farm, on a smaller scale that could be replicated in urban areas throughout the world. I created High Ridge Hydroponics in 2019. The first farm I built was in Ridgefield. I started from scratch by handpicking a used shipping container from a stack of shipping containers as far as the eye can see at a port in Newark, NJ. I operated that farm from September 2019- December 2020. In May of 2021, I moved the facility and we are now located in an old factory building at South Norwalk by the Metro North Station at 57 Chestnut St next to Spacecat Brewing Company and East Coast Kombucha. The farm I built in Norwalk is a new and improved version of the Ridgefield farm with better climate control, running water, wifi and more. With our new design, we can grow 448 trays of microgreens at one time. Our methods allow us to harvest the entire container once a week. On average we yield about 1/2 lb. per tray. This means we can harvest 224 lbs. of microgreens a week from one shipping container. My goal is to perfect the business model of shipping container farming and eventually expand to create a network of shipping container farms throughout the region. This will increase access to fresh, healthy food all year round to communities in need.
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