Theatons Blog

We are currently staying in Disney Land (Yacht and Beach Club) and on our recent visit to EPCOT went on the boat tour which takes you round the greenhouses and indoor tropical gardens.

During our boat trip, they told us you could have a backstage tour of the greenhouses, so appropriately called ‘Behind the seeds’.

Here are my  pictures which being a massive hydro / high tech growing fan i really enjoyed..

NFT Cabbage

Experimental ’swirly’ cabbage. The guide did admit this method is actullay not that productive (obviously) but was there more for the crowds.

“A Frame” hydroponics. Mainly growing individual chives in rockwool cubes, roots sprayed using misters.

This is the coolest and  by far the most efficient (greenhouse space) and simplest areoponic system i’ve seen to date.

It  is basically a 10 inch (roughly) pipe with a series of 45 degree joins in it with netted pots in. These contain rockwool cubes with various herbs and plants in. There were 10 or so of these all on a moving rotating rail.  The water is not misted in as with traditional aeroponics, but instead just dribbled down the top of thie pipe on a intervaled timer.

So basically the water just runs down the middle of the pipes, over the roots and any excess water just dribbles out the bottom.

I’ll let the pics explain more..

They also had a series of tomato plans which went  round on a rotating rail. For 3/4 of the time they spend going through this rotating cycle they were misted with classic aeroponic misters.

Photos.

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The big tube you see on the right is part of their air ventaltion system, basically just to regular humidty

Disney have various moulds for some of their crops. This is a picture of Chloe holding a pumpkin that has been grown inside a plastic micky mouse head mould (with ears).

Most plants in the greenhouses are grown up in the air to keep them of the ground and away from any bugs. The whole operation runs like clock work and everything is tighly controlled. This is a techy gardners dreams !!

Here you can see me standing next to some tomato and squash plants which are grown up in the air. The benefit of having the pumpkins grown in the hammocs in the air like this is that they are very airated and can yield very big fruits.

These wierd fruits.. can’t remember what there called, look like giant cucumbers hanging down, but there not. There somthing like snakes hanging down.. Pic:

This plant is really cool, it grows doewn in a big tube with this big ball at the end.. very wierd..

More giant pumpkins (undeveloped), big mellon things and you can also see some sprouts in the back of the back of the photo.

They do alot of growing in sand in the tropical gardens aswell. The sand is completly inert and they feed water + nutrients through underground pipes. All the sand and pipes site ontop of a 6 inch bed to lift of the ground, as I said before, all very controlled.

We also learned abit about pinapples.

The pineapple plant will usually grow for 4-6 years and produce 1 fruit every year. Every year the fruit gets weaker and weaker. Pinapple farmers will usually only harvest for 3 years before replanting. The first years harvest for buying and pinapple and eating, the second year for making canned fruit, and the 3rd year for pineapple juice

Here is a photo showing how a pinapple grows: