BILLINGS — Billings students are discovering a new method of growing their food in a greenhouse with aeroponic towers.
St. John’s United and Billings Public Schools have teamed up to create a greenhouse that serves as a year-round classroom for students.
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Aurora Anttila, a senior at West High School, expressed her passion for plants and gardening.
“I've always fell in love with plants and working with plants,” Anttila said Thursday.
Anttila began her internship at the start of the school year.
“I've taken agriculture classes all throughout high school, and that's kind of set me up into where I am now,” Anttila said.
Students who volunteer or intern are tasked with a variety of things.
“Students are planting seeds. They’re transplanting seeds onto our aeroponic towers, and they’re harvesting food,” greenhouse manager Cassy Crafton said.
The food that the greenhouse grows and produces gets delivered to the kitchen staff at St. John’s United for residents.
The students engage directly with the residents to foster an intergenerational learning environment.
“They really develop friendships that have lasted a long time,” Crafton added.
Lynnel Huffman, a resident at St. John’s United, values the experience of working with the students.
“I think they're starting to learn that food does come from the ground, and it grows and some of it turns green and others don't,” Huffman said.
With innovative aeroponic towers, soil-free gardening is becoming the new efficient way to grow fresh produce.
“When we're at full capacity, we have 50 towers that each hold 52 plants,” Crafton said.
Crafton said also when they’re at full capacity on the towers, the towers can grow and hold more than 2,000 plants at once.
To cultivate these plants, rockwool serves as the growing foundation. The plants thrive on nutrient-enhanced water, which fills a reservoir at the top, then trickles down the tower.
“You put the rockwool, the plant, in these little compartments in the tower and then the roots grow down into the tower and that's how they're fed with the sprinkling nutrient water,” Crafton said.
Aeroponic towers can thrive in any environment.
“They can go outside. You can have one in your basement. They don't need any natural light because these aeroponic towers usually come with an LED light setup,” Crafton said.
This greenhouse is one of the only aeroponic greenhouses in the region.
“It's really a state-of-the-art way to grow food,” Crafton said.
The second annual St. John’s United Greenhouse open house and plant sale is set for Saturday, May 10 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 502 N. 30th St.
