03/10/2021
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
Tower garden pilot eager to help grow community.
Mercyhurst project to seed fresh produce for food deserts.
By, Valerie Myers
Erie Times-News USA TODAY NETWORK
Indoor gardens tucked away in hallways and an office at Mercyhurst University are growing more than lettuce, spinach and peppers.
They’re also growing learning opportunities and seeding a trail to provide fresh produce in inner-city neighborhoods.
The indoor gardens grow vegetables without soil in pockets of beanstalklike “towers” up to 6 feet tall. They’re part of a pilot program underway to determine if the university can provide produce for the campus community year-round and encourage new learning in public health, nutrition, botany, chemistry, education and other academic disciplines.
The pilot program also is looking at how community organizations might use such indoor gardens to provide vegetables in city neighborhoods where residents have limited access to fresh foods.
“This is a journey. We don’t necessarily know the destination yet, but we’re getting feedback along the way,” said Colin Hurley, the university’s executive director of community engagement. Hurley doubles as Mercyhurst sustainability manager.
The project is led by Shannon Meyers, of Healthy Futures AmeriCorps VISTA. Meyers, of Columbus, Ohio, graduated from Mercyhurst last year with a double major in public health and sustainability. AmeriCorps VISTA is a federally sponsored service program with a basic goal of eliminating poverty.
Meyers began germinating seeds in her basement in early December and by January was harvesting lettuce and other produce from the university’s three tower gardens.
The towers rely on LED lighting rather than sunlight and on an automatic irrigation system that pumps water from built-in reservoirs to dozens of plants for 5 to 10 minutes each hour.
“You could put the tower in a closet and plants would grow,” Meyers said. And grow faster than the same plants in soil, according to research. Tower gardens also grow foods year-round.
“I don’t see this replacing outdoor gardens like the Sisters of St. Joseph farm market. But after September, that market is gone. Tower gardens can complement outdoor gardens through the winter and year,” Meyers said.
Meyers has been teaching herself about soil-free gardening and sharing what she’s learned — about Ph levels, which plants grow best in the towers and what nutrients to use — with other tower gardeners.
“I’m sharing information so others don’t repeat my mistakes,” she said.
“Shannon is writing a kind of manual for others to work through this,” said Maria Beatriz Torres, chairwoman of Mercyhurst’s public health department.
Meyers also is reaching out to community organizations interested in growing foods indoors in their neighborhoods. The university hopes to work with organizations such as the Downtown YMCA and Diehl Elementary School, its community school partner, to make fresh vegetables more accessible in Erie.
“We also need to teach people how to use them, how to cook with them and how to incorporate them into their lives,” Torres said.
In the meantime, students and faculty are helping to identify food deserts in the city, corner stores that might offer fresh produce, and how tower garden vegetables compare to traditionally grown foods.
Education students are also involved.
“They’ve made lesson plans for kindergarten, first and second grades, breaking this down to teach (tower gardening),” Meyers said. “They’re lesson plans that could be used at Diehl, for instance, when we connect with them.”
Meyers already is working with educators and others who have tower gardens.
“Those conversations are really helpful,” she said. “We bounce ideas off each other.”
Mercyhurst students and staff will share produce from tower garden harvests in April through a campus-sustained agriculture program. They’ll pay a small fee for the fresh vegetables, enough to cover costs for more seeds and nutrients.
Students also helped to pay for the tower garden systems, which cost about $1,000 each. Systems also are available for about $500 without LED lighting for use in natural light in private homes and greenhouses.
“It was through Mercyhurst University’s sustainability fund that we got these tower gardens on campus,” Hurley said. “Fourteen years ago students petitioned to tax themselves a couple bucks a year for projects that encourage sustainability. Shannon did a proposal and got approval for funding.”
Meyers now is continuing to experiment with foods and nutrients, reaching out to others interested in growing their own foods, and investigating possible funding for community tower gardens.
“The idea is to give this a try here first and then extend it into the community,” Torres said.
For information on Mercyhurst’s tower garden program, contact Meyers at [email protected].
Contact Valerie Myers at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter .
A Tower Garden in Mercyhurst University’s Hirt Academic Center is maintained by Shannon Meyers, 23, of Columbus, Ohio, who is a recent Mercyhurst graduate.
JACK HANRAHAN/ERIE TIMES-NEWS
