Back in July, we wrote about the world’s biggest rooftop urban farm in Paris, which recently started to bear fruit for the first time. Today, we’ll be skipping across the ocean to another French-speaking city—Montreal—where the biggest rooftop greenhouse just opened.
The Greenhouse was built by Lufa Farms and spans 160,000 square feet (15,000 square meters), or about the size of three football fields. It is intended to meet the growing demand for locally sourced foods. Using the new hanging garden trend, the greenhouse will focus on growing eggplants and tomatoes. It is the fourth greenhouse Lufa Farms have erected in the city.
Lebanese-born Mohamed Hage and his wife Lauren Rathmell, an American from neighboring Vermont, founded Lufa Farms in 2009 with the ambition of “reinventing the food system.”
At Lufa, about 100 varieties of vegetables and herbs are grown year-round in hydroponic containers lined with coconut coir and fed liquid nutrients, including lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, bok choy, celery, and sprouts. Bumblebees pollinate the plants, while wasps and ladybugs keep aphids in check without the need for pesticides.
Now that’s some tasty, sustainable, locally-sourced produce.
