Paradise Hydroponic Community Garden Up!

By Nick Drozdiak | Washington, DC | May 6, 2019

Neighborhood Associates and the residents of Paradise at Parkside have exciting news to share — the Paradise Hydroponic Community Garden is up and running!

Preparations for our garden launch began a few weeks ago with a community celebration of Earth Day at Paradise. This laid the foundation for our garden and, more importantly, for a new civic group, the Paradise Garden Club. Children made full use of outdoor acrylic paint to decorate our vertical hydroponic towers called "Vertigros."

On May 6, the day of the Garden Launch, resourcefulness shone even brighter. We began by organizing our equipment on the garden lawn, then installed the base for the vertical towers. We got our hands dirty, mixing coconut fiber with rice hull to create the best hydroponic medium for the plants. Together, we planted almost 300 strawberry plants in 100 pots on 20 Vertigros.

We are currently germinating even more plants, including collards, cherry tomatoes, and Swiss chard for the summer season. We also installed a pump and rechargeable battery to automatically circulate nutrients in the growing towers.

The strawberry plants of Paradise are now nestled comfortably in their towers and can bask in the sun and rain for the next few weeks. We’ll be teaching gardening and hydroponics on a bi-weekly basis to green thumb residents young and old.

Thank you for supporting our ongoing efforts to bring healthy eating, green education, and community-led innovation to Paradise at Parkside in 2019...and beyond!

Stay tuned for updates about our garden and the Garden Club over the course of the growing season!