Inflation has been at the front of everyone’s mind lately, fuel, clothes, food, basically all essentials are much more expensive than they were even a couple of years ago. Pioneer Steel can help take the edge off your grocery bill with a custom hot house! The clear span, trussless design of our structures make them perfect for hydroponic systems and grow lights for our dark winters. Ventilation, insulation, and heating can be installed very easily as well. Best of all, with a Pioneer Steel structure, you have the security benefits of steel, which will keep pests out of your indoor garden.
Indoor growing can take on several forms:
· Greenhouses – These require a lot of natural light, which can be difficult to achieve with a steel building, but not impossible. The term “greenhouse” can be used to refer to any building whose only purpose is plant production.
· Hydroponics – This system works by circulating water and nutrients around the roots of plants affixed in some sort of growing medium.
· Aquaponics – For all you homesteaders out there, this might interest you. An aquaponic system employs fish to fertilize the plants that you are growing by pumping aquarium or fishpond water through a hydroponic system, which could produce 2 sources of food at once.
· Hydroculture – Using Lightweight Expanded Clay Aggregates (LECAs) instead of soil to grow your food, which uses a third of the water of traditional plant care and the soil doesn’t go fallow.
There are many more options for growing your own food inside a Pioneer Steel building, but these are the most common ones.
Greenhouses require a lot of light, this can be achieved with either an abundance of skylights or using grow lights which are readily available through online retailers, hydroponics stores, or even national hardware chains. Greenhouses also require a lot of warmth and moisture, so you should plan the location of your greenhouse accordingly, as well as the ventilation and heating system.
Hydroponics can take up quite a lot of space, but the system can be made to take advantage of the vertical space a Pioneer Steel building offers, as the water and nutrient mixture is pumped through pipes. You will need to factor space for your water pump as well, depending on the amount of food you grow, you may need a large one.
Aquaponics requires a lot of space, you will need a rearing tank or pond, a settling basin to catch uneaten food and biofilms, a biofilter (the place where the bacteria convert ammonia into nitrates to fertilize your plants,) a hydroponic subsystem, and a sump that collects the plant cleaned water to be pumped into the rearing tank. Although it is a lot of space and work, aquaponics can be a rewarding way to farm as you can produce a self-sufficient total diet with vegetables and fish, shrimp, or any other aquatic animal that you can think of.
A hydroculture system can be as simple as shelves of plants grown in LECAs, or large-scale growing operations with lighting and irrigation systems. Because hydroculture is so lightweight and scalable, it has been a common growing practice for decades in Western Europe. You can set up a hydroculture garden in as little as 10sq ft, however the pots are generally deep to keep the roots out of water.
Once you know the type of growing system you would like to set up, it’s time to plan the structure. One of our dealers would be happy to help you figure out the size of Pioneer Steel Building that will best suit your needs and budget; fill out our contact form to get in touch with us today. So, if you’re ready to cut your grocery bill, or even earn a little extra cash at the farmers market, Pioneer Steel has got you covered!
