Van Wingerden greenhouse: how cow manure helps grow 50,000 hanging baskets
This innovative greenhouse located in Blaine, Washington (near a number of dairy farms in the far northwest corner of Washington state and Whatcom County) uses output from a dairy methane digester to heat the greenhouse and grow lots of beautiful plants.Here’s what the Van Wingerden message said:
Keeping Greenhouses Warm
Of course, plants need heat to grow. To ensure growth year-round, Van Wingerden teamed up with a local manure digester to utilize the heat the power plant creates.
“We pump the heat through our water lines,” Tom said. “It’s a wonderfully sustainable solution.”
Other cool technologies the Van Wingerden Greenhouses have implemented include the hanging basket carrousel that takes the hanging baskets you find at Coastal along a conveyer that takes plants along a path of watering, fertilization, and shipping. In addition, an automatic transplanter takes seedlings out of large trays and packs them into individual pots in mere seconds.