The Food Garage Project
The Food Garage is a demonstration / prototype to turn everyday detached garages from simple storage units (aka 'car-holes') into carbon-positive food growing and renewable energy-generating systems using urban permaculture design. The basic concept is to partner a garage with an attached greenhouse and renewable energy to create sustainable 4-season growing systems with minimal fossil fuel input that serves both practical and recreational purposes. Owners of a Food Garage can then customize how they want the system to function and what and how they want to grow. Our goal is to show that a family of four can provide all of their food needs for one year in perpetuity using this system - anywhere in the world! Surrounded by an urban perennial food forest, this project prototype takes a 22'x24' two-car garage and couples it with a 26ft off-grid 4-season geodesic dome greenhouse. The greenhouse will be accessed through the heated garage which will host: - a 6000L aquaponic system to raise tilapia and red claw crayfish, - a rainwater catchment system to fill the fish tanks and water the greenhouse, - a 7'x9'-32-tray aeroponic system for growing microgreens and wheat grass, - an 8'x8' walk-in cold storage, - a solar PV array on the south-facing exterior wall, - and in the greenhouse a climate battery and wood-fired hot tub! There will even be enough room in the garage for a small workshop and/or one parking space! NOTE: the Food Garage project is the flagship initiative to help establish an Urban Permaculture Research Institute called, "The Centre for Urban Agriculture in Alberta".