BRUNSWICK (NEWS CENTER Maine) -- Fresh produce, on demand and during any season of the year. Sounds like a chef’s dream, but it could soon become a reality thanks to a new rooftop green house in Brunswick.
Chef and restaurant owner, Cara Stadler, is teaming up with her childhood friend to create Canopy Farms. Located behind one of her restaurants, Tau Yuan, it will have an aquarium in the basement, a café and commercial kitchen on the main floor, and a green house on the roof. The science behind its sustainability is called: Aquaponics.
"It’s growing fish and plants on a loop," says Kate Holcomb, director of Canopy Farms. "So the fish waste provides nutrients and then the plants filter the water for the fish so we can use less water because we’re recycling it all the time.”
Pipes will connect the fish tanks in the basement to the plant beds on the roof.
“This will allow us to have produce that is immediately available all year round,” said Stadler.
Aside from leafy greens, they hope to also grow more exotic edibles like lotus root and wasabi.
"No one is growing wasabi on this coast," says Stadler. "And I spend a lot of money on it but it also takes forever to grow and it totally makes sense why it’s such a rare product.”
Construction is underway. They hope to open within the next few months.
“When she opened her own place she said to me ‘do you want to come up to Maine and try and make this happen together?’ So it was kind of a dream come true for me to be able to do that,” says Holcomb.