Gandhi Mahal takes another (vertical) step toward greening

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Already working with aquaponics in the basement, focus turns to vertical gardens and vertical water flow

By JAN WILLMS

No risk, no gain.

That is a simple mantra that Gandhi Mahal owner Ruhel Islam lives by. He has been raising plants in aquaponics gardens in the basement at his restaurant at 3009 27th Ave. S. in Minneapolis for the past few years.

Aquaponics is a food production system that combines conventional aquaculture (raising aquatic animals such as fish in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment.

Now he is experimenting with vertical gardens.

Kedrik Lund jokingly calls himself the troll in the basement. Islam calls him MacGyver, based on the TV character who could solve complex problems by making things out of ordinary objects. In fact, he is the sustainability coordinator for the restaurant, who is joining Islam in finding out what works and what doesn’t.

After raising tilapia and growing various plants that produce vegetables and spices that are difficult to find in the market, Islam and Lund are now working on vertical gardening.

Gandhi Mahal Vertical 1The vertical garden is growing in a tower in the window of a meeting room on the main floor of the restaurant.

Photo left: Ruhel Islam stands by the tower that has 36 plants growing vertically in one square foot of space. (Photo by Jan Willms)

“The vertical garden was started in October,” Lund said. “The tower was built by a friend of mine who grew up as an organic farmer and is now living in Lakeville, where he has a microgreens business. He provides microgreens for restaurants.”

Lund explained that his friend has a lot of knowledge about hydroponics and built a very simple hydroponics tower for Gandhi Mahal. “The tower allows us to use space, so we can fit 36 plants in one square foot of space,” Lund added.

He said that getting around the heating and lighting challenges of winter, they have the potential for growing even more plants in a square foot of space.

Lund said the restaurant is trying to practice vertical gardening in all sorts of ways. In the basement, a curry tree is growing, one of a handful being raised from seed.

“This curry tree has a little bit of Malabar spinach climbing on it, not choking the tree but utilizing layers in the system,” Lund explained. The Malabar spinach also is growing on a piece of wiring coming down from a lighting fixture in the basement.

“We are trying to use the vertical space in here to bring people’s attention to the fact that we have all this space. Even though we think of gardening as usually on a flat surface, it really is kind of a three-dimensional thing,” Lund continued. “We have an environment where plants are interacting with each other and benefiting from each other.”

Lund explained that in vertical gardens, some things grow better than others. “Every space, every garden and every environment is different, and the plants are adapted,” he noted.

Gandhi Mahal Vertical 2Photo right: Ruhel Islam (left) and Kedrik Lund examine a curry tree and lemon tree growing in the basement of Gandhi Mahal. (Photo by Jan Willms)

“We’re doing a lot of trial and error,” Lund said. He said that with the aquaponics gardens, he started with 18 different spinach varieties to arrive at the two or three varieties growing now. Besides the Malabar, they are raising Longevity spinach, a plant you are unlikely to find in the supermarket. They are available online from a grower in Ohio.

The plant is considered very advantageous for medicinal purposes, with five leaves ingested a day leading to a lowering of blood sugar.

“We’re taking the same approach in the vertical gardens upstairs,” Lund said. “I have six species of plants up there just to see what responds best. It’s a little bit colder up in that window, and not everything is going to like the cold. The water temperatures are a little lower, so the plants are not quite as big as if I were heating it.” He said he will start with one set of plants, see what comes through the best and move forward.

“If you don’t try, you don’t know,” Islam added. “If you fail, that’s no problem; we learn from it. ‘We have to do it. You can be just talking and talking, or you try to do it.”

Gandhi Mahal Vertical 3Photo left: One of the plants being grown in the basement of Gandhi Mahal features seeds that, when broken, produce an ink that contains no chemicals. (Photo by Jan Willms)

“Every day is the beginning of a new day,” Islam continued. “You start small and grow big. We are working on expanding, planning and designing how to build more tanks to connect with the tower. We can send the water cycle here to our vertical gardens and make it all connected, helping each other, on the roof or the vertical gardens.”

At this point, the roof has been minimally used with some potted plants in the summer for gardening. Honeybees have also been raised on the roof, but the bees are dormant now.

“It’s hard in these old buildings, in cities where the roofs have not been built with this idea in mind,” Lund said.

“The central concept here is to use the idea of aquaponics, which is water pumping through. We can do it to any height if we have a strong enough pump,” Lund stated. “So we are talking about the rooftop as a usable space for a greenhouse. We can pump the water straight up, and it will feed back down through the systems we are trying to build into the restaurant. Basically, we are taking the small concept of the aquaponics system in the basement and saying this whole space can become a vertical garden, where we are using all the space with maximum efficiency.”

At this point, Lund said the food being grown through aquaponics and the vertical gardens barely scratches the surface of all the food supplies needed in the restaurant.

But more expensive spices, foods difficult to find in the winter and plants that can be used in teas are found in the gardens.

Lund, who has a background in food service, has also been a passionate organic gardener most of his life. He and Islam are both learning more about aquaponics as well.

“Hopefully, we can twist the arm of my friend, Matt, who built the vertical tower, to come in and do workshops showing people how to build the towers and how to do vertical planting in general,” Lund said. “I would also like to work with some folks on aquaponics, plant propagation and the pluses and minuses of growing plants outdoors or indoors.

Lund said they are having conversations with folks with different expertise, such as engineers, architects and green roof experts to see what the best step forward would be.

“We are all about action, taking these ideas and turning them into inspirational action, empowering the community,” he said. “We just want to use those rooms and basements previously thought of as wasted areas. Nature does not see anything as wasted.”

“In my culture,” Islam said, “we are used to growing up with our own food. We may have to invest money early on, but it is a good investment. We are taking risks, but no risk, no gain.”

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