A Match Made in Aquaponics: The Dynamic Duo of Fish and Vegetables at Canopy Farms

Aquaponics

Corinne

This is the Salty Talks Podcast, a show highlighting all things aquaculture in Maine. I'm Corinne Newfie, the aquaculture communication specialist at the Aquaculture Research Institute, and today I'm at Canopy Farms in Brunswick, Maine, to talk about a really cool type of farming called aquaponics and how this fits into aquaculture. I'm joined here today by Jenna Grossbarth and Sam Alznauer, and I'm going to turn it over to both of you to introduce yourselves more and give a little background about yourself.

Jenna

I'm Jenna. I'm the director of Canopy Farms. I started in this position just about a year ago now, and my background is I got my bachelor's in environmental science at the University of Southern Maine, and we had a research class that at the time was dedicated to doing research in our small aquaponics lab. And that was about my only experience doing any kind of agriculture or an experience with aquaponics.

Sam

I'm Sam. I have kind of a funky background. 2s I grew up around here, but I went down to Boston to get my bachelor's in psychology. Then I learned a lot in terms of gardening indoors when I was living in Boston, and I really loved it, and I just couldn't get enough of it. Then the big old pandemic hit and essentially just decided I'm like, you know what? I'm going to do what I love to do. And I went back to school for horticulture. So I'm going there right now at Smcc to get a horticulture degree, and I love it. And then this past fall, I saw a job opportunity here at Canopy Farms that Jenna had posted, and it seemed like the perfect fit because at home, 1s I really enjoy aquascaping as well, and growing various fruits and veggies and succulents in various grow areas at home. So this really kind of fit into everything that I already love and do, and everything just fit in, and so I really loved it.

Jenna

And Sam has a split position in the building, and I'm sure we'll talk about this more later, but we're all working the same building, so it's the farm and the kitchen and the cafe in the fish room all rolled into one. So she spends a little less than half her time working in the greenhouse, and then the rest of the time working out front in the cafe and making coffee and doing that kind of thing, which you also love.

Sam

Yeah, being front of house is awesome. And then just this past weekend, I learned more back of house kind of hot sauce, ensemble making and some really cool fermentation techniques. So really excited about that as well. Just kind of adding new little interests as I go along, but it's fun.

Corinne

What does the word aquaponics mean?

Jenna

Aquaponics is kind of a meshed word for aquaculture and hydroponics. So aquaculture is just the rearing or farming of any aquatic species. So there's aquaculture in finfish, there's aquaculture in shrimp, there's aquaculture in salmon, like lots of fish these days, is raised, not wild caught, but raised in aquaculture. And then hydroponics is the process of growing plants without soil and growing them in water. So hydro water and so aquaponics is the process of using fish to grow plants together in a loop system. So you have the fish waste there in tanks and you have the fish waste which is turned by beneficial bacteria and then that is the nutrients for the plants. Whereas in hydroponics, if it's just water, you have to add the nutrients yourself, whereas in aquaponics it's occurring naturally.

Corinne

So it's kind of like a symbiotic relationship almost with plants and fish because the fish are providing the nutrients for the plants and then the plants are in turn filtering the water.

Jenna

Yes, they filter and clean the water and send it back down to the fish. So it's all recirculating. Got you.

Corinne

ponics was used in China like: 2000

Jenna

Yeah, even before there were pumps and stuff to do it electronically. There is a kind of aquaponics that you can do where you just grow everything together in the same kind of marsh or tank or ecosystem and you don't need to kind of move the water other than what's happening naturally in terms of moving the water. So yeah, they were doing that in salt marshes and all kinds of stuff like that where they were using the naturally occurring fish waste to grow their plants. And it's also really great because with the fish that's like its own little circulating system too. You have everything growing out of that pond, marsh, whatever it is, it's like its own little yeah, everything recirculates.

Corinne

So Canopy Farms is sort of this unique aquaponics set up because it's a greenhouse that's on top of a building and the building is a market and cafe zawza and then the fish are growing in tanks beneath the cafe and then right across the street, crossing the parking lot, is the Tao Yuan restaurant. So how did all of this get started? It's a lot of moving pieces.

Jenna

estaurant Kara opened that in: 2012

Corinne

Can you describe what the Aquaponics set up at Canopy Farms looks like?

Jenna

fish are being raised in two: 2000

Corinne

where's the water coming from

Jenna

So the water in the system is recirculating. So the majority of our water is just moving continuously. And when we do add water to the system, we're connected to the town municipal water. So we use their water and their sewer to get like whenever we have to add water.

Corinne

So what kind of food are you growing there's? The fish, of course. But what sort of vegetables do you have in the greenhouse?

Sam

So there's a whole bunch of different types of veggies. Recently been trying to kind of narrow it down, focus more on certain types of veggies. There are tons of different types of lettuce, strawberries, shishito peppers. We've got some do you still have the California tomatoes that plants out the little golden?

Jenna

We're working on it. We're working on it.

Sam

We got plum. Plum tomatoes. Different types of we've got kale, really lovely kale. Cilantro, parsley, Thai basil. Lemon. Upland crests. We've got Chinese tribes, Chinese broccoli. We also grow microgreens, so that'll vary depending on the week. Usually it can be like broccoli sprouts. Pea shoots. Love pea shoots. Yeah, they're so good. Sunflower sprouts. I mean, there's always something new, something fun. Tons of, like, butterhead, lettuces, various types of spicy lettuces. Bok choy. We've got lovely bach choy, that's for sure. People really like our bach choice. Yeah, they're really lovely. And I think they're really cute and delicious. So, I mean, do with that information as you will. And sorrel and sorrel we've got sorrel and I feel like I'm definitely missing nasturtiums. Well, I love the Nasturtiums. Jenna does not like Nasturtiums. I love nasturtiums. And yeah, rainbow chard. Rainbow. Rainbow chard. Spinach.

Corinne

So many leafy greens.

Same

Yeah.

Corinne

Let me tell you all, for people who are listening last, whenever I was up there, these leafy greens look like something out of a simulation or something. They are so beautiful. It's hard to explain, but yeah, the Bach choy, very beautiful looking. Very cute. Very cute.

Jenna

Yeah. And then it's quite a different I mean, most aquaponics. 1s Operations, especially on the commercial side, will only grow, like, a couple of different kinds of lettuce. So one of our biggest advantages of growing, like, I think we have at least 21 different products upstairs is that we're, a, growing things out of season, and then, b, we also are growing things that are different than kind of what else you'll see in the grocery store that's grown aquaponically or hydroponically. Most of that is just lettuce. So we can offer things like stuff you wouldn't normally see kind of on a commercial aqua ponic scale, like tomatoes or sorrel or crests or just different bachelor, different things that most people aren't growing aquaponically.

Sam

And then also, I think one of the benefits of aquaponics versus hydroponics is that I think it really brings out the flavors of all the vegetables or fruits that you're able to taste, because you're not getting that kind of, like, metallicy kind of chemically feel that you get with certain types of leafy vegetables and hydroponics. Because I know that that flavor. I didn't know that. Yeah, there are certain flavors that can at least I don't know if I would just have my palace, like, a little gross, but I feel like I've noticed 2s a little bit of a difference with certain types of hydroponics. Stuff also can be mitigated by the amount of nutrients you're putting into the water, what you're putting into the water. But it's just, like, it's a different type of system, whereas really, we're really lucky to have everything kind of all the nutrients in one recirculating system, and I think it makes everything just taste a little bit better.

Corinne

Speaking of the nutrients that are in the system, I think that a misconception with aquaponics is that you're using fish poop to fertilize the plants in the greenhouse, and it's like, a little more nuanced than that. Solid waste is being removed, and then the remainder of it is being treated.

Jenna

Yeah. So the kind of, like the broad way to say it is, yeah, we use fish poop to grow plants. That's not 100% true. So kind of the more nuanced description of what is actually happening in terms of how we're using fish poop to grow plants is that I would say 99% of the actual solid waste of the fish poop is we have a couple of different ways that we filter it out of the system. So in our main system, we have a tank that we use, gravity. So it's being pumped into the cone tank, and because it'll settle, the solids will collect on the bottom of the tank, and then the rest of the water will kind of move along the top. And then as it goes through there, it goes through a drum filter, which just has a micron screen on. So it's like 200 microns or something, but also has a UV light to kill pathogens. And then it goes into these big tubs that have pieces of plastic that look like pasta, which isn't pasta. Yeah, it's the bacteria pasta. Bacteria pasta. Can we eat that? I'm like, Please don't. Please don't touch it. Whenever I take a school bar into the basement,

Sam

when you showed me around like, OOH, can I eat this? And you're like, Sam, don't do that. So it's just plastic with a high surface area ratio that has a lot of that's where most of our filtration is happening. That has. All the bacteria living in those buckets, and then it goes back into the fish tanks.

Jenna

So this also is concerned actually mostly the fish pea that we're using. And then most of, like I said, that waste is actually being we take that out of the system, and because we're connected to the sewer, we just use the town sewer to dispose of it. Something that I want to work on the summer, though, is actually using a worm compost. That's very common in smaller electronic setups. You take the solids and you put them in a worm compost, and then the worms just eat it up, and it's pretty cool. There's one at USM right now, so I want to kind of steal their worms and do it here. That's something that's coming up this summer. We're never bored here. That's kind of the process of filtration. And what we're after is ammonia. So the fish waste and the fish poop and the fish pee, that all has ammonia in it. And that ammonia in a form in waste is in large amounts is toxic to the fish. But once it's fixed from ammonia into nitrate, that nitrate is what makes our plants grow so big and what makes all plants growbig.

Corinne

And this is like a process, like this beneficial nitrifying bacteria. That happens in real life, too, like in lakes and oceans?

Jenna

Yeah, it happens in lakes, oceans, in traditional field farming. All roots have that bacteria. You could speak more about this, too, but all roots have that beneficial bacteria living on them. It's what's making the nutrients in the soil or wherever you happen to be growing a plant available for the plant.

Corinne

How do people respond when you're, like, see this lettuce? It was grown with fish poop. Yeah, I guess. Fish pee.

Jenna

The biggest problem I have with so this is the first year we've sold at a farmers market. We're in the Portland Farmers Market, and this summer we're actually going to be moving to the freeport farmers market. The biggest problem I've had with perception so far is actually not our plants. People love the plants. They're like, oh, this is so cool. Like, I would say a lot of people are familiar with kind of the process of growing hydroponically, or finally, whether I've seen in the grocery store, mostly hydroponically. It's actually with the fish people, at least the consumers that we've kind of interacted with have a lot of misconceptions about seafood in general, and then also especially freshwater fish. We had a hard time finding a market of her tilapia, which we used to grow here, which is why we don't grow them anymore. It kind of doesn't matter. Even if you tell someone like, no, we grow them here, it's 100% safe. They're fresh, no problem with our fish. They still don't really want to eat it. So I think it's more of like kind of a seafood perception in general.

Corinne

Yeah, that's not surprising to hear that. Do you have that problem with trout?

Jenna

Not as much, but still definitely with the fresh water, because trout is still a freshwater and people ask me, they're like, did you go out and catch that? I was like, no, we raised them. I didn't go fishing yesterday to get and just happened to catch I mean, in a way, you got to net out and trout over a pound.

Sam

They're big.

Jenna

They're huge. They're honkers. Yeah. So because it is a freshwater fish, I find that a little bit more, but a little less definitely with the trout. So they're like, oh, I love trout. And others are like, Where did you catch that? So it's just a matter of kind of educating them and explaining, like, no, we just harvested them yesterday. They're super safe flick, that kind of thing.

Corinne

So the trough that you're growing, where are you getting the larvae from, actually? What stage are you getting the trout in?

Jenna

We get them in the fingerling stage so you can really get them at any from my limited experience in fish dealing and buying is that the place we get them from is called Shy Beaver Trout and we're actually hosting them as one of the featured producers for our science cafe. I'm sure we're going to talk about that coming up. It's cool because it's kind of both of our products. Like it's his fingerlings, but we're the one raising the fish. So we get them in the fingerling stage. The idea would be to get them about two or three inches because that they're a little cheaper. Then this past year went to get them at five, six, just because of timing issues. But you can get them at any stage. Obviously the smaller they are, the cheaper they're going to be, but then the more risk you take in them dying off. So we get them when they're about two to three inches long in the fingerling or juvenile stage, and then from there we can in about a year, theoretically grow them out to be market size, which is between 8oz and a pound. So for a whole trout.

Corinne

I love whole trout. You do? On the grill? Yeah. Great. So good. Me too. It's the best. My dad is Palestinian, and that's like eating whole fish. It's just like something that you

Jenna

grilled trout is fairly common here. Like I've heard people don't wrinkle up their nose when they hear that, but we've had trouble selling whole fish as well. That's also kind of a perception thing. It's like people want it in America, at least, or here. They want it fillets, they want it vacuum sealed. And we just don't have the capability to sell our fish like that because filleting is extremely time consuming. Whereas it's just better to sell it whole too, because then you can use the bones and the crispy skin in a traditional way, that kind of thing.

Corinne

Yeah. My dad always says the fins are the best part. They're like potato chips but better, which I definitely will agree with that. Okay. So we know where the plants are getting their nutrients from, but what are the fish eating?

Jenna

So we get a commercial fish feed from a company called Bio Oregon. They're an international company and they actually just happen to have their East Coast stores in Westbrook, which is like really lucky for us because otherwise we'd have to pay like shipping fees. And these are like 50 pound bags, so it would be a hassle. So we just pop in the car and drive to Westbrook and I just pick up some bags. So we use a commercial fish feed for trout, usually between four and 6 mm. They're little like pellets and they don't float. But this past year we got a grant from Northeast Sarah to try to experiment to make our own fish feed using byproduct waste. There were a gazillion ingredients in the fish feed, but some of the more experimental ones were using black soldier fly larvae, like dry soldier fly larvae, kelp, and brewers waste.

Corinne

Oh, cool.

Jenna

Yeah, it almost looked like the sawdusty thing, where it's the wheat byproduct from brewing beer and then also some high proof alcohol waste from, like, vodka, I think. Distilling. So those were the three main ingredients that provided the protein, because if you think of something, we're raising trout versus, like, tilapia trout, or they have a higher any kind of salmon will have oil, have a higher protein requirement. So the food itself has to be high protein. Tents. So we ran that experiment. We're actually just finishing up right now. We had a couple different tanks with a couple different percentages, and I believe the 20 to 25% to 50% soldier fly larvae was the most successful in terms of, like, fish survival. So I think Theo, who was running that experiment over at the USM lab, was going to make me a bag to try to feed the fish. We were kind of hoping for a second phase grant to kind of, like, narrow it down because we had some problems just in the beginning of getting the fish and raising them and just making sure they stay alive. So that kind of put a delay in things. So I wouldn't say that we've cracked the code on where to source fish food sustainably, but it was kind of cool to run that experiment and see that it is possible to do this with a trout or a salmon, which is more popular than a tilapia.

Sam

Yeah. Especially since I think Maine, especially southern Maine, has so many distilleries and breweries that there's so much waste that, I mean, from every kind of industry, there's always going be to some kind of byproduct. But that's awesome that that could kind of be recirculated back into something that is beneficial for fish.

Jenna

Yeah. I didn't have time to do a cost analysis because it was like a high initial cost to get all the tiny little ingredients that you need. That's not because fish food that you guys just ground up other fish. So it's just other fish that have been ground up and shoved into a pellet. So obviously that's not really the most sustainable thing to do. So we were trying to experiment with that and see if we could be also kind of a different market as well. So people were interested in more organic and sustainable fish food for their aquaculture operations. That could also be another revenue chain coming out of canopy farms. It's all in the works like that. It might be something we kind of revisit in a little bit, but I was excited by the results. We definitely saw off some difference in what we've tested.

Corinne

That is exciting. Yeah. Not that I'm like. An apocalypse person. But in regards I love the bus, but you never know. I don't want to jinx myself in regards to food. This seems to be the way to go. This is kind of moving the needle in the right direction. Right? Like it's environmentally conscious. Environmentally conscious way of producing food and not creating waste that we have been creating for centuries. And it's really cool combining modern technology with one of the oldest practice those. Do you think that aquaponics is scalable for a system like this?

Jenna

Yes. You can only see the love. Sam, I think you should talk about the benefits of aquaponics and maybe specifically in our system, and I'll talk about the negatives or like kind of the drawbacks of using this enough.

Corinne

That's great. I have a question about that.

Jenna

Okay, great. Yeah, I will talk about the benefits. And also I think it's scalable depending on what you want at home. Like, I have a few different fish tanks that I'm growing. Aquaponic, like a peppers and nasturtiums and spinach in there. The spinach is a really good little teller of the nutrients in the water. So the leaves will either, oh, my gosh. Or the veins will be darker. And it tells you everything you need to know about basically the nutrients. It's so sensitive. It's so sensitive. And so that's like my little my marker plant, but then I'm growing like, other plants and other types of fruits out of my fish tank. So you can do it at home if you have the right set up and the time, because it is time, you have to clean the fish tank. There's a lot that goes into it, but there's a lot of benefits. I think that this is scalable depending on where you're at. You can do this in urban areas and rural areas. As much of a benefit it is. There is the one issue of droughts that Maine really has been dealing with recently. So if you want to do this in the wild, in a local pond, in some kind of natural ecosystem, there could be some sort of detriment when it comes to the more drier times of the year. But yeah, I never think about aquaponics as something done outside farm wild.

Jenna

e and I think it's up to like: 2020

Corinne

So you guys do these science cafes also. Last summer, you had a student working with you through the aquaculture research institute's externship. Kind of want to talk a bit about both of those things. I guess let's start with the extern that you had.

Jenna

Yeah, we actually have a couple of different intern extern opportunities, so it's taken a while to get kind of connected with that. But during the school year, so from september to may, we host a USM intern, and they're here like 15, 20 hours a week throughout the school year through their employment opportunity office. So we usually host a student. We've had our second one. This is our second year hosting, and we already have we're starting to get people lined up for the third one. We're going to be starting the interview process for that. And then during the summer, we have the aquaculture research extern, who, again, this is our second year hosting that. So we actually just finished the interviews for the extern, so I'll be hearing back soon as to who we have this summer. They send really great people. I mean, all the people that I interviewed this summer has been, like, they're, like, really overachievers. So I'm like, wow, this is kind of intense. So it's really cool that we get to host someone for kind of like it's not an externship. Like they're going and they're staying here for the summer, not local to their area and doing intern duties, but not local to their school or kind of thing. So that's cool.

Corinne

What kind of work are they doing?

Jenna

All the part time people and the interns kind of have the same job description where I'm usually stuck in the office all day. And so they're the ones kind of doing the daily maintenance. They're harvesting, they're washing, they're packing the produce. They're doing aphid control and all of our pests.

Sam

Aphids, thrips, spider mites.

Jenna

Yeah, those are our big ones. So they're doing a lot of controls on that. They do the water quality, most of the water quality testing and adding the fertilizers to the water, pruning, trimming the plants. What else do you do?

Sam

Yeah, that's a lot of it. Yeah. Harvesting the fish. Yeah, I always forget about that. Harvesting the fish. And that's just during the winter, too.

Jenna

Oh, no, we'll be doing it during the summer.

Sam

Okay. Not just winter scratch. You pretty much covered a lot of it. We also stock the front cafe, make sure that the fridge for people who stop in, have a few lettuce. Few lettuce options, some microgreens.

Jenna

They also run the CSA. They help run the CSA, too. So we'll pack that for the members of our CSA every week. So we harvest and pack for that as well. 1s Yeah. And then many cleanings that we have. So trays, pots, cone tanks, transplanting. Yeah, transplanting and seeding the produce, too. So kind of everything you really do everything.

Corinne

Yeah. That sounds great. It seems like they're getting exposure to a whole wide range of skill sets. Not like super narrow,

Jenna

just oh, no, it's different every day. I mean, I know you do the Fridays kind of look the same on the weekly, but if someone was here multiple days, it's different every day of the week.

Sam

Yeah. Different days for packaging, harvesting.

Jenna

Yeah, growing. All the interns or externs who come by also do a research project, which is great because we're like building the research base of Canopy Farms, so I don't have the time to do all the research. We had our first intern do an Ipm plan to kind of like work to control the Aphids Pest Management. Yeah. The hunter our intern now is working on, 1s he doesn't have a science background.

Sam

He's a business student.

Jenna

Yeah. Did you know that?

Sam

I didn't understand.

Jenna

Yeah, he's a business student. So he's working on a sales analysis and kind of kind of getting the feel for going back to the perception thing. It was like, I want to know people's perception about aquaponics organically grown produce and how much they're willing to pay more for that, especially when it's grown locally. So he's been doing an analysis of that. He's been talking to other farms. He's talking to produce managers of Hanniford. And what do you want to stock in your case, would you carry something like aquaponically grown produce if it was available to you? That kind of thing. So he's working on that. And then I'm going to have the extern this summer work on kind of compiling all of the problems that can be associated with growing aquaponically. So we've had some scares with, like, fish disease, even though it's really hard to get a fish disease and end up recirculating aquaponic system because, again, I don't really have the time to do hours and hours of research being like, what's wrong with fish or what's wrong with the plants? So they're kind of going to be compiling like a one stop shop to. Be like, okay, why is the spinach turning yellow? It's because they're not getting enough iron, like that kind of thing.

Corinne

That's awesome.

Jenna

Yeah, there's a lot of conflicting research if you just Google stuff online, so I really want it to be centralized.

Corinne

Yeah, sounds like they're helping develop canopy farms.

Jenna

Yeah, for sure.

Corinne

And then these science cafes, they started up in February, is that right?

Jenna

No. So this is actually the second year we're running the Science Cafe. So it was kind of the brainchild of Kate, the last director. They got a grant to run this during like smack dab in the middle of COVID Yeah, it was great. And they actually got really good attendance for it, being in the middle of COVID So they got this grant to kind of raise aquaculture and seafood awareness in this area. They ran seven science cafes, all with varying amounts that they did, like clams, oysters, scallops, kelp, finfish. Like they did every kind of thing you can grow, like in Aquaculture. And then we'd also pair that with a cooking class. And then this year we're doing five. So we bring in a local Aquaculture producer or farmer, and we kind of have like an open to the public talk where they just come in and present about their operation and what they do and how they got into it. And then the audience has a time to ask questions. And we'll also eat snacks made by the shadows. Here it's out. Oh, that's really cool. With their product. And then the next night, we run a cooking class with Kara, our head chef, and we cook with the product that was featured. So this one coming up. I was really excited to introduce some traditional field farms into this. So Six River Farm is in Bodenham, so we're going to be using some of their products and they're coming to speak. And also Shy Beaver Trout, which is in Hollis Who, where we get our trout from. So we'll be featuring our trout, which is also their trout, as one of the products. So I'm super excited. I think it's going to be great. So we do a cooking class and people sign up for that. And we also have free spots for teachers to participate as well.

Corinne

That's so fun. So people who are listening and want to sign up, how do they do that?

Jenna

The Science Cafe is free. Like I said, it's free and open to the public. So you can just come they're always at 430. So really you just got to check our website because I don't know the exact dates off the top of my head, but they're usually like the last Sunday of every month. You just come at 430, you show up interested, ask questions, talk to the producers, eat some snacks, and then to sign up for the cooking class, you just need to email me at jen@canopyfarms.org.

Corinne

That's awesome.

Sam

Yeah, you get to learn. You get snacks, you get a whole bunch of a whole trunk full of new brainworms to think about. So, I mean, I don't think you can think you can go wrong with that. And next day cooking class, I don't know how to cook most things, so we can all benefit from a little something something.

Corinne

I should sign up.

Jenna

You should. Come on back. We'll give you the friends and family discount.

Corinne

Okay.

Jenna

Yeah. This is also run by mainstream grant too. The last grant was run through NOAA, through their occupation, education, and then we saw this proposal to again, people want to and I'm sure through Ari too, is, like, one of your I mean, your job is basically education 2s and public outreach. So it's like there's clearly a need and a want to further people's interest in education, in sustainable seafood. 2s We basically kind of took this model and put it in for this kind of push of grants to be like, hey, we've done this before. It's been really successful. We want to continue this program because we've gotten a lot of really good feedback. People love doing the cooking class. They say it's so fun, and we make them a lot of food. So,

Corinne

yeah, that does sound really fun. I want to hear from both of you what your favorite part of working at Canopy Farms is.

Jenna

Let's think about that for a second. I feel like I have a few favorites. It's hard to nail down. It's like asking me what my favorite plant is, and it's like, I don't know. 1s Your favorite plants? Again, I don't know.

Sam

Well, actually okay, so one of my favorite plants is the red veined enchantis. It is an all season interest plant. It's absolutelybeautiful. Little pink striped bells in the spring, and then the really nice little leaves that turned this bright orangey red in the fall. Beautiful chef's kiss. So that's my favorite plant, I guess, comma others. But the greenhouse, 1s I just love seeing growth. I think that's one of the most exciting things is that you can see in a lot of different aquaculture farming is just from the beginning to the end of production to harvest. It's just so rewarding to be able to see these things mature in terms of the plants and the fish. And you develop a little connection and a little like a love for the tomato plant. So when it gets aphids or when it gets thrips, you're like, oh, I got to fix this, my child. You must survive. Yeah, it's really rewarding. And so that's one of my favorite parts. And then also, I think, because I have a few different jobs here at the the cafe and greenhouse, I really love learning new things out front and in back in the kitchen in terms of I mean, I just learned how to ferment some ball. Right? And I really love that. And I'm really excited to learn more about Jamming preserving pickling with traditional techniques. Eastern Asian techniques that Kara and the chefs are going to teach me. I know. She's such a wealth of knowledge, so much always preserving and fermenting peppers into sambal. Right? And my lips are still burning from that, which is fine. Makes me feel alive. So it's another day, another dollar. I love that. And so that's where I'm going to wrap things up on my favorite things.

Jenna

My favorite plant is a clicking aspen tree. I did not come from like a house plant field. Clicking aspen tree? Yeah.

Corinne

You spent time in Colorado?

Jenna

I did, actually. I used to work there

Corinne

but I grew up there.

Jenna

Oh, really? Yeah. I don't know flowers. I actually really suck at growing flowers. This is sorry. This is my dirty little secret. I actually cannot keep a house fun alive for the life of me. I know Sam laughed at that because I run this greenhouse and the life of me cannot keep one plant alive. But if it's in the system if it's in the system, it's all alive. Yeah, if it's in the system, I always say. I was like, I almost killed some of our decorative trees up in the greenhouse that aren't so they're just in soil. And thankfully, Sam's around to help with that. But I'm like, if it's in the system, it's fine, but if it's outside, I cannot guarantee anything is going to survive. But then I come in, I'm like, yeah, we balance each other out. My favorite part about wheeze of grass is probably, I think, in any job I've ever worked at, is working with the people and getting to do outreach and education for this greenhouse because it can't just be about the money for me. If that's the case, your soul is going to get sucked out of you. I love that 1s someone way higher up in me in a grant organization thinks that we're worth giving money to so that we can do something with our very unique space. It's kind of sometimes stressful at plan these science cafes. I've loved hosting the science cafes and the cooking classes. I also love doing the school tours, which is I forgot to mention as part of the grant as well, is that we have the time now to bring in and push teachers to be able to bring their kids into our space and kind of see what they're doing in the classroom on a commercial level. And another big push from the education titan is career development. So we're seeing a lot of younger people exit kind of the seafood industry or just seafood, anything kind of related to coastal ecosystem. So a big push that is we want to get young people interested in working on the coast and working in kind of aquaculture research, agriculture, whatever. So that's something I also find personally rewarding, along with growing food for people, which just inherently is rewarding, is that we get to host kids and interns and kind of develop careers because you never know when someone's in school what is going to move them to kind of pick where they want to end up in their career.

Corinne

Yeah. Thank you both for taking the time to be on this podcast. Listeners, if you are in Brunswick or passing through Brunswick, you should absolutely stop by here. It's a really incredible space.