It's early March, and John Casto is growing lettuce in Charleston. Lettuce that's never seen an ounce of dirt. Lettuce that's never seen a single drop of pesticides. Lettuce that only sees sunshine that seeps through the windows of a second-floor room above The Art Store on Hale Street.
Lettuce that is fun, Casto said.
For the last year, Casto and Chance Woodrum have been dabbling in the hydroponic lettuce business.
"I was looking for something fun to do. I like the restaurant type of business. But the last thing in the world I wanted to do was own a restaurant," said Casto, whose wife owns The Art Store downstairs. "This way I'm supplying some of the restaurants and hope to expand that. Providing them with something that's kind of cool."
Casto's business, Urban Greens, was born out of his desire to try something new and challenging that sparked his interest.
Casto was introduced to Woodrum, who graduated from West Virginia University's horticulture program in 2015, by former Gazette-Mail Garden Guru columnist John Porter, and the two got to work.
What was once an empty room above the store on Hale Street has been transformed into a hydroponic growing operation.
Five metal units filled with greenery line the room. Casto and Woodrum can grow up to 1,800 heads of lettuce at a time.
Hydroponics is a method used to grow plants in a water-based, nutrient-rich solution.
"You're really just putting in things that you find in the soil. It basically is organic," Woodrum said. "It's a new thing in horticulture. This is one of the bigger things happening in horticulture right now."
Woodrum, a Charleston native, mixes and monitors the water and solution each day. Working with hydroponics requires careful attention to water levels and hydrogen concentration, which are constantly changing.
The solution is made of two mixtures, Woodrum said.
The first mixture - mixture A - is a water-soluble fertilizer made of a nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium ratio and Epsom salt.
Mixture B is made of calcium nitrate and a little bit of potassium nitrate, Woodrum said.
To grow plants hydroponically, he puts equal parts of each mixture into the water to be cycled through tubes where the plants are.
Each plant is grown in long, metal trays on each unit in a piece of rockwool, a fiberglass-like material that holds each plant in the trays.
The nutrients are poured into a container full of water at the bottom of each unit. The water and nutrients run through a tube up into long trays that hold the lettuce plants before eventually cycling back down into the container.
"It works kind of like a rock fountain," Casto said. "It's never seen a pesticide or any outside air. It's never seen dirt. You pretty much can just pull it out and eat it. Virtually no bugs."
The growing process for each head of lettuce takes approximately eight weeks.
The plants sit under either an LED or florescent grow light for 12 hours a day while the water cycles through.
Hydroponic plants are not technically organic, Casto said - but they're close.
They are what he calls "non-certified organic," meaning they are organic in everything but title.
It's been a learning process. One filled with spills, leaks and trying to figure out what in the heck they're doing. But most importantly, the two said it's been fun and rewarding.
Casto attended a seminar and has leaned on the advice of a friend, but the rest has been trial and error.
Out of caution, because of The Art Store being located downstairs, Casto has to put down a special type of flooring to prevent leaks from seeping through to the store.
The two are growing five types of lettuce currently, and are experimenting with other plants and what are known as microgreens.
Urban Greens is growing two kinds of romaine lettuce and three kinds of salanova lettuce.
It has also experimented with basil, parsley, kale, iceberg lettuce and arugula.
The microgreens are grown in a separate unit in the corner of the room.
The greens, which are used as flavorful garnishes on top of steaks, seafood and other dishes, take just two weeks to grow.
Casto and Woodrum are growing lettuce microgreens, as well as mild and spicy greens.
"You sprinkle it on top of dishes and stuff," Woodrum said. "It's really showy. They have a lot of flavor."
Casto and Woodrum's lettuce is currently being used or has been used in dishes at Noah's Eclcetic Bistro, Celsius, Bluegrass Kitchen and South Hills Market and Cafe.
The lettuce is also available for purchase at The Purple Onion, inside the Capitol Market.
"When you try this versus the mixed greens that are available at the supermarket, it's like tender versus cardboard," Casto said. "I'm not bragging, it's just noticeably different."
The two spend every day in the hydroponic garden to monitor the pH and water, make sure the infrastructure is working properly, make deliveries to restaurants and prune the plants.
Woodrum sums up what he loves about the process in one word.
"The simplicity," Woodrum said. "The fact that you can produce this much in this kind of space without essentially having to break your back."
Casto and Woodrum individually package each head of lettuce to be sold at The Purple Onion or personally delivered to each restaurant.
In the future, he hopes to carefully expand to serve more restaurants, an industry he's passionate about in Charleston and to which he hopes to contribute.
And while he's not spending his days digging in the dirt, Casto said he's still getting to garden - something he has enjoyed doing for years.
"It's a coming thing," he said. "I'm sitting around watching the lettuce grow. I gave up grass when I moved downtown. I was a gardener, now I'm still a gardener."
For more information about Urban Greens, visit urbangreenswv.com or email Casto at urbangreenswv@gmail.com.
Reach Carlee Lammers at
carlee.lammers@wvgazettemail.com,
304-348-1230 or follow
@CarleeLammers on Twitter.