If you remember back to your nursery school days, Mary’s garden grows with silver bells, cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row. Certainly children’s imaginations grow with this Mother Goose rhyme, but it seems unlikely that any plants do. Even those without a green thumb know that successful gardens need good soil, a solid strategy for keeping the weeds at bay and the right balance of rain and sun.
But if you asked Jasen Fontaine, executive chef at Stacy’s Grille at the Minneapolis Marriott Southwest, how his garden grows, you would get an equally contrary answer: with coconut and clay pellets, bright, blue-tinted lamps and white plastic pipes all in a row. Like Mary’s garden, Fontaine’s lacks the traditional elements. But unlike Mary’s garden, Fontaine’s garden grows—with great speed and consistency—enough lettuce to supply a busy hotel restaurant with fresh salads year-round.
Fontaine is a Twin Cities pioneer in hydroponic gardening—that is, gardening in water filled with plant-based nutrients. Peter Moe, director of operations and research at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, says that hydroponic gardening was first used in Minnesota in the 1970s in conjunction with the start of the environmental movement, but Fontaine believes that he is one of the first—if not the first—to implement this type of garden in a metro-area restaurant.
The benefits of such a garden are impressive. “Plants receive optimal light, temperature, water and fertilizer in a hydroponic system,” says Moe.
“It’s a naturally organic garden,” says Laura Garcia, the general manager of the Minneapolis Marriott Southwest. She laughs, knowing that her description of the garden sounds redundant. “There’s zero soil and no bugs. It doesn’t have the same environment stresses.”
In other words, hydroponic gardens have no need for pesticides, which keeps the produce natural, and no fear of severe outside conditions, which keeps the harvests bountiful. The Marriott Southwest kitchen staff finds itself consistently harvesting different types of lettuce and basil, along with cilantro, parsley and peppers, all grown in this “super-controlled” garden on-site.
“It lets us be more creative,” says Fontaine. Because his staff is not dependent on local or national harvests, they are able to plan certain dishes with confidence. Price, weather and market competition no longer factor in to menu planning; and because the garden is located a few hundred feet away from the kitchen, within a matter of minutes of ordering, a guest could have a freshly picked lettuce salad—even in the middle of December.
Fontaine didn’t set out with the goal of building a hydroponic garden, although he did intend to grow some vegetables on the Marriott Southwest property. In the spring of 2012, Fontaine acquired a greenhouse and several dozen tomato plants. He knew the greenhouse would allow him to successfully grow these tomatoes, as well as zucchini and broccolini, during the summer months, but he was interested in pursuing something that would allow a year-round growing season in Minnesota.
An unused steam room, tucked around the corner from the Marriott’s pool and workout area, piqued Fontaine’s interest. By its very nature, a steam room has access to water and temperature control, two important factors in any indoor garden. Fontaine approached Garcia about turning the steam room into a hydroponic garden, and Garcia agreed to give it a try.
Fontaine spent a month researching hydroponic gardens online and talking to the staff at Midwest Supply in St. Louis Park, where he ultimately purchased the garden’s equipment. He and others on the Marriott staff built all of the garden’s infrastructure, which includes half a dozen rows of white plastic pipes mounted on one wall and on the former seating area of the steam room. Plants in various stages of growth poke out from evenly spaced openings in the tops of pipes. A tank of water covers about half the floor space in the steam room, and pipes rise out of it to connect the tank to the white plastic pipes. The sign on the door of the steam room-turned-garden announces its presence to guests, but even so, it’s surprising to see so much greenery inside the beige-tiled room with no access to natural light.
In May 2012, after two months of planning and building, Fontaine and his staff planted their first seeds in their hydroponic garden. They were pleased—and a bit surprised—to discover that their vegetables grew even more quickly than anticipated in this ideal environment. Fontaine estimates that it takes five weeks for his hydroponic lettuce to go from a seed to a serving at dinner, which is almost half as fast as it might take lettuce to grow in a traditional garden. The immediate success of his first batch of lettuce proved to Fontaine that his thorough research and attention to detail during the building process had paid off. Since then, Fontaine, who spends about 10 minutes each day in the garden, has kept it continuously full with different rotations of lettuce, peppers and herbs.
Fontaine starts the gardening process by placing seeds in a container filled with water, and coconut and clay pellets. The pellets have a neutral pH and act like soil for the new seeds. After two weeks, the seedlings are moved into the main system: the half-dozen white plastic pipes mounted on the steam room walls. A pump sends the water from the tank on the floor up to the top pipe and it cycles down to the holding tank again. Every two weeks, Fontaine changes the water, and during the summer months, he uses the old nutrient-rich water to nourish the plants in his greenhouse.
The room’s lights are on a timer; from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., the lights are on. A cool light—bright, with a blue tint—is used to encourage plant growth, while a warm light—an orange glow—brings plants to a bloom. Temperature, too, is precisely set; Fontaine keeps this room around 85 degrees, with 55 percent humidity. The controlled combination of heat, humidity and light leads to a perfect harvest every time.
“The idea of having fresh produce year-round is exciting,” says Garcia. Guests at Stacy’s Grille agree. Garcia says that the quality-of-food scores have gone up since the garden began producing last spring, and the customers aren’t the only ones raving about the garden. Fontaine and his staff are equally excited about their indoor plants. No matter how the Marriott Southwest garden grows, there is no doubt that what it’s growing is winning over the hearts, minds and taste buds of the staff at Minneapolis Marriott Southwest and their guests.
