Let it grow

At HydroTaste farm in Myakka, Chester Bullock grows crops in a fraction of the space and using just a trickle of the water that it takes to run a traditional farm. He can grow foods, like bananas, that other farms can't, and he grows through the hot summer months that close down other farms.

"I can grow anything except children," he says.

And Bullock seems like a man who, if he had a way, would happily grow children in a little experimental plot at the back of his tract. Kind of like the Saudi Arabian strawberries that he's trying out, just to see how they'll deal with the humidity.

"All you have to tell me is that I can't grow it. As soon as they say I can't, I put it in," he says. "We're kind of the Epcot of Bradenton here."

Bullock is the inventor of Hydrostacker, a hydroponic growing system that utilizes dirt-free, vertical arrangements of planters and an overhead feed of water and nutrients. Plants grow from a pebble-y bed of pearlite and vermiculite, a medium that conserves water and deters pests. Bullock also uses predatory insects and cayenne pepper to keep the bugs away.

He boasts that he employs only three farmhands, who never have to bend or kneel when they work on the stacks. Saving money on wages, insurance, property taxes, farm equipment and fuel allows him to sell his produce at affordable prices.

So why isn't everybody farming this way? Bullock claims that it's only a matter of time. He already sells his equipment to farms all over the U.S., and a Hydrostacker farm just opened up in Canada.

"Within 10 years, everything will be hydroponic," he says.

While Worden Farm in Punta Gorda and Jessica's Organic Farm in Sarasota are closed for the summer, HydroTaste will stay open. Those farms are burdened by the elevated water needs of their crops in the summertime. Bullock says that for him, the summer heat means two extra one-minute feedings of water-nutrient mix ("natural" but not organic).

"That costs us about 150 gallons a day," he says. "Whoopee."

Part of the reason HydroTaste can remain as small as it is is that the farm doesn't export its produce. Customers drive out to the plot and pick their own crops. Otherwise they gather it from the small produce stand on site, which is due for an expansion soon. It's out of the way for city dwellers, but Bullock says that shouldn't matter considering the health benefits of fresh, untreated produce.

"In the 13 minutes that you drive here -- how long are you willing to drive to add years to your life?"