‘Ageless Gardens’: Sustainability on the Agenda for a New Season of Gardeners

Ageless Gardens

Using his innovative aeroponic pyramids, last year Allan Murr was able to grow 13,000 seedlings into fresh produce for food banks and community kitchens throughout Victoria. Photo: Courtesy of VisionTV

Allan Murr doesn’t consider himself an environmentalist. But, when his now 17-year-old twin daughters were born his priorities shifted.

“When I had my girls, they’re twins, it was around the time that I was just learning about how food was being grown. I want to take care of these little girls and well, I want to give them the best,” says the 53-year-old entrepreneur and former IT professional.

“Before that, I just loved cutting my lawn,” he adds, with a laugh.

Now, Murr is busy preparing for another season of growing food for Victoria-area food banks and community kitchens via the Harvest & Share Food Relief Society, a non-profit he started in 2019.

He is one of four green thumbs featured in Episode 3: “Environmental Gardens” in the latest season of VisionTV’s (a ZoomerMedia property) Ageless Gardens.

 

 

“I’m not doing this [the show] to give myself ratings or clicks or whatever,” Murr says. “But I feel that we can all help in this world. And I’m doing what I can do, knowing what I can do.”

His growing method — aeroponics, a form of hydroponics — was the result of ingenuity, knowing what can be done, as he says, but also from something for which most gardeners have, to put it mildly, distaste.

“One of the appeals of hydroponics is that there’s no weeding,” he says. “My workmates are in their gardens and they’re saying, ‘Oh, I spent all day in the hot sun weeding.’ And I’m like, ‘Weeding. What is that?'”

From there, he decided to build up.

Ageless Gardens
Allan Murr, in a scene from Season 4 of ‘Ageless Gardens’, harvests a batch of greens, grown aeroponically, where nutrient-rich water is sprayed at the roots of dangling plants, on the grounds of the Government House of British Columbia in Victoria. Photo: Courtesy of VisionTV

 

“I’ve always been the type of guy who likes to … kind of take a thing and make it better,” Murr says of the idea to create growing pyramids.

“Typically people will grow one plant per square foot. But, growing vertically, in my planter, you can grow 136 plants,” he explains.

Murr likes the idea of doing things differently, growing differently. In addition to his pyramid plots on the grounds of Victoria’s Government House, he has partnered with a local school for an underground grow room that’s producing about 1,000 plants, “very sustainably,” using the Kratky method.

“During COVID, there was that movement to grow your own food. Apparently Ikea was selling these little, mini-Kratky systems and they just couldn’t keep them in stock,” he says.

Ageless Gardens
Through feedback from food bank recipients, Harvest & Share Food Relief Society has tailored what it grows, with lettuce being one of the most in-demand products. Photo: Courtesy of VisionTV

 

Of course Murr has experienced skepticism for his innovative farming methods.

“There are some people who are just adamant that food has to come from soil.” he says. “We conduct tours at Government House and you can tell that some people are just, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah. Um hum. Sure.’ And then they taste it, ‘Okay, that’s good.'”

That’s satisfying, but not the most satisfying thing for Murr, whose goal it is to create a fully fresh food bank for people in need in Victoria.

“I love doing deliveries. Because,” he explains, “you get that feedback: ‘Wow, this is fricking amazing.'”

Ageless Gardens, Season 4, airs Mondays at 9 p.m. EST on VisionTV. Click here for more information.

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