FarmWild

Bellingham, Washington

Located on 27 acres on the outskirts of Bellingham, WA, FarmWild is a small scale sustainable farm that has been providing pasture-raised chickens, eggs, turkeys, and pork products to the local community since 2016. The focus of FarmWild is to raise plants and animals using the most ecologically sound principals and practices. They focus on the health and well-being of the animals and the environment. Chickens, turkeys, and pigs live outside on grass and in the forest and are fed locally milled certified organic grain, barley fodder, and abundant veggie scraps from the greenhouse.

Take a Virtual Tour of FarmWild

The most recent addition to the FarmWild is a state-of-the-art year-round aquaponics greenhouse. Built through the first half of 2020, the 2,200 sq ft greenhouse is home to the largest aquaponic leafy green production system in the region. Custom designed, with knowledge and materials supplied by The Aquaponics Source, the system has 4 fish tanks for a total of ~1200 gallons of water that are home to about 400 koi and 60 tilapia The fish system features an Endurance 4000 auto-backwashing filtration system along with a dedicated mineralization tank to further breakdown fish waste and provide additional nutrients for the plants. The dual sump configuration allows the system to easily run in coupled or decoupled mode.

Three Growasis elevated DWC tables provide a total of ~1000 sq ft of lettuce and basil growing area with an extra 150 sq ft of media beds for additional filtration, mineralization, and diverse crop growth. The greenhouse has an automated control system that controls climate, providing heat, or automatically opening and closing the roof and side vents based on temperature or humidity. The DWC tables and media beds are lit by 32 high-efficiency LED grow lights purchased from California LightWorks. These lights are also automated with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi control and are spectrum-adjustable. The electricity for the system is provided by 77 solar panels on the adjacent barn, providing nearly 30kw of renewable energy powered by the sun. With 2 weeks on the nursery shelves, and 2 weeks in our high density kindergarten table, plants grow out on our DWC tables with a 4 week grow cycle. This allows us to produce 600-800 lettuce and basil plants per week, every week of the year. That’s as much lettuce as can be grown on 2 acres of high quality farm land. We are proud to supply our lettuce and basil to local restaurants, meal and produce delivery services, and a faithful army of friends and farmers market customers. We are exploring, crickets, worms, and crayfish to fill the space underneath the tables. If we can make this venture financially self-sustaining, we hope to be able to build and operate similar structures in the more urban and populated areas of our region.