Start Container Farming

In this guide, we break down the four steps to completing a crop cycle in our hydroponic container farm and the labor requirements you can expect.

Hamilton Horne is the highly successful entrepreneur behind King Tide Farms, a Freight Farming business in Charleston, SC. He sells produce to the city’s high-end restaurants, whose chefs love the microgreens, flavorful leafy greens, and herbs that he grows. Building relationships with chefs can be intimidating, so Hamilton is giving us his tips for how to sell produce to restaurants.

How do I find someone to manage the Club Freight Farm? How do I raise funds to sustain a Club container farm? How do I build a curriculum around a Freight Farm? What support do you provide? We answer Boys & Girls Clubs' top 7 FAQs around starting and sustaining a Club container farming program.

The most important resource we have on Earth is not a fossil fuel or a precious metal — it’s water. A stunning majority (over 70%!) of the world’s freshwater is used for agriculture … but while it’s monopolizing all that water, agriculture steadily pollutes the world’s water supply. In observance of Earth Day, we’re exploring water scarcity and pollution and the potential for controlled environment agriculture to improve farming’s role in it all.

There are countless ways to use a Freight Farm as a nonprofit. A container farm doesn’t just allow you to grow lots of fresh food to feed your population; it offers immense potential. Here are just 10 nonprofits that use container farms to serve a wide variety of populations through unique programs, sustained by diverse funding streams. Learn how each of them turned idea into impact.

Farmhand, Freight Farms' farm automation software, makes farming manageable. This critical tool is one that every Freight Farmer should take advantage of. It allows you to remotely monitor and control your farm, plan farm tasks, coordinate farm operators, collect key farm and harvest data, and analyze data to understand and optimize farm operations. Around the clock, it's a farmer's best friend!

This International Women’s Day, we’re celebrating the women in farming — growers, entrepreneurs, leaders, and disruptors — who inspire us every day. These female leaders in agriculture have gone above and beyond to bring positive change to food and agriculture in communities all over the world!

February is National Pesticide Safety Education Month. We’re taking the opportunity to look into the obscure chemicals pesticides introduce into our food: What are they? Do we really need them? How bad are they for humans and the environment? How safe are they to eat, really? We answer these questions — and more.

Ever wonder how Freight Farmers around the world all grow food year-round, regardless of the season or conditions? The secret is advanced climate control and insulation to create a perfect controlled environment agriculture platform for indoor farming. Thanks to these systems, Freight Farms can continue to grow, even in extreme heat or surrounded by piles of snow.

We recently released a new line of hydroponic nutrients! Our in-house team of plant scientists worked diligently to curate and test these new and improved hydroponic nutrients: farmhand form, grow, and boost. Over 160+ trials, the new farmhand nutrients were tested against a comparable competing nutrient blend and showed a 30% yield increase, on average. What makes them so powerful? We break down the three-part formula.

We had the opportunity to exhibit at the 2022 FFA National Convention and Expo, and were blown away by the event. We were consistently impressed by the FFA students’ maturity and knowledge and their advisors’ passion. The experience only solidified our belief that hydroponic container farms and FFA chapters are a perfect match. Read our full takeaway from the event!

We’re examining the latest national and global trends. Good news! They indicate that 2023 is a great year to start hydroponic farming. From food safety to local purchasing and supply chain to healthy eating and environmental sustainability, recent studies and events suggest that now is the time to start a hydroponic farm.

School meals are the only ones many children regularly receive, and it's your challenge to America, Mrs. Obama, to put 6,000 salad bars into schools. While it's evident your challenge has effectively increased the number of salad bars in schools, we think we can help deepen your impact with our modular vertical farming technology. Why is container farming perfect for schools? We'll tell you.

We’re proud that so many schools use our hydroponic farming technology for their farm to school program. From California to Massachusetts, Freight Farms are put to work to achieve each of the pillars of farm to school: local food sourcing; student access to healthy food; and learning opportunities. In this blog, we explore each.

Anyone can farm! All you need to do is follow this eight-step journey, from crafting a business plan, to training, to growing the business.

Want to learn about how to grow microgreens and maximize your revenue while you’re at it? Well, you probably know that Greenery™ S farms have two grow areas: the Nursery Station (where seedlings sprout) and the Cultivation Area (where plants mature). It just so happens that the Nursery Station has some extra room. Why not use this space for growing microgreens to make some extra income?

Learn about 6 important things to consider when packaging your crops. We've compiled some resources to help you determine how to package hydroponic crops and what kind of packaging best suits the needs of you and your customers. We cover value propositions, branding, vegetable preservation, customer segments, and more.

Many schools use Freight Farms as teaching tools. Vertical farms make for an effective platform for kinesthetic learning — especially for STEM subjects. We explore the ways 12 STEM subjects relate to container farms, and the agriculture STEM projects that can arise from this nontraditional learning tool.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, so we’re profiling six ways Freight Farmers use container farming as a platform for horticultural therapy. Farmers of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities can experience relaxing and meditative environments to find meaning, purpose, and greater self-esteem.

Do you like the idea of becoming a Freight Farmer, but feel held back because you aren’t sure what you’d do with your farm? Not to worry! We’ve compiled a list of just some of the great ways our farmers are using Freight Farms to cultivate fresh produce while also doing good.

You may know what crops you’d like to grow…but how should you package them? Every farmer has preferred methods of packaging — and a journey to figuring out exactly what they are. We’re exploring 8 of the most popular produce packaging types for Freight Farmers and growers beyond the shipping container farming industry, and the customer segments they’re best for.

Thinking about launching a Freight Farms project in your city, town, or community? We’re sharing 5 tried-and-true tips to find customers in four historically successful sales channels: CSA, farmers markets, restaurants, and grocery stores. Learn how to pitch your produce and value propositions to customers in each segment for a successful business plan!

2021 was about thriving in the face of obstacles. See how we grew food, our company, and our community.

National and global trends show that the public is more inclined than ever to eat local and healthily, and environmental conditions are consistently becoming more extreme. Plus, funding related to hydroponics and small food businesses is up! Learn more about why there's never been a better time to start.

Discover some outside-of-the-box locations to place a container farm. As our network of Freight Farmers continues to expand globally, the range of spots we’ve seen farmers place their containers is growing just as quickly — and we don’t just mean backyards and driveways.

Hydroponic container farms are good for more than just growing vegetables! They also offer an organic platform for social emotional learning. Learn how students have the opportunity to grow alongside their peers and the leafy greens as SEL skills and seeding mix.

If you’re looking to bring a Greenery™ S to your local community, you’ll need to get familiar with your local zoning regulations. Here are 7 tips for container farm placement and getting approval from your local zoning board.