Sam Wortman, the new assistant professor and environmental horticulturist in the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, will be taking part in this year’s LES Sustainable Living Festival, Aug. 13, at The Railyard, in Lincoln’s West Haymarket.
“I believe one approach to improving the sustainability and resiliency of our food system is to increase local and home food production,” Wortman said.
He will be teaching festival attendees about sustainable food production by demonstrating how to build a planter from re-purposed plastic pop, juice and milk bottles. These planters will use a wick system to move water and nutrients from a nutrient reservoir into the soilless media above. According to Wortman, the result is a low-cost, low-maintenance planter, easy for urban dwellers (even those living in apartments) to start growing a small portion of their own food with very limited environmental impact. Small basil seedlings will be available for participants to transplant in the planters and take home.
The LES Sustainable Living Festival will run from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and will include interactive, family-oriented activities designed to provide information about sustainable living practices.