Here are a few examples of what we use to make our farm system “greener.”

Recycling

Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of fresh raw materials and reduce pollution. We recycle just about everything on the farm!

Recycle

Cardboard.  - We have a cardboard baler and all of the cardboard that is delivered to us is baled and recycled. Plastic, glass, aluminum, steel, cardboard, plant material, food waste, trees and waste wood, water and even the rays from the sun above and the heat from below our feet.

Water

The garden center has garden retention tanks that can hold up to 13 thousand gallons of water. The rain water that rolls off the roof is collected in the tanks. 1 inch of rain = 10,000 gallons of water! We use the collected water to water our plants in the greenhouse.  What doesn’t fit in the tank goes back into the water table. We also have a water retention pond that reduces the rate that rain water enters our local streams and rivers, preventing erosion and flooding.

Heating with our Wood Chip Burner

Our green house and garden center is heated by our friend "Chip".  Chip heats the water for our radiant floor heating system.  With the addition of “Chip,” our wood chip burner, we recycle waste wood into fuel to help heat our buildings. Chip burns at such a high heat that the ash and particulate matter is much less, so we have a clean, more efficient system. We accept trees and branches from tree surgeons and gather them when pruning our orchards to make our wood chips.

Radiant floor heat

Radiant floor heat is a very efficient form of heat.  By heating the concrete floor the heat is more evenly spread out and the floor holds the heat making it more efficient and requiring less fuel to maintain the heat in the building.

Geothermal Heating and cooling System

Only a few feet below our feet the earth’s temperature stays at a fairly consistent 55 degrees. During the winter when the air is colder than 55 degrees, our system collects the Earth's natural heat through a series of pipes, called a loop, installed below the surface of the ground. Fluid circulates through the loop and carries the heat to the greenhouse. This process uses much less fuel to heat or cool the water since the temperature of the water is neither too hot nor too cold. Our gift shop is cooled in the summer months by the geothermal cooling.  The 55 degrees cools the air it is then distributed through our cloth ducts that hang on our ceiling of the gift shop.

 

Christmas Trees

Linvilla raises lots of trees!In one season, one green tree produces as much oxygen as 10 people inhale in one year. So, by raising Christmas trees alone we provide enough oxygen for 400,000 people each year! One adult Christmas tree can absorb approximately 48 pounds of carbon dioxide per year! Did you ever wonder what happens to all the unsold Christmas Trees? We collect Christmas trees from around Delaware County and use them on the farm. Our Blueberries love the acidic mulch produced from pine trees.

Solar

Our greenhouse has solar panels on the south facing roof on the north side of the building.  The electricity produced by the panels produces enough electric to run the garden center.  The solar sun rays that come into the  greenhouse  heat the concrete floor and the building in the winter months.  They also provide the necessary light for the plants. While nice and toasty during the day from all the sunlight.  Our farm market uses a solar hot water heater on the roof of the Farm Market to heat all of the water used in the bakery, farm market and building!

Farm Animals

Everyone on the farm has a job, even the animals. Left over fruits and vegetables from the produce department get fed to the animals – animals make manure – manure is used as a fertilizer. Manure contributes to the fertility of the soil by adding organic matter and nutrients.

 Compost

Linvilla works with Kitchen Harvest to create our homemade compost.  Our compost is made at Linvilla from food scraps, non-usable produce, yard waste, plant waste, shredded leaves, and other compostables to create a highly nutrient filled compost.  Our compost is OMRI certified (Organic Materials Research Institute) as an organic material that may be bagged as a product called Ecoscraps. We are proud of our contribution of reducing food waste in the landfills.

Mulch

The leftover wood chips, twigs and leaves get ground up into mulch. The burner and mulch processing both keep brush from being trucked long distances and filling valuable landfill space. Mulch has many benefits, such as organic matter, ground cover to keep weeds away and it helps retain moisture in the soil.

Contour farming- Soil and water conservation

 

Fore the Planet Mini-Golf

This exhibition pairs important environmental issues with the fun of miniature golf. 18 unique educational holes explore butterfly metamorphosis, a tropical rainforest, evolution, dinosaur extinction, food chains and more!