Staff Spotlight: Horticulture Crew Grows 36,500 Heads of Lettuce a Year

Anyone who has visited our attractions knows how stunning the gardens are—they are truly spectacular. The Ark Encounter and Creation Museum horticulture team does an outstanding job keeping our grounds at the Ark and Creation Museum looking beautiful. But that’s not all they do!

Did you know that our horticulture division also uses aquaponics and hydroponics to produce special food for the animals in our Ararat Ridge Zoo at the Ark and the Eden Animal Experience at the Creation Museum?

Here are some fun facts:

Horticulture grows between 25–35,000 annual flowers for the Ark and museum every year.The agriculture house produces 100 heads of lettuce and 180 pounds of fodder daily for the zoo animals, seven days a week, year-round. That’s 36,500 heads of lettuce and over 65,000 pounds of fodder annually in less than 2000 sq. ft. of space.Our team uses a water-soluble fertilizer, and they put down about 1,600 gallons a week or 41,000 gallons a growing season.

Thank you to the dedicated, hard-working team in our horticulture division. You help make our attractions spectacular.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.