Hydroponic Farming

Growing plants using the hydroponics method requires some special equipment and training to make it successful.

The greenhouse for hydroponic farming in Desha, Arkansas on the farm.

Hydroponic farming was not something I had considered, but in 1995 I went to visit my daughter, Murielle and her husband Terry in Tampa, Florida. I saw the portable hydroponic setup she had in her swimming pool area. She was growing herbs and I was immediately intrigued.

It was amazing to see plants growing this way and it looked like so much fun! Murielle told me that the man who had built her hydroponic setup lived in Tampa, not too far from their home.

I made an appointment with this man, Gordon Creaser, and he showed me on the computer some of the hydroponic farms he had worked on around the world.

Janine Winters holding some herb products from her hydroponic greenhouse.

Later I invited Gordon Creaser to come to Desha and show me more about this type of farming. The possibility of building a greenhouse and growing plants this way intrigued me. He came to visit the farm and suggested that I grow culinary herbs. I liked this idea, but I knew it would require teaching people how to use them in their cooking.

It took a couple of years to get a greenhouse built and all the equipment installed and up and running. It was state of the art and I was excited. But it turned out to be very hard work and initially there was little reward.

I could grow a lot of plants, but I needed to find a way to monetize the crops.

My interest in cooking sparked an idea. Why not grow culinary herbs?

Sure, a fantastic idea. The challenge was that Arkansas was not known as a gourmet state and this would take some education to get people interested, buying and using the herbs. I had been cooking with herbs for years and it made sense to do what I knew best!

Many herbs growing in the greenhouse

The first year was awful. People around me were laughing at me. The crazy French woman!

I began to doubt myself. Taking care of a greenhouse with live plants was no easy task and I worked many long hours with no money coming in.

My frustration grew. 

Then one day I found the name of a distributor in Los Angeles who agreed to speak to me. That same week I flew to California and sold them on the idea of me selling them my herbs with their labels.

This customer was WalMart and it turned out to be a boon. We shipped thousands of fresh herbs per week.

The success continued and I had hired several women to work for me. Once again in my life I had tried something new, something different that could easily have been a disaster. Yet it turned out to be a blessing.

Inside the greenhouse

Eventually I began making pestos from the herbs and this launched a whole line of products that turned out to be good sellers!

This led to more culinary adventures which will be documented on the "cooking section" of this website.

More to come!

Here is a portion of an article that Gordon Creaser, the hydroponic consultant, wrote about my Winter Parks Farm herb growing success.

Article about Janine Winters and her hydroponic farming by Gordon Creaser.

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