Branson Aquaponic Garden: The time has come to draw the picture

Branson Aquaponic Garden: The time has come to draw the picture
Future usage of the Red Roof Mall complex, 1000 Pat Nash Dr, Branson MO 65616

As you enter the Branson Aquaponic Garden Both sides of the drive are lined with some of the most magnificent “Living Walls” the eye has ever seen. The native fruit trees stretch down the center divider. As you approach the first building you feel as though you have wandered into a back woods country town on Founders day. The first thing to catch your eye is the flora building its sidewalks lined with hanging aquaponic flowers. Inside fish tanks filled with blue tilapia swim in a tank covered with live flowering plants. Down each side of the room more hanging aquaponic tubes lush with flowers hang over a 2 ft deep water trough filled with fingerlings the rows of flowers move from one end of the room on a conveyer system. Down the middle of the room is a moving hanging wall that is planted at one end and harvested at the other. On each side of the two sided wall are large floating tanks, Staked three tiers high across the room. Each flower bed is 8” deep 4’ wide and 200’ long. Each bed planted with a virtual cornucopia of brilliantly, colored flowers of many species. The plants are moving by planting at one end and harvest at the other. All the walls without windows are living walls. The flowers grown here are for sale not only to our guests but to venders and business owners throughout Branson and the surrounding area. Many will be used by our crafters for soap scents, dyes, paper making and healing. All flower waste will be made into organic mulch that will be used by our theater and hotel landscapers.

As you travel along our covered walk way, our”Living Walls” will give cause for pause. Our ability to play on every event from the fourth of July to Christmas makes us the place to see over and over. We can offer an ever changing living work of art.

The next thing that will catch your eye is our “Living Tower”. On top a wind turban and below that our weather spotting class room and office.

As you round the corner to your right you will see our first factory room. Guests view the factory, only from the windows located on either side of the building. Inside you will behold a bounty, of luscious produce, growing on our “Living Edible Walls”. The walls are slowly traveling from one end of the building to the other, in an ever changing mosaic of Mother Nature’s beauty. Each is hanging over catch ponds while water is misted through the walls being pumped to the plants from the fish tanks on the floor below.

Next, along your walk, you come to a large open walk way and stair case leading to the floor below.

The vast open space will astound you with its breathing live art. The large wall to your left is covered with a living painting, and the Colorful Kio play in a pond, beneath the magnificent waterfall. Long flowering vines adorn the back dormer. The wall to your right is alive with plants, forming “Living Walls”. You can enter the sales building from this walkway. The safety railing, around the stairs, hangs more “Living Walls.”

Within the walls of our sales building, you will find everything you need to grow like we do. This mini mall carries small table top aqua unit, ideal for the hobby chef, to a full kitchen garden. We will have a variety of learning DVD’s, books, and classes to fit any need. It is also where you can buy a ticket for our tour of farming the Ozarks. This is an educational tour of the farming in this region from the Osage Indian to our ultra modern Aquaponic Food Factory.

THE COURT YARDS

Living walls cover the outside of the tour tunnel along the side of buildings 4 and 5 between the walkways in the picture above small craft buildings line the street. The bees wax shop, the gourd carver, the soap shop, and ten other craft shops.

As the opening to the upper court yard expands before you the sounds of a town festival lofts through the air. Small friendly porches invite you to take time and smell the flowers. At one end stands a gazebo stage where performers and guest alike entertain as folks meander through our many hydro and aquaponic landscapes.

The lower court yard will in time be covered with a polycarbonate dome or as we call it our diamond dome exposition hall. This is where we will hold are big events, weddings and concerts. Our diamond dome connects to our farmers market where what we grow here is sold here. We will also use this building as a shipping warehouse. We will be shipping out goods to all our many restaurants, stores, farmers markets, and caterers.

DOWN BELOW

Below each growing building is the fish hatchery where all the water from the fish is recycled to the plants above. The fish tanks themselves are a site to see. Each tank in it’s self is a work of art. We will pay close attention to looks as well as function in every guests view. The fish grown here are sold many ways. We will sale them in our restaurant as a prepared product, ready to cook, live fish, or as fingerlings for starting your own aquaponic garden. Each day in the lower food courtyard the smells of food cooking, lingers in the air as samples of today’s harvest tickle your taste buds.

In the” Today’s Garden” restaurant you will experience the sights and sounds of the Ozarks from our panoramic cave booths to our group Tepees. Guests will dine among the sights & sounds of waterfalls and wild life. The Today’s Garden menu is unlike any other. We serve only sample platters of drinks, fresh fruit and veggies, Breads and muffins, hot veggies and fish, then we round out your sampler with sweets. Then provide you a list of the places you can go in Branson to Enjoy the healthy food of the Aquaponic Garden.

EDUCATION

We call it an educational center as this is one of our main focuses. We desire to teach our guest the art of growing safe health food in their own home. We do this through workshops, day and evening classes; we provide educational books, DVDs, and web support. We also will hold classes on such back to basic crafts as canning, jelly making, tool scarping, hunting safety, and much, much, more.

CHILD CARE DISCOVERY CENTER

Small children often stand in the way when guest want to take a class. We will offer a live stream discovery center where children under 10 can go and learn through interactive games, crafts and storytelling. You can leave your children with peace of mind knowing you can tune in on the live stream broadcast from your cell phone any time.

PREPARES PARADISE

Many of the classes here center on being prepared in times of need. Besides offering classes in weather spotting and ham radio operation, we plan to teach proper food storage. To assist folks in being prepared we will offer a full line of freeze dried food many of which come from our gardens.

In these ever changing time in is necessary to find other ways to grow safe healthy food close to home. The Branson Aquaponic Gardens and Educational Center will give us a venue to help teach the masses. Branson is the third most visited family vacation center in America, boosting well over 8 million visitors a year from April to December.

We are looking for investors to partner with us on this project. The city I understand is willing to let us open the first three buildings if we can cover the cost of insurance, utilities, and keep the grounds maintained. We have many volunteers willing to help us get it up and running, most of the workings are readily available and inexpensive. Three buildings would be great and the city might consider it if we can only raise enough funds to pay the previously mentioned bills.

For those of you who like to see the numbers. Once The Branson Aquaponic Gardens and Educational Center is fully operating, and all 15 buildings are producing. (6 growing food and 1 growing flowers.) We anticipate a net profit a year of $48 + million a year.

Here is the math. 8 million visitors, only 20% stop by the gardens, each spends an average of just $30.00 that comes to $48 million a seasonal year. The healthy organic food, this plant will produce will well, cover all its bills. This leaves the tourist dollar as net profit. 418+ tons of food per year per 10,000sq ft of growing space the red roof mall offers us over 200,000 sq ft of growing space. Now you do the math. Our local food sales average about $2.00 per pound.

To see the vision become reality, We can start with just buildings 1,2 and 3. $100,000.00 I estimate would get the doors open through the Christmas season. We have a market for our food so lets us start growing some food. To build this will take $35 million to get fully operational. The sooner we start the sooner we will have what we need.

This is a sound investment and I wish I could pull it out of the bank and make it so, but I cannot. What are you willing to do to make this happen? The least you can do is pass it on.

Concept owner, Mona Miller
Phone: 417-338-2537
Email: millerm573@gmail.com
Website: www.bransonaquaponics.com

P.S. The city (of Branson) will entertain letting us start with just 1 to 3 buildings if we can cover the cost of utitilies and insurance and keep the grounds up. We have a market for what we will grow in that building already. We just need some one or many some ones to help us get going. We have a large staff of people who will donate their time to make this happen. Do you know any one who might want to help get er done?