When an airline is as fascinated with its colorful name as JetBlue is, down to serving blue-potato chips on every flight, it might be a surprise to find that they’re also obsessed with green. But JetBlue, which already installed an open terrace space for its passengers at New York’s JFK has now added a sustainable farm that grows…wait for it…blue potatoes!
The 24,000 sq. ft. urban garden just outside Terminal 5 consists of 2300 plastic milk crates, anchored together for storm safety and filled with soil from an organic farm upstate that creates it by composting food waste from the Terminal 5 restaurants.
The food grown in the garden (not just blue potatoes but also including arugula, beets, mint, fennel, rosemary, sage, basil and kale) will be used by Terminal 5 restaurants, with any surplus going to food pantries. Area students will take part in programs helping maintain it. Among the farm’s partners is GrowNYC, sponsor of New York City’s Greenmarket program that operates farm-to-city markets around the city.
