Fish for your supper at farm in a shop

A disused shop is being transformed into London's first indoor inner-city farm where people will be able to pick their greens and fish for supper.

FARM:shop, in Dalston, will have a basement for growing mushrooms, fish tanks for tilapia and giant freshwater prawns, a chicken coop on the roof overlooking city traffic, and pigs in the garden. The urban food project aims to make farming as sustainable as possible, exploring methods including hydroponics, where crops are grown in water, and aeroponics, where they are grown in air.

The ground floor will be dedicated to aquaponics, based on the symbiotic relationship between fish and plants, growing 30 kilogrammes of salad and herbs weekly and 10 kilogrammes of fish and prawns. Waste from fish provides nutrients for plants, which in turn filter fish water. Plant off-cuts are then composted into wormeries, which provide food for the fish and so the cycle continues.

The project is the work of eco design company Something & Son, founded by Andrew Merritt, Paul Smyth and Sam Henderson. Mr Merritt said: "FARM:shop is a practical testing ground for what does and doesn't work when trying to grow food in inner London.

"We feel what we're doing could be replicated quite easily in empty buildings across the whole city." He said that while there are food-growing projects worldwide, no one has experimented with farming in such a dense urban setting while using so many different growing methods in one space.

Mr Smyth said: "We've already learned that chickens don't mind police sirens as they've laid 14 eggs over the last five days while we've been building the shop."

FARM:shop will have a café with home-grown food, and will be available for hire.

The owners will also be running trips to Church Farm in Ardeley, some 30 miles out of the capital, to give Londoners of all ages the chance to experience a genuine working farm.

Charlie Price, founder of not-for-profit organisation Aquaponics UK, said: "This brings food production to the heart of the city. It demonstrates how much can be grown, and in what quantities. We hope to see this model replicated across towns and villages throughout the UK."

The FARM: shop opens on October 31 from Fridays to Sundays, with half hour tours at 1pm throughout November.For more information: www.farmlondon.weebly.com