Adapted from an item in Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary'' column in GoLocal24.com

The Newport (R.I.) Daily News reports that a major producer of hydroponic lettuces based in Quebec might build a two-story greenhouse in the city’s North End.

The paper said that the company,  Hydroserre Mirabel Inc., claims to have a proprietary growing technique that it says provides the highest production performance in such settings achieved to date, making it possible to produce 16 to 18 crops a year.

It sure beats casinos or another doomed big-box store. If Iceland can grow a lot of vegetables in greenhouses, so can comparatively tropical Rhode Island. How nice it would  be to see all that green through the glass on a cold and gloomy winter’s day.  And wouldn’t it bedandy to have a bunch of greenhouses atop some of those big old mills in Providence, Pawtucket and elsewhere around here– local, year-round agriculture.