You don’t have to win Home & Garden Television’s green home in Port St. Lucie to get an up-close look at the hydroponic garden and solar-power system.

The house, at the Tradition development, will be open for public tours April 20-June 6. Tickets are $15.

The domestic cable network built the 2,430-square-foot home for its second annual green home giveaway contest.

It’s one of a handful in Florida that has received platinum-level certification from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.

PORT ST. LUCIE — Ripe strawberries are dangling in the yard at the lone house on Westcliffe Lane. Tomatoes, onions and corn are sprouting, too.

The porch of the Home & Garden Television's Green Home in Tradition.

No green thumb is necessary: A solar-powered pump shuttles water from two nearby rain barrels to the hydroponic garden. To find out if the rain will fill the barrels today, step inside the house, where a flat-screen monitor greets you with the forecast.

No showers predicted? That’s OK. Sunshine powers rooftop solar panels. The monitor shows how much energy they’re generating, too.

“It doesn’t provide all the electricity, but it sure helps,” the home’s architect, Michael Carlson, said of the 2-kilowatt system.

This is Home & Garden Television’s Green Home, the network’s second ever and first in Florida. It’s a $750,000 collection of eco-friendly must-haves and green novelties that HGTV will give away in a drawing in June. (more…)