In the past few years a number of creative planting methods have been developed, especially for those urban gardeners who want to grow food but are lacking the space to do so. Entrepreneurs, avid gardeners and multinational giants have taken initiative in this growing food revolution.
The Kitchen Nano Garden was designed by Hyuandai and a South Korean design firm, Gromo in 2010. You can grow salad and herbs regardless of season – hydroponically; you control the light, water and nutrients. And the system doubles up as an air purifier. I tried to trace the project to its origin to see when it would be available to the public but found nothing – in the near future we may see it alongside their vehicles on the show room floor.
The Urb Garden, designed by Xavier Calluaud, is a closed loop system that turns your compost into herbs and salad leaves. You add your food scraps and water, the worms turn the compost into liquid which is diluted with water and pumped around to feed the plants. The excess liquid is then pumped back into the tank and reused.
Windowfarms is one of my favorite projects currently circulating the globe. The reason being that while their design is patented, it is free to the public, you can download the plans and build your own window farm – or you can purchase one of their pre assembled farms. Like the Kitchen Nanon Garden, it uses a hydroponic system. As the project is open source it spent its early stages gathering information from window farmers to see what systems (pumps) are the most efficient and what plants grow best. I discovered this one watching the creator, Britta Riley’s Ted Talk.
