Plant it yourself is the new do-it-yourself

You’re probably tired of hearing you should consume organic food. Difficult part is to have your pocket prepared to buy organic vegetables, unless you buy direct from the producer or plant it yourself.

Yes, you heard me right, plant it yourself and become your own producer. To make this task possible in large cities, who lacks a backyard and doesn’t have the slightest idea of how to make a vegetable garden, innovation came to give you a hand. The Finnish company Plantui created Plantui Smart Garden, a vegetable hydroponic cultivation equipment (planted in water, no land use). The appliance has a patented technology that combines light spectra in order to mimic the process of photosynthesis. The company provides nutrient capsules they develop to nourish the plants. Water and light will automatically adjust in order to get the best growth in five to eight weeks. The advantage is to have fresh vegetables all year round without needing agricultural skills for it.

Following this line, the Grove Labs Aquaponic Garden, in Boston, offers a aquaponic garden made up of a bookshelf with boxes and automatic control. One of the boxes of the system is an aquarium, so that the fish waste are used to fertilize plants and clean water returns to the fish, completing the cycle. If desired, you can hire the monthly service that provides the plant seeds.

Out of the hydroponic world, there is Plug & Plantfrom the Mexican company Vertical Green, which is also high tech, but is vertical. They raised funds on Kickstarter and have already started sales. The vertical garden consists of interlocking modules that allows you to vary the size. In each room there is a sponge made of polyurethane and starch containing  seeds.

Those who prefer something more radical, can have their own rainforest. Biopod  is the first “smart micro habitat”, and proposes to replicate the forest environment in a closed urban garden. You should also put animals such as small reptiles in it. But this has not expected date for commercialization yet.

Even socially gardens are stimulated. In São Paulo there is Casa de Convivência Porto Seguro (Safe Port convivence house), for homeless people who want to get off the streets and change their lives, that has a community garden maintained by residents. In Uberlândia, also in Brazil, prison “Jacy de Assis” also owns a garden, but is cultivated by the prisoners, which produce about 400 boxes of vegetables a month. The garden saves water, because it uses captured rainwater and the production is intended not only to personal consumption but is also donated to charities and poor families in the region. The index of criminal recidivism dropped to 1% among inmates participating in the program.

There are lots of alternatives, who knows in the future we will depend not solely on supermarkets to provide our vegetables? Plant it yourself and do it right now!

References: Digital Trends, Hypeness, Pensamento Verde, Digital Trends.