Tag Archives: home gardening

Modular micro-environments that grow with the plants, helping farmers germinate without transplanting!

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Small-scale gardening systems are taking the design boards by storm, from compact micro gardens to larger smart gardening accessories, plants are becoming more and more popular with each day. They’re so popular, they’ve become their own language entirely, and one of the universal languages of today. But while home gardening and home compost techniques could generally be considered hobbies, farmers might consider the language of plants as an essential part in attaining the fruits of their labor. Plant systems like Agrodome, a modular micro-environment planting system designed by NOS, could provide farmers with more efficient solutions to large-scale germination and maturation of crops.

The process of germination marks the period of development during which a seedling sprouts three to four true leaves, indicating its readiness for transplanting. Transplanting can be an arduous, complicated, and dirty process – I recently transplanted a young white spruce tree in my childhood home’s backyard, whose roots were much longer than I had expected, but as of today, it’s still upright, so fingers crossed. When transplanting anything, it’s imperative to not disrupt the crop’s blooming roots, so it’s a delicate process. Thankfully, Agrodome, while it may not be a plant system designed to grow trees, simplifies the complicated mess that could come with transplanting smaller crops. Agrodome is a transparent, lightweight spike that farmers insert into the soil where seedlings begin their germination process. When the seedlings are first planted into the earth, Agrodome’s spike digs deep into the soil, providing a compact greenhouse effect for the young seedlings. Then, the spike’s domed top incorporates a funnel used to collect and distribute water to Agrodome’s spike, which provides each seedling with ample water to continue germination. Etched along the spike’s edges are cavities that propel collected water directly into the soil for better, quicker absorption and to help moderate and nourish the seedlings closely. Meanwhile, oxygen ventilates through air holes dotted across the perimeter of the cube roof’s rounded edges so plants can produce energy from more direct sources of oxygen

As the seedlings develop and grow taller, farmers can lift Agrodome’s spike accordingly. This way, even when the plant’s leaves grow taller, breathing room is still provided between Agrodome’s interior roof and even the plant’s tallest leaves. In addition to the product’s inherent modularity in changing heights, each piece is stackable for clean and easy transportation or storage. With such a vast array of functions, Agrodome is designed to build modular micro-environments so that the language of plants can adapt over time and be carried out anywhere.

Designer: NOS

This coffee table’s sliding indoor garden is the ultimate millennial-friendly plant parenting hack

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Home gardening is difficult enough as it is, but it gets even trickier when you live in small city quarters. With city living’s and home gardening’s popularity rising in recent years, those of us who live in apartment complexes might feel discouraged from starting home garden projects – they’re messy and time-consuming, not to mention that a lot of space is usually a prerequisite. That’s why SOLE was created. SOLE, a home gardening system, poses first as a small coffee table only to reveal a hidden, self-maintained, miniature garden for city dwellers who want to fill their homes up with some natural greens, but not the fuss that typically comes with them.

More people are moving into cities, which means that access to home gardening is decreasing since natural light is harder to come by and smaller apartment spaces, like efficiency studios, are preferred. Thankfully, SOLE’s coffee table was designed to take up as little space as possible in order to fit into even the smallest of studios. Indoor urban gardening is usually practiced by using grow box containers that require a lot of window ledge space and natural sunlight – both of which can be hard to come by in city apartment searches. In order to make home gardening possible in any city-living space, SOLE maintains the perfect climate, temperature, and nutrients for you and your chosen plants so long as they fit inside the coffee table’s extensive body. While researching the influence of temperature, exposure time, intensity, color from visible light, along with the distance and angle of light distribution, the designers behind SOLE decided to incorporate a lighting system that would enhance plant growth by imitating the effect the sun’s rays have on indoor plants.

The garden is maintained primarily by RGB diodes that emit light similar to that of sunlight so that the enclosed botanical environment mimics the outdoors, providing the optimal space for homegrown and nutrient-rich herbs or plants. Additionally, the grow box inside of the SOLE coffee table maintains irrigation through fully-integrated water tanks and fertilizing mechanisms. The grow box comes equipped with three separate pots that can be easily removed for cleaning and whose RGB diodes adjust according to each plant’s needs. Lastly, the whole system can be modified and maintained by using an app through your smartphone, tablet, or PC or the control panel located underneath the coffee table’s sliding cover.

Designers: Mikołaj Nicer, Jakub Maciejczyk, Grzegorz Szczupał

This self-sustaining compost system turns your food scraps into a thriving indoor garden!

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The world as we once knew it is changing. While the list of changes seems too long to share – gardening would be considered one of them. The environment and sustainable living have been hot topics for some time now, but in 2020, they’ve turned into personal commitments for people across the globe. Composting is one way to promote sustainability in your own living space, as proved by AQUA, a sustainable, contained gardening system. AQUA was created by OG Design so that environmentally conscious people can curate their very own self-sustaining indoor garden no matter where they live.

AQUA’s system is comprised of three main working parts: a container for food waste, an elevated light structure, and three soil pots. The food waste container is located on one side of the indoor planter and turns your leftover food scraps into compost for fertilizer. Composting is a method used to decompose organic solid waste and fertilize the soil for gardening. The slim, attractive light fixture is situated directly above AQUA’s garden pots and provides the mini garden with nourishing light-energy. The indoor, gardening system is completely self-sustaining and conveniently sized in order to fit into any kitchen or living space. The system itself works after food waste is dumped into the container on the left-hand side, fertilizing the soil contained in the trio of modestly sized pots, each of which provides energy for plants to then grow and thrive.

OG Design conceptualized AQUA in order to “[keep] food from entering landfills” and for users “to cultivate their own small vegetable garden,” because food accounts for 46.2% of combustible waste. The interest in gardening, especially indoor gardening, and sustainable living is rising with younger generations as city living becomes more popular. In urban spaces, ecologically conscious living is tricky as there’s less yard space and community gardens can be hard to come by. AQUA makes sustainable living possible for any city home, from the small efficiency studio to the three-story townhouse. As long as you’ve got a kitchen counter or windowsill, your personal vegetable garden awaits.

Designer: OG Design

This Home Gardening Assistive Device Sticks Into Your Plant’s Soil To Keep It Healthy!

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Activities like home gardening have held the attention of millennials and older generations alike for years, but with quarantine, they’ve risen exponentially in popularity. Taking care of houseplants not only amplifies the mood and intimacy of your home but also fills up your space in a way that other interior design options cannot replicate. Houseplants are so popular, sales are supposed to increase to $49.3 billion by 2023. Speaking to this, mostly thanks to social media, a quarter of that spending is attributed to houseplant owners between the ages of 18 and 34. Botanist, a gardening assistive device, was designed to make taking care of a plant more manageable for everyone. Sejin Park, based out of Seoul, designed Botanist because he saw the millennial generation’s love for houseplant culture and their preferred mode of communication: technology. 

Millennials seem to take some heat from older generations for how often we’re on our phones and how disconnected from the world we are because of it. In order to make some sense of that tension, Park bridged a connection between the natural and mobile worlds. Botanist consists of three divided parts: touchscreen, connector, and the probe stick. The probe stick scans and analyzes your houseplant’s soil in order to communicate what the plant might need, which is displayed on Botanist’s screen. Through a speaker and touchscreen, the user is informed of the houseplants’ soil, pH, light, temperature, and humidity levels on easy-to-read, circular, gauges. The touchscreen then provides additional information, relaying how the user can maintain the plant’s health levels or cater to them. The connecter is what allows the information gathered from the probe stick to travel to the touchscreen. On its touchscreen, Botanist also lets users file their houseplants so that they’re easy to find and take care of.

The device pairs with your phone so that you can receive the latest information from your houseplant no matter how far from home you may be. Taking inspiration from devices like speakers, reusable water bottles, and other sustainable products, Park was sure to design this assistive device so that its purpose to maintain health and plant life reflected not only how its materials were sourced, but also so that its structure and look fit in amongst your houseplants. Your plants will practically take care of themselves.

Designer: Sejin Park