This is how we shall grow produce in the post-apocalyptic future
Finally -- a device that will guarantee we can still grow vegetables in the dark, after a nuclear holocaust has blocked out the sun or rampaging zombies have taken over our farmland. This Japanese lettuce-growing vending machine has been making the blog-rounds over the last few months, both because it doesn't require sunlight (it uses fluorescent bulbs) and because of the surprising yield it can churn out: 60 heads a day, or over 20,000 a year.
The machine, called the Chef's Farm, was developed by Dentsu and can produce 60 heads of lettuce per day (or 20,000 heads per year) grown under 40 watt fluorescent lighting housed in a chrome housing that can be stored conveniently in any restaurant.
It can evidently grow other kinds of veggies as well.
The portable fluorescent garden goes is on sale for $90,000, with the target market ostensibly being restaurants that want locally manufactured, sun-free vegetables on site.
Chef's Farm comes with five nutri-culture beds, which are each installed on long and thin metal frames. The lettuce seeds are planted in sponges in frames that have to be moved manually ... The lighting equipment, culture solution, and temperature can be controlled for each bed, and five different vegetables can be cultivated at the same time.
Obviously, shining twelve 40 watt bulbs on a shelf of seeds isn't the most efficient way to grow veggies, and there's no word on just how much water these 'nutri-culture' beds consume to pump out the lettuce at such a rapid clip -- and there's no word on the quality or nutritional value of the lettuce either. I suppose it would cut down on delivery emissions, but not much more than using locally-sourced produce.
But at least Soylent Green won't be the only menu item in the dystopic urban wastelands of the future.
Not all of us own land for farming, but even urban dwellers can grow gardens and plants. There are more and more fantastic green living concepts being designed for people who want to try out their green thumb. Here are 15 fantastically futuristic plant growing design concepts.
The planter and fish tank work together to make your fish and your plant healthier. The system works by the fish poo acting as a moist fertilizer for the plant. The filter system helps to maintain neutral PH quality in the water for the fish while extending the watering period by about one week for the plant. One Pot, Two Lives was created by designers Sheng-Zhe Feng and Ling-Yuan Chou.
Urb Garden by Xavier Calluaud allows people who do not have space for traditional horizontal gardens to indulge in gardening. Vertical food gardens encourage urban dwellers to grow their own food. It comes with a self-contained drip watering system, keeping the plants hydrated. It was also designed for organic recycling to act as plant fertilization.
Designer Luis Luna created this green computer concept design called “O.” The project was inspired by the oxygen and the photosynthesis cycle, trying to reduce the amount of CO2 that computers generate. This CPU is both decorative and meant to encourage a green thinking lifestyle for computer users.
Designer La Chanh Nguyen came up with both of these green living concepts. The Kitchen Garden basically grows over the pot holding kitchen utensil and provides a vertical garden. The chef can cut some fresh aromatic herbs as needed. How about a moss bathmat? Moss Carpet utilizes the humidity of the bathroom as well as water dripping off a person to stay watered. It would also provide a very different feeling under your feet than most people experience when stepping out of the shower or tub.
Having plants in the office is not a new idea, but designers Jinsun and Seonkeum Park have a couple of plant growing concepts that you have doubtfully seen in the office yet. For those of you trapped in the dreaded cubicle, perhaps office life would seem a bit less bleak with a Breathing Partition? They claim it will bring an ever-lasting oasis to an otherwise dull and dreary office environment. Not for you? Then how about a grass foot rest to allow a feeling of nature under your bare feet?
Le Petit Prince
Le Petit Prince was designed by Martin Miklica and was one of the 2009 Electrolux Design Lab Competition winners. This intelligent robotic greenhouse concept was designed to help with future exploration and expanding population on Mars. The four-legged pod can carry and tend to a plant inside its glass container. It also can send wireless communication to other greenhouse robots, allowing them to learn from each other.
If you don’t have the farming land for a garden, surely you have enough space to hang a “picture?” Ecohabitare is a vertical garden designed by Daniele Adamo and Ravel Casela. Made from flat plates manufactured from recycled packages, this portable vertical garden takes 20 minutes a day to harvest and irrigate. The fertilized soil only needs changed once a year when you add new seeds. It requires about 9.8 feet or 3 meters of wall space and is best suitable for growing chives, parsley, tomato, basil, mint, bold, strawberry and rosemary.
This air conditioning curtain concept was designed by Laura Boffi. “Fresco Di Lana” is made from wool and meant to be kept wet via a water pump. The air-conditioning curtain could perhaps be considered swag except it also functions as a vertical garden. The wet wool filters hot air, cooling it as it enters the house. The wet wool provides pockets in which to grow your food, flowers, or plants indoors.
Designer Julien Bergignat created Evni, one of 58 projects that was shortlisted for the 2009 BraunPrize competition. Envi is a foresight urban dustbin, promoting composting from biodegradable waste. The concept design shows the benefits of urban recycling in which the waste turns into compost for the plant it carries.
Designer Hanna Sandström worked with Green Fortune & Whirlpool to come up with a refrigerator that will nurture a seed into a plant. It’s meant to grow herbs and organic greens that you might normally purchase. Although still in concept design stage, the system should automatically water and give light to the refrigerator garden. Not possible? Once upon a time, the same thing was said about ice spitting out the refrigerator door. Growing plants in your frig would give garden fresh a whole new meaning.
Designer FALTAZI came up with Ekokook, one of the coolest kitchen concept systems ever invented. You can watch the video below whether you understand French or not and see it in action. Ekokook does it all, from use and re-use of your solid waste, liquid waste, organic waste, oh…and cook too. It has a combo fridge/freezer, steam oven, and two-tier dishwasher. Non-smelly waste is placed into a bin and compacted into briquettes. The double sink collects water that is filtered to be reused on the plants hanging above it. Organic waste is taken care of by earthworms and then further recycled into food for indoor and outdoor plants.
Volksgarden is not a concept design but a reality of an effective hydroponic garden on wheels. It’s a ferris wheel ride for plants, growing up to 80 plants at once, taking 45-50 minutes to complete a rotation, spinning 24/7. The unit only takes up 1/3 of the floor space used by a conventional flat garden. Omega Garden Technology claims Volksgarden yields three to five times the comparable weight per watt average per harvest. This seems like a great way to grow your own food . . . or weed.
Philips design completed a project on how we might eat and source our food in 15-20 years from now. This Home Farming concept is a self-contained farm for growing plants and raising fish. This vertical garden is a step beyond those above as you would also be able to provide meat with your veggies. Below is a video of their design probe looking at the future of food.
Marijuana plants grow under hot lights and an irrigation system in the kitchen of a private residence
Carisa McCain / Mississippi Press / AP
California may be the center of the marijuana trade and the controversies over its legalization. But Florida has surpassed it in one important category: the Sunshine State is now the country's leader in indoor marijuana cultivation. It is a potent distinction because most of the marijuana grown this way is cultured hydroponically — that is, mostly without soil and with a carefully calibrated cocktail of chemicals and lighting — to create some of the highest level of highs on the market.
In 2006, Florida law enforcement here discovered 480 homes growing marijuana indoors. Last year, 1,022 grow houses were busted. "This isn't your grandma's marijuana," quipped a Miami-Dade narcotics officer at one bust as he tossed garbage bags stuffed with confiscated marijuana into an unmarked police truck. Levels of THC — the agent in marijuana that produces feelings of euphoria, and in some users mild hallucinations and paranoia — have risen dramatically because of indoor techniques. Thirty years ago, most marijuana contained about 7% THC. Today, indoor growers boast THC levels of 25% or higher thanks to the additional care that indoor plants receive. (See pictures of 4/20, the unofficial pot holiday.)
Indoors, high-powered lights that stimulate growth can remain on all day, their nourishing rays reflected off the metallic-coated paper covering walls. The chemical fertilizers used are just as powerful and nourishing, spawning fast-growing plants that produce more THC than those raised outdoors. (See pictures of America's cannabis culture.)
TIME accompanied undercover agents on a recent bust on a quiet street of a working-class Miami suburb. As soon as the agents enter the front door, they know they've acted on a good tip. The pungent smell of plant life fills the air. The ceiling of the master bedroom is a constellation of high-powered lightbulbs emitting a nourishing glow onto what officers estimate is more than 100 lb. of particularly potent marijuana plants with a street value upwards of $800,000. (See pictures of stoner cinema.)
While most of the marijuana is freshly cut and drying on a clothesline stretched across the room, pots of smaller plants still months away from maturing line the walls. An irrigation system supplies water and chemical fertilizers to the plants via a hose that runs into the adjacent bathroom, where the toxic brew used to accelerate plants' growth is dumped down a drain.
On the Florida market, a pound of indoor grown marijuana goes for upwards of $4,000. But in the Northeast, the best market for Florida growers, the same marijuana goes for about $8,000 a pound. Unlike their closest regional rivals, Florida growers can produce up to four crops annually.
"These operations are mushrooming all over the state of Florida," says State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle for Miami-Dade County, the de facto capital of the state's indoor pot industry. Taking these operations down is dangerous work. Some growers stockpile automatic weapons to protect themselves — and to fend off thieves who are after the valuable crop. (Watch TIME's video "Medical Marijuana Home Delivery.")
Miami Police Major Charles Nanney says informants played a crucial role in the success of a statewide crackdown in June that resulted in the seizure of 6,828 marijuana plants and 120 residential marijuana labs over the course of a few days. Among the best tipsters, they say, are electricians paid big money by growers to wire the sophisticated network of lights and air conditioners used to cool plants and subject them to round-the-clock illumination. The energy-chugging networks require an expert's touch to bypass the electric meter and tap straight into the grid. A sharp increase in electricity used to be a telltale sign of a grow house. Some growers have caught on, however, and are learning to mask their energy profile.
Money-laundering is an attendant crime. But so is trafficking in undocumented migrant workers. A single marijuana growing operation can consist of a dozen homes or more, requiring many hands to tend to the plants. And when arrests are made, those taken in are often neither the homeowner nor the person named on the lease. The actual operators usually elude capture. Still, workers are lured by the promise of a piece of the profits and rent-free living, sometimes raising children among the deadly high-voltage lights and other potential life-threatening apparatuses associated with indoor marijuana. (Read "Is Marijuana the Answer to California's Budget Woes?")
The state's real estate catastrophe contributes to the problem as well. Captain Joe Mendez from the South Florida High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), says operators flush with cash are attracted to the abundance of cheap homes in Florida, particularly in Miami-Dade, which leads the state in foreclosures. While Florida's legitimate economy continues to flail, the HIDTA captain says indoor marijuana is thriving even though law enforcement is arresting more people every year. Says Mendez: "If the economic downturn remains as it is, I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel."
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All you art collectors out there. Here is a chance to get a Giclee copy of some of Ian M Sherwin work. Ian is planning on doing a whole series of Marblehead, Massachusetts paintings. His work is amazing.
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