Grow A High Tech Vegetable Garden Right In Your Kitchen

Back in 2010, I wrote an article about a new technology that would allow vegetables to grow in a vending machine contraption without any sunlight. It was an awkward technology in its infancy at the time. The machine could produce lettuce (60 heads per day) which it zapped with 40 watt fluorescent lighting. At that time, the machine was available to restaurants to purchase for $90,000 (gulp). The craziest thing was that even though these machines were for sale, there was no word yet about the “nutritional value” of the lettuce that was produced from them. It was a like high tech vegetable garden that could only make lettuce.

Fast forward to 2013, and I just read today that at about that same time (2010), Hyundai decided to take this technology and run with it. They started working on a design for a much healthier, much more diverse and much better machine for people to put in their homes to grow a high tech vegetable garden right in their kitchens. It’s called a Nano Garden, and it’s a compact machine utilizing hydroponics and built in LED lighting. Hydroponics is the process in which plants are grown using a mineral nutrient solution instead of soil.

The Nano Garden would be equipped with sensors to alert you if you need to water your plants or if they need more nutrients. The plants would also act as a natural air purifier. Unlike its predecessor, this vegetable garden would be able to grow more than just lettuce, so you wouldn’t have to wait until certain vegetables were in season to grow and eat them. The vegetables grown in this indoor garden would be truly organic since they would be free from fertilizers and pesticides. Now for the sad part – This dream vegetable garden is not available yet (boo-hoo). Hopefully someday soon…