Humanity is accelerating towards 3D high-rise living, while continuing to rely on a 2D landscape of conventional agriculture. Moreover, current vertical farming solutions often prove wasteful. To address these challenges, we need innovative, space-efficient solutions for growing food at home. Enter Garden Stack: a soil-based, modular vertical gardening system designed for home use that combines the ancient olla irrigation technique with modern technology. Garden Stack offers a healthy habit you'll actually want to keep. Simply fill it with water from the top, and you'll have fresh plants indoors year-round. Say goodbye to over- and under-watering.
Garden Stack achieves this by applying traditional olla irrigation to a modern vertical farm. Ollas have irrigated our crops for thousands of years, from China to Rome. They remain the most efficient mode of soil-irrigation to this day.
Despite the advantages, ollas are typically overlooked, as maintaining a field full of ollas can get pretty labour intensive. Also, they should be dug out of the ground before winter, as freezing temperatures can cause them to crack. But when applied to a vertical farm, the efficiency gains become clearer than ever. Irr igation becomes fully automatic, without the need for constant connectivity, and the application of modern materials makes it possible to avoid the problems associated with traditional ollas.
Garden Stack's modular design makes for easy shipping and storage, as well as easy assembly. We'll be manufacturing 100% from Europe, with 100% European machinery, 100% European materials and even 100% European software to design iterations of the device and its accessories. By relying on 3D printers for manufacture, we'll be able to oversee production and stick to our sustainability criteria, which revolve around: (1) durability, (2) recyclability, and (3) biodegradability. The details will be spelled out on our Kickstarter page, when it goes live.
Returning to existing vertical farming solutions: these are typically "hydroponic", implying a steep learning curve for home use, along with high energy inputs. Plentiful funding was available for commercial hydroponics vertical farms in the era of low interest rates and cheap energy. But the result have not been impressive, as these installations confront the reality of their energy-hungry methods. Because hydroponics eschews soil, the plants' roots are exposed and so must be kept in precision-controlled enclosures. By returning to a soil-based approach, not only is nutrition and flavour improved, but the plants' roots are protected as nature intended, providing ample wiggle room for temperature and nutrition fluctuations. In short, a soil-based approach is much better suited for a home environment.
