Growing your own food or having your own garden while living in a city is no easy task. It requires extra time and extra money — and current indoor garden products are pricey and often don’t provide a ton of value.
Now, two graduates from the Rhode Island School of Design are trying to not only bring the indoor garden back into style for urban dwellers, but are also trying to make it practical, too.
Westen Johnson and Julie Joo have launched the company Soilless, which develops a hydroponic, indoor garden that can grow up to 30 plants, while only taking up the space of a windowsill.
"You are saving water and energy that goes into preserving food from the grocery store."
“We are targeting people in urban areas, where they have less space, less access to fresh food, are probably tighter on money and where it costs a lot to live in a city,” Johnson told Rhode Island Inno. “They just don’t have the time or the extra income to go out and buy their own fresh food.”
Currently, urban gardening is difficult for a few reasons.
It’s hard to grow food on a sunny balcony, and while there are indoor gardening systems, the cheapest start at around $800. You could also try a smaller desktop system, but those cost $100 and can only grow two or three plants.
Soilless’ system is priced at $100 and can grow up to 30 plants, and it’s only about half a foot by three feet in size, and only four feet tall. It’s not designed for larger items like tomatoes, but can grow everything else from herbs and lettuce to cucumbers and peppers.
Johnson came up with the design while in college, but didn’t start pursuing it seriously until his senior year after he took a business course on product design.
With the hydroponic-inspired design, Soilless uses 90 percent less water than growing plants in soil, can grow plants twice as fast and with less pest issues.
“You are saving water and energy that goes into preserving food from the grocery store,” said Johnson. “It allows you to live a little bit more sustainably.”
Johnson said Soilless uses a special manufacturing method, which is currently patent pending, that allows he and Joo to put together the product in an efficient and cost-effective way.
The two are currently putting together products by hand, but are working with a partner in downtown Providence to expedite the production process.
Soilless recently went through the Cleantech Open Accelerator and is now working to launch a beta version and collect more feedback. Johnson said the company will look to launch a Kickstarter campaign sometime next year. The company is also working with the One Planet Education Network to use Soilless systems to teach elementary students about STEM topics.
Johnson sees a big opportunity for the company, as 82% of U.S. households currently live in urban areas, a number that is projected to grow to 90% by 2050.
“It’s the area of the country where gardening is not very accessible,” he said. “It’s not very easy to grow your own food if you live in a city apartment. The goal is to combine these people that want to garden, want to grow their own food and that live in cities with the ability to do so through our product.”
