Grove Labs: a Garden in Your Flat

Ooohh I can tell your curiosity is aroused by this title. I was also quite excited myself when I read about this start-up. What if I told you you could grow these at home?

Credits: Flickr

And when I say "home" I'm not talking about a house in the countryside, I'm talking about your little flat right in the center of a big city, with no balcony. What is she talking about? Don't worry I'm not smoking these plants I'm telling you you could grow at home! I'm simply amazed by Grove Labs, an American start-up, creating a living ecosystem in your home.

Two MIT students, best-friends and roommates, Jamie Byron and Gabe Blanchet, had a very interesting idea in 2009: create a new way of growing food, avoiding conventional agriculture, that could be implemented right inside people's home. It is called an 'aquaponic garden' and it "is a method of producing food by cultivating a rich ecosystem of fish, plants, and microbial life" (Grove's website). They built their first aquaponic garden in their own fraternity room, and within a month they harvested kale, beans, lettuce, and herbs. The fishes make a fertilizer for the plants and the plants filter the water clean for the fishes!

Since then, they learned how to successfully start their own business (e.g. by taking a summer start-up accelerator class at MIT) and how to brand it, hence the change of name from 'Bio Tower' to 'Grove Labs'.
After that, they got bigger and bigger, and there are now about 30 people in their team, including 'Business & Customer advisors' as well as 'Science & Tech advisors'. They are now prototyping and people can already order their own Grove Labs ecosystem as 'early adopters'. The company is starting with Boston and plans on developing across the USA, and later on, worldwide (let's hope so!).

Just imagine it: eating healthy vegetables and herbs that come directly from inside your flat, and improve the quality of air! Having home grown vegetables used to be the privilege of people owning houses and gardens or at least big balconies. And now this could set up a new deal, for potentially everyone in every country. However let's not get over-enthusiastic, if you have a 10 m² flat you won't be able to get a Grove Labs aquaponic garden, they're not doing any magic.

Here's a video that explains everything:

Further reading:
https://grovelabs.io/
https://grovelabs.io/our-story/
http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/18/7242771/grove-labs-wants-to-put-a-tiny-farm-in-your-kitchen/
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31593626/