Finally – An Innovative Underwater Garden That Grows Vegetables In Perfect Temperature

The world has definitely come a long way. Farming was oftentimes thought to just happen on fertile grounds where the soil was full of nutrients. While this may be true, technology has also come a long, long way.

No longer are gardens limited to open grasslands that lie on fertile soil. In fact, innovative planters are testing out their green thumbs elsewhere. In fact, imagine this – a garden found underwater! That’s one impressive feat that researchers have achieved.

Almendron

Planting food started from the ancient rice terraces of the Yunnan province. Then, farmers slowly learned the tricks of the trade and have shifted many of their methods to modern vertical hydroponics. Nowadays, the term agriculture has encompassed a variety of different forms of planting. In fact, a group of intelligent and hardworking Italian brainiacs have managed to create the world’s first underwater garden for terrestrial type of plants. That, in itself, is a wonder to behold.

Fact is, seaweed and kelp have been cultivated along shorelines for centuries now. With this thought in mind, these Italians have built small submersible glass domes where they’ve put in pots of basil, lettuce, tomatoes, and even zucchini flowers, green peas, aloe vera, and mushrooms. The greatest part is that these are all growing just as lush as the home gardens you’ve come to know.


The underwater marvel has been aptly named Nemo’s Garden and the project was launched by the Ocean Reef Group. This was their way to experiment with the diversity of food supply. They kept in mind the climactic changes that have happened in the past decade as several lands of Italy are considered too dry to farm on.

Nemo’s Garden contains large self-sustaining, totally-contained biospheres. The design was made to be scalable in theory. Perhaps, it might even look like the underwater city from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace if this continues to happen in the future.

Of course, there are inherent challenges that come with growing and cultivating plants underwater. Nature has designed them to be planted on actual soil. With research, experiment, and trial-and-error, that is one hurdle the garden successfully been able to overcome. The six air-filled greenhouses (or should they aptly be named bluehouses?) had actually been a victim to major storm damage in October 2019. It took them time to make the full repairs because the recent pandemic had all the researchers sheltering in place and staying home. Their movements were extremely limited for a time, thus, the delay.


Still, the team never gave up their research and kept hoping that the project would reach its completion, As Euronews reports, the months of abandonment did not affect the newly set-up facility in any way, which is what the time is extremely thankful for. Then, June 6th became the day that the garden became fully-operational once more. They even included their livestream where one interested audiences can watch the plants literally grow in real time.

The biospheres made sit eight meters under the surface off the coast of Noli in Liguria. It makes use of  solar energy for the very minimal electrical needs. They also use the evaporated seawater that condenses on the glass of the ceiling. The said condensation acts as water to the plants. Then, a diver swims under before going up into the air pocket of the pod. This is what he does when the plants are ready for harvesting and eating.

The project has a website that states how increased pressure like that found under the ocean is actually beneficial. This enhances the speed at which plants are able to germinate. Admittedly, very limited research has been made and published on the topic. This doesn’t come as a surprise too, because not too many people are interested in trying to grow strawberries and other fruits underneath the water’s surface.

In reality, the conditions created in this biosphere create a really intense flavor in the vegetables. That’s because it allows the plants’ environment to be completely controlled. Nothing impacts these such as pests and human activities. What the growers want is an unperturbed area where these life forms are allowed to thrive.

EuroNews

At this point in time, Nemo’s Garden is essentially a research lab. However, the researchers do jope to expand the idea, and when it becomes as success as what they hope it could be, it’s expected to be able to reinforce food security for the peninsula, and perhaps, even the world.

 

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