Hi, I'm Paulina Grabowska
I'm a designer of innovation in the field of sustainable development.
Today, I won't only talk about urban farming, but I will show you how to build
your very own farm, no matter how big is your apartment or office.
OK, first farm we are going to build is a micro garden and we will grow here,
microgreens. Microgreens are the veggies or herbs that are from 2 to 8 centimetres
high and they have at least one or two leaves. In order to build it
we'll need a cultery tray,
I'm using one from IKEA.
You can use actually any container
just to make sure it's safe to use with food
and you didn't have any chemicals before in it because plastic is quite porous
and the substances will usually staying in there. In order to start it
we'll need two boxes,
I used one from IKEA cutlery tray,
both of them with two compartments here we'll
make the garden and here we'll make place for water.
In order to make a bedding, for our micro garden.
I use the kitchen cloth, but basically you can use any cotton cloth you have.
Even an old t-shirt to reduce less
waste. You have to fit it inside and cut it into two straight pieces.
I have my pieces of cloth already prepared.
I will show you how it looks like.
We put it that way,
so the water that we pour here in the small compartment,
thanks to the cloth, we will be transferred to our micro garden.
OK,
so first we will make
the cloth a bit wet.
First, I choose mung because here will be quite
watery here, it will be more water than anywhere else.
So.
So I put I put already seeds inside of my
micro garden and we have here mung bean,
rhubarb chard, carrot and three types of salads and carrot.
And for now, we'll just have to sprinkle a bit of water
before we'll close it for at least two days.
For the first days since they don't need sunlight when they will start to sprout.
You can uncover them and move them close to the close to the
window.
When the sprouts appear, we can start to add water here
because the plant will need much more water than now.
And if we have too much water here,
we have to pay attention, then we won't add water here.
So that's all.
This all you have to do in order to start your micro garden.
So in order to harvest it, it will take from one week to 20 days.
It depends from the seeds.
And what is really important about micro gardening is that the microgreens
are up to nine times more nutritious than the grown up plants with the same mass.
So we have here so much good stuff and we can have it
in a really, really small garden on our window.
OK, so we've built our small micro garden
and it's behind me, and now we are upgrading our farming skills and we'll build
something bigger and it's way cooler and it's an aeroponic farm.
And in order to build it,
you I use a SORTERA box, which has a nice thing (lid) here.
So then you can use it, you can see your roots there.
Aeroponic means that we will grow things in mist.
And you need this
mist diffuser.
You can buy in a shop,
or via the Internet.
Clay pebbles, plants that we want to seed, hole driller.
And what else; we will work now with a lot of water.
And we need a pH minus solution because we
have to check the pH of our water before we'll start to use our farm.
And we will need also fertiliser,
and I use compost tea.
And in order to build this farm, for sure you will need the help of a friend.
So I'll invite my friend.
And it's Magda. Hello, I'm Magda.
So as I said before, we will make an aeroponic farm.
Yep. Yeah.
It means
that inside, we will put inside water of around eight litres and inside we will put
this fog diffuser, this machine will vibrate and create a mist with nutrients
because we will have added some of the fertiliser before.
So we have our hole driller, it's ready here.
(okay Magda please keep it) and we will have to make six holes in it.
And we have a basket that are around
around 8cm
here in diameter and 9cm in total,
and it has to be around 8cm in diameter in order to fit our thing (basket) there.
And you have to
put six of them here.
I already marked the places where they should be.
It's around 6cm to 8cm in between.
We drilled six holes
and it can be a bit of a mess, like we can see.
but before we will clean it up completely,
we have to make sure that the rounds are
made really nicely, and we'll need this (file tool) in order to make it.
so the container is almost ready.
We will have to drill one more hole
with our machine here,
but we'll just do it here. In order to put the mist diffuser inside of it.
So we have six baskets,
we have one.
We have here several herbs and we will use already grown up herbs.
So you will see how it looks like
when you have a bigger farm, bigger herbs or veggies. (we will need this one)
and the rockwool.
Before we use the rockwool, we'll have to put it in water
in order for it to be soaked in it.
So we need to make bigger holes for the roots to come out from here.
So we'll use scissors and you have to make holes in each 6 of the baskets.
Let's try them on. They fit perfectly!
I have to show you.
And now; what do we do?
We have the soaked rockwool,
which is divided in half because we have to fit our plant in it.
Just do it that way.
This is important in order to keep/hold our plant in it
and now what we have to do, we have to put it inside.
but the roots of the plant,
they have to go through this hole that Madga did.
Just a while ago.
(great)
And we also use the clay pebbles in order to
stabilise it more. Together with the wool, it keeps in the moisture of the plant.
OK, cool.
We have our first plant
(great)
We have to do it with six more plants.
OK, we have our garden almost ready.
We've put in oregano, mint and szalwia (sage).
Done together with Magda.
Now I will show you how to prepare water with fertiliser and how it should be.
So here, I already put around 6 litres of water in it.
I left it overnight
Because it is important to be low on our medium (water)
We will check the pH of our water.
So in order to do it, we will need a test.
We can buy them in aquarium shops
(so yes, can you keep it)
That's our water and we will just.
(here)
Okay, and now we can see
It is...
Okay, it's high, its 8
According to the scale
So we have to decrease the pH of the water
In order to do so you can buy, also in the plant shops
a pH minus. I already scaled (measured) the amount of it that I need.
So I will just add it to the water.
and mix it.
So now we have water that's between 5.5 and 6.5 pH.
So it's perfect!
I prefer to use organic things,
and the compost tea
is really good, also for aeroponics
So, for 6 litres of water you will need something around 200-300 ml
of varying compost tea
just pour it inside.
and the last thing we are doing
for our farm in order to grow
is to mount the diffuser
just put it inside
one part
and then (can you keep it)
(yes, sure)
(great)
(there we go)
here
and now we have to connect it
and then inside
the mist diffuser and already the mist is creating.
Basically that's it.
You have your own indoor aeroponic farm
And whats really, really cool about aeroponic systems,
s that it uses even less than 5% of water compared to traditional farming techniques in soil.
and also you can grow here potatoes, carrots
and all of the things, and all of the veggies, that are impossible to grow in any other hydroponic systems
So we have it
and now what we have to do it set our farm somewhere near to a window
where it has the right light conditions
and the system can run all the time
actually it uses not so much electricity
Okay guys, so we have here
2 of our farms. The micro gardens
It's here
See you in a few days!
and aeroponic farming
with the mist.
So you don't need so much space
actually to become a farmer
just a few boxes
plants that you like, to have, and to grow
and, that's all actually.
you can already be a farmer!
On your own.