I firmly believe that we all need to do our bit to help the environment, this includes reducing food waste and food miles. I like to try to grow vegetables and salads in my kitchen garden in the summer but then, when it comes to the winter, all I have is a few sprouts, some kale and some parsnips. Then last month, I received as a birthday present from my Son a Click & Grow Smart Garden 9.
With this smart garden I can grow 100% organic herbs, salads and fruits such as tomatoes, strawberries, chillis, peas, peppers etc all year round, free from GMOs and pesticides and fresher than anything I can buy in the shops.
All you have to do is add water (it has an automatic watering system), add the plant pods and plug it in, it produces the perfect amount of light to ensure optimum plant growth, each plant pod contains all the nutrients the plant needs to thrive, 365 days a year. Anybody green fingered or not can successfully grow their own produce. All you have to do is keep the water topped up, it has a large reservoir with a float so when the float drops down you just top it up.
At the moment I am growing lettuce and have been picking leaves for a couple of weeks now, baby tomatoes, wild strawberries, coriander, parsley and basil. I am itching to get another garden so that I can grow even more types of herbs and salads.
When starting your smart garden, there is a companion app for your smart phone or tablet, here you can add your smart garden and add the plant pods as you add them, the app will give each plant a cute name, I have Ryan the green lettuce, Madison the yellow mini tomato, Abigail the wild strawberry and of course 6 others, when you click on each plant you are given details such as how long it takes for you seed pods to sprout, how long before you will be able to harvest it and other useful information. You receive notifications from your plants, telling you what to expect from the plant at that time eg Adam the basil sent me a notification telling me that I need to start trimming and using the leaves to promote more thriving growth.
Growing our own salads and herbs means that we are helping the environment, each year, more than one third of food produced in the world goes to waste, and that waste is responsible for 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions, growing your own even in such a small way can help prevent some of that waste. Things that have a particularly short shelf life are salads, herbs and soft fruits, generally they are sold in the shops in packets that often have more than we need, you may only need a sprig of a couple of different herbs but have to buy a whole packet of each, what happens to the remainder? It usually ends up in the bin! And how many times have you bought a bag of salad leaves, only to use half the bag and the next time you go to use the rest of it, it has all gone slimy and brown. Well with a smart garden you can just pick exactly what you need with no waste.
The other thing to remember is that those herbs and salads have been grown, very rarely anywhere locally, they are packaged usually in plastic much of which cannot be recycled, then transported often hundreds of miles and if grown abroad, thousands of miles, all contributing to our pollution problem and then half of it is generally thrown away after a week in the bottom of our fridges, as it has gone passed it's best. Official figures say 46% of all food waste is fruit and veg.
So growing your own means that you have less food waste, there is no use of throwaway plastic packaging and there are no food miles created AND they taste delicious. It is also a great way to get kids eating salads and fruits, they can really engage with the process of growing the food, watching when it sprouts, then as it grows and starts producing food they will get really excited and want to try what they have grown.
So all in all I highly recommend buying a smart garden, they come in various sizes, starting with a Smart garden 3, which grows just 3 plants, then a Smart garden 9 (grows 9 plants) and they go on up to 27's and wall gardens.
If you are interested in buying a smart garden for yourself, click on the link below for a 10% discount (discount will be entered automatically at checkout) OR enter discount code JACQUI10 if not using this link.
Click & Grow Store
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