Very sorry I have taken so very long to get back to this. I had to write a patent for the device and it just about killed me... Well it was not that bad. But the research in a super crowded field like this is brutal.
The system has evolved a lot since these pictures and I can certainly answer your questions.
You are correct, the urban gardening system are, for the most part, junk. Or they require a huge investment in pumps and tanks and chemicals, etc.
My aim? Quite broad!
The system is designed to be incredibly inexpensive to buy and to build. It's made from common plumbing materials available at any hardware store. It uses common glues to bond the plumbing fittings. The reason for that is to produce a device that can be repaired or replaced anywhere on the earth.
The system is designed to use PET soda and water bottles and to finally give them a reason for recycling. How much more green can it get then to have you water or soda bottles make your food? And those plastic bottles are available anywhere in the world too.
As to urban gardening, I have designed the system to be as easy to use indoors as it is outdoors. Water is fully maintained in the system, never leaves it and is never spilled onto the floor. As I write this, my experimental indoor system is sitting across from me, with beans and peas and corn growing in it. Its further got florescent
lights surrounding it too, but it is working. No water on the floor and its been growing things since before Christmas.
I further designed it to grow anything from cucumbers and squashes to peas and corn- and everything in between. So growers can experiment with vertical growing in small ways- without putting $100,000 or more into a system. I designed it to be used to replace a standard, two dimensional garden. No tilling, no weeding, no fencing and tending. And especially, no planting seeds in one system, transferring them to a another and then finally to the vertical system to finish.
Elderly, handicapped and children can garden now. Just fill with soil and water and then put your seeds in. Not much else to do until harvest.
I further designed the system with space travel in mind. The only way an Astronaut will make it to Mars is if they bring a farming system with them. Better yet, these can be shot ahead to Mars. They are incredibly light compared to all the "high tech" systems I have seen. Activate the system on Mars with water compressed from the atmosphere and you will know if we can farm there. Make changes, launch more experiments and make more changes until we have a system that can
feed Astronauts on Mars. Launch these ahead in a stasis mode, then activate them one at a time so the Astronauts KNOW there will be farms waiting on Mars. Crazy? NASA is getting ready to do just that.
And the final, and in my opinion, most important group I envision using these, are the truly poor of our plant. Think of the tent cities around Johannesburg. The abject poverty and dependency of such people. Imagine now they have several of these growing food. The excess can be sold, economy can begin to develop and the best parts of capitalism, as opposed to its worst, can be learned by these people. Imagine the diet changes once they have fresh food. Imagine health improvements. And imagine that when someone tries to use food as a weapon, they can hold out until hope arrives. The same applies for crop failures. Imagine these in every back yard in North Korea, in the poorest parts of China, India, Asia.
Intensely rugged and easy to repair, these will be passed down to children and grandchildren.
The system is far better than it was a year ago, when these pictures were taken. I am using a mix of large, medium and small bottles, depending on what is grown.
I honestly feel I was "gifted" with the knowledge, background and desire to build this. I am certainly not a worthy person, nor am I special, but I have been absolutely driven to develop this system to the point where anyone can garden, even busy working adults. If you have even a tiny patio, you can garden with this system. If you have a basement, an unused room or even just a corner where the Christmas tree goes, you have enough space to have fresh food.
Automation is being built. Imagine selecting your salad ingredients for dinner from your smartphone at work. Imagine the system turning on when plants are dry, turning off when they are wet. Imagine knowing the status of everything you planted, outside, inside or in a greenhouse.
Large operations don't need pumps and tanks and sprayers and emitters and tubing galore. Each system is self contained. No disease spread by a common water supply. And each grow bay can be lifted from the socket it sits in to harvest. Then just fill with dirt, attach it to the fitting and plant the seeds. You can keep going like that forever.
That's a pretty big vision! For those that can't do the Sepp System, this is a truly viable alternative to spending $10,000 on what amounts to a micro greens and maybe lettuce system. I hope to retail for $200 or less initially and a lot less once better manufacturing processes are in place. I plan on taking 10% of sales and setting up a microloan system for the poor of afflicted nations. We can't simply keep giving them food. That's a band aid approach, treating symptoms and not the disease. The disease is poverty. The problem is tyranny. The blight of
greed and the desire of power, even unto death, over these people. Their poverty is so crushing, they must sit and watch die child die because you can't feed him. Or imagine being so poor that your daughter goes blind because she did not get fresh carrots.
Charity is great and we need to feed starving people. But people who can feed themselves is better, far better than what we see now. And we can't just keep using water as we do. 4 gallons and a 2 foot circle- and you can grow 50 different plants with just one system. That's a big garden to most people!
JR
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