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An Underground Farm Delivering Rare Herbs to New York’s Top Chefs
- arciini 9y agoThis reflects my experience of growing 1-2 herbs at home. It requires little space and you usually only use a tiny amount. Most of all, it's tastier and cheaper over time than the dried stuff. If there were a simple-to-maintain herb garden hydroponics set, I'd totally be interested!
- IntronExon 9y agoI grow basil when the temp is right, and its remarkable just how good it is. I agree with your takeaway about a hydro set too.
- pavel_lishin 9y agoOur basil always ends up wilting - I almost suspect that we're not eating it fast enough.
- IntronExon 9y agoIt does wilt in a hurry, and that's been sn issue for me too. If I'm making pesto though, it can go surprisingly quickly.
- LifeofPi314 9y agoI have a 9 pod aerogarden, It's beautiful, have had it for 45 days. All 9 pods have plans coming out now and love growing basil at home - Doesn't take space, Auto controlled Minimal maintenance
- sizimon 9y agoAerogarden makes a dead simple, self contained 3 herb hydroponics set complete with reservoir and light. You basically just plug it in and eat herbs in a couple weeks. I've been using one for a couple years to grow basil and some other stuff, and I really like it. Not sure if linking to products on HN is discouraged, but should be easy to find with a quick search.
- module0000 9y agoAnother plug for Aerogarden - along with the obvious output, it's been a terrible lot of fun for me.
- subpixel 9y agoAs cool as the operations part of this is, I can't help wishing they were growing food that mattered on scale to make a difference. Lowering the carbon footprint of putting expensive garnishes on the plates of the 1% is a start, I guess.
- plusbryan 9y agoIsn’t this the same ideology of Tesla? Innovate your product via the dollars of wealthy early adopters; as cost declines, widen your reach.
- bobthepanda 9y agoThis is how most technology started out - electricity, cars, jets, trains, refrigerators, air conditioning etc. Very few technologies have been created by targeting poor or middle-class people first.
- neaden 9y agoLow calorie stuff like herbs or lettuce are essentially the only plants that are practical to grow indoors at scale like this. Which makes perfect sense when you think about it but unfortunately means it will be very difficult to try to scale up to providing 2000 calories to a person, let alone the amount of plant matter chickens and cattle take. Edit: To clarify what I'm getting at here is the fairly linear relationship between how much artificial light is input and calories output. If your indoor farm is getting natural light, such as a greenhouse, then things are different.
- Kalium 9y agoYou're right! They could absolutely be growing food that matters on a scale to make a difference! There is the minor potential issue that doing so might be cost-prohibitive for all but the wealthiest. And also the minor consideration of what you might do to poor farmers in poorer countries by taking away their access to rich, first-world markets.
- xbmcuser 9y ago
- Alex3917 9y agoGiven that wood sorrel grows wild in every NYC park, I'm failing to see what exactly is rare about it.
- Balero 9y agowell this one probably doesn't have dog pee on it
- IntronExon 9y agoOr copious car exhaust...
- goldenkey 9y agoDon't you know? It adds to the flavor. NYC pizza is the best because of the delectable italian sweet-palm-sweat mixed with copious amounts of soot-smog-smoked flavor. You just can't get that kind of cuisine where the air is clarified. I mean, who likes clarified anyways? Clarified butter? Please!! Your ingredients have to marinate, what better way than mixing with the NYC's gastronomous gas molecules?
- unobtaniumstool 9y agoThis is awfully well-timed to coincide with their current campaign to crowdfund investments. It's a cool idea, but their focus on expensive restaurants means it's not going to scale well. Also, growing basil on a shelf is a pretty straightforward process, and they have no particular technological advantage over any other company that wants to move in and do the same thing.
- bearforcenine 9y agoI've been digging into growing some greens, peppers, or other vegetables for fun. Playing with lights, pumps, and controllers seems pretty fun. As far as I know Farm.one is using some Fluence Bioengineering LEDs for grow lights: https://fluence.science/innovator-spotlight/farm-one/ https://fluence.science/innovator-spotlight/farm-one/ However, in the article it looks like they might be using strips of COB leds? Anyone have any thoughts or resources for doing this sorts of stuff?
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoThere's a subreddit: /r/hands_on_complexity which is the absolute best source of real, actual information on lighting for plants that I've found.
- bearforcenine 9y agoAwesome. Thanks for that! I was initialy put off the by the several year old posts, but it looks like SAG has been updating them throughout the years. https://www.reddit.com/r/HandsOnComplexity/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HandsOnComplexity/
- icantgoogle 9y agoAnother company is doing something similar, but using shipping containers to create these farms. Heard they're still in their early days though, https://www.localrootsfarms.com/ https://www.localrootsfarms.com/
- git-pull 9y agoIf you liked this, Ian Purkayastha is worth a read, all about sourcing exotic foods (truffles, caviar, etc) to top chefs. Munchies episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sJ6IJZJhUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sJ6IJZJhUU https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-a-texas-teen-ager-became-new-york-citys-premier-truffle-dealer https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-a-texas-teen... The name of his business is "Regalis Foods": http://www.regalisfoods.com/welcome http://www.regalisfoods.com/welcome