Gardening in bottle caps and spirally things

The idea in my last posting on ultra small space urban gardening was quite rightly criticised for its questionable practicality. Will these two ideas fare any better?


Priced at JPY 158 (about £1.20), the Merry Farming Kit includes a tablet of compressed, dry soil that’s just the right size to fit inside a standard plastic fizzy drinks bottle cap along with basil seeds for planting. Urban gardeners need only place the soil in a cap, moisten it, and plant the seeds, as specified in the accompanying directions. After that, all that’s left to do is wait for the seeds to germinate and grow up into full-sized plants.

I'm guessing this fun concept is going to appeal a lot more to the Japanese market and perhaps school kids over here,  but consumers interested in growing more substantial crops might be better off with the spirally Whirligro. Targeting those with limited growing space, this contraption uses spiral-shaped tubes to elevate food crops off the ground and enable greater production.

Designed primarily for fast-growing leaf crops, Whirligro uses durable, transportable growing tubes that can each hold three plants. Each Whirligro unit, in turn, holds 10 tubes spiralling around a central post, offering the combined ability to grow 30 plants in an area smaller than one meter by one meter. Plants grow through holes in the plastic tubing, reducing any weeding requirements to a bare minimum; because the plants are off the ground, meanwhile, pests tend not to be a problem, the device’s Scottish maker says. Watering can be done by hand or with a small drip irrigation system. Pricing for the Whirligro ranges from £55 to £40, depending on size.

Merry Shop website

Whirligro website