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Two Kickstarter Projects Worth A Look

By Andrew

Nov 15, 2012

I know it’s been a little quiet around here since October Unprocessed wrapped up – it’s taking me a while to catch up on both work and life stuff after the massive workload of last month. Not to worry, though, I’m slowly crawling my way out from under my inbox, and will be doing my best to post more frequently again. Yay!

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Have you heard of Kickstarter?  It’s a website that lets people pitch their projects — and their requests for starter funding — and people just like you can contribute. There’s a wonderful range of ideas on the site, and I find it incredibly soul-satisfying to see the sheer breadth and depth of human ingenuity and optimism. It’s great to see that entrepreneurship and invention is alive and well!

I’ve recently come across two projects about growing food that I think are worthy of support. I’m backing both of these, and hope you’ll consider doing so as well.

The Home Aquaponics Garden Kit

A couple of days ago I received an email from my friend Nikhil Arora, one of the founders of Back To the Roots. They make terrific DIY Mushroom Kits from used coffee grounds. Longtime readers will know that I’m a fan – I’ve even toured their urban mushroom farm!

Nikhil told me about a new project that they’re working on to encourage people to grow their own food at home: They’re developing a countertop aquaponics system, complete with self-cleaning fish tank and integrated trays to grow plants right on top.

This would be a wonderful addition to any home/kitchen (hello, herb garden!) – and I would think it would be especially great for kids. Imagine if every elementary school classroom had one of these?

Home Aquaponics Garden: Self Cleaning Fish Tank + Fresh Food.

The Garden School Foundation’s Curriculum

The other project I came across recently is for the Garden School Foundation, a garden-based elementary school education curriculum. They’ve developed their program over the past seven years in Los Angeles, and now they need additional financial help to turn what they’ve learned into a book that can be shared with other schools.

One thing I’ve noticed over and over again in the “good food movement” is that people seems to be reinventing the wheel all-too-often. I love that the Garden School Foundation wants to take what they’ve learned and share their knowledge to make it easier and more accessible for others.

I believe that we should have teaching gardens in every school, and this project sure looks like a terrific step in that direction. It gets my enthusiastic support!

The Garden School Foundation’s Kickstarter Project.