There's no end in sight to the gardening innovations popping up each week all around the globe. The latest spotting? SproutRobot, a San Diego-based web service that offers regionally optimized gardening plans and sends seeds when it's time to plant.

Aspiring gardeners begin by telling SproutRobot their ZIP code, and the site generates a personalized planting calendar for that area based on historical weather data. From there, users choose whether they want to buy their own seeds and simply receive planting reminders from the site—that service is free—or whether they want to receive certified organic heirloom seeds and instructions whenever it's time to plant. Pricing on the latter option ranges from USD 19.99 per year for a “Patio Garden” service including up to three varieties and a few small harvests per year to USD 59.99 per year for the “Family Garden” service with up to 10 varieties and veggies several times each week for a family. Whichever paid option they choose, SproutRobot then asks them to select which fruits and/or vegetables they want to grow. Once those choices are made, SproutRobot hand-checks the user's planting calendar and sends out the right seeds at just the right time.

Now in beta, SproutRobot currently serves only U.S. users, but it's aiming to expand, according to one of the company's recent tweets. One to partner with or emulate for aspiring gardeners in other parts of the world? (Related: Gardens for rent by the season, with vegetables pre-planted — Remote-controlled farming for city dwellers — Homegrown vegetables, no green thumb needed — More homegrown veggies without the sweat — Five new business ideas for urban gardening — Matching would-be vegetable gardeners with arable land.)

Website:www.sproutrobot.com
Contact: info@sproutrobot.com

Spotted by: R. Steinberg

More than half of humanity now lives in cities, according to the United Nations Population Fund. This rapid and ongoing change presents a raft of new challenges, many of which create opportunities for resourceful entrepreneurs. Here are five concepts that target consumers' increasing interest in growing their own food in the city:

1. REEL GARDENING — Simplifying the process of starting a domestic garden, South Africa's Reel Gardening provides a strip of biodegradable paper carrying correctly spaced, pre-fertilised seeds. The strips are colour coded (e.g. red for tomatoes, purple for beetroot) and carry instructions for how deep they should be planted in your soil. Just add water!

2. THE WIKI GARDEN — Urban gardeners who haven't even got a bed of soil may be interested in the Wiki Garden from Hawaii. It's a metre-long "growing medium" (i.e. sack) containing compost, worm castings, bat guano and more, plus a built-in irrigation system with a hose attachment. The bags can be connected, allowing for an easily scalable system.

3. CLICK AND GROW — Another alternative is to do without soil at all. Estonia's Click and Grow is a hi-tech growing system deploying aeroponics: the plant's lower stem and roots are contained in an air or mist environment, regulated by sensors and electronics to ensure the plant is fed and watered correctly. The pots even feature a USB port to upload new growing instructions.

4. WINDOWFARMS — Rather than selling a particular product, the Window Farms project in New York promotes the production of hydroponic food gardens in homes and offices, using recycled or locally-sourced materials. The founders aim to build a community to share ideas and engender a DIY approach to solving environmental problems.

5. OOOOBY — Based in New Zealand, Ooooby, short for Out Of Our Own Back Yard, is a social networking community dedicated to connecting local food producers and consumers for trade, networking, and sharing ideas. Ooooby also organises stalls at farmers' markets and other locations through which people can buy, sell and barter local produce and small-scale farming supplies.

Spotters: Catherine Corry, Liz Stone, Kristoff Everaerts, Louisa Redshaw

When we wrote about the Evening Breeze bed almost a year ago, it was sold as an integrated four-poster unit with built-in sustainable cooling. Aiming to give buyers more flexibility, Evening Breeze now offers a stand-alone canopy that can be used to cool any bed.

Launched last fall, the Evening Breeze Canopi features an integrated ventilation system that gently directs sustainably cooled air over any bed without any noise or draft. As with the Evening Breeze original, the Canopi's climate system uses the environmentally friendly R-410A refrigerant; it also uses at least 60 percent less energy than traditional air conditioning systems. Not only that, but a room's windows can even be left open for freshness since the cooling is focused so directly on the sleeper.

Whereas the Evening Breeze original was aimed primarily at tropical hoteliers, the Canopi is available to consumers as well through select retailers in the Netherlands Antilles, Belgium and the Netherlands. Pricing is (a rather steep) EUR 3,599, including installation. Hoteliers and retailers alike: time to help cool off green-minded consumers in your part of the overheated world...?

Website: www.evening-breeze.com
Contact: info@evening-breeze.com

This post is sponsored by PG&E (the Pacific Gas and Electric Company) as part of their wider focus on fighting climate change. As always, Springwise is adamant about maintaining editorial objectivity—PG&E asked us to write about energy conservation, but had no further involvement in the content of this or other posts.

Check out PG&E's We Can Do This website for more, including a feature on the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., a sustainable brewery.

We've seen myriad sites recently that aim to help neighbours connect, whether targeting tenants and landlords, office workers in the same vicinity, or community members with stuff to share. Now, UK-based Yourshack offers leasing and house-share services with a focus on community socialization.

Yourshack aims to help people in its community find the right property, give them the option to share, and offer the chance to join a vibrant social scene in and around Manchester. With a track record that includes managing more than 1,000 tenancies over the past 12 years, Yourshack is well-equipped to help clients find the best properties in the Manchester city centre for rent or share. More interesting, though, are Yourshack's social efforts, including a free social membership program for clients, city discounts, a regular events guide and a rapidly growing Facebook group. Parties, activities and adventure weekends are all part of what Yourshack offers its tenants along with discounts throughout the city of Manchester via the Yourshack City Card. The result, according to the company, is to enable landlords to differentiate their properties, helping to fill them more quickly, reduce the need for price bargaining and encourage the likelihood of extended rental periods.

Website: www.yourshack.co.uk
Contact: www.yourshack.co.uk/contact.php

Composting may be the right thing to do for the environment, but it can be hard to get around the smell and the mess—particularly for urbanites without expansive yards. Much like the Daily Dump in India—which, by the way, looks to be thriving since our 2007 coverage—Compost Cab is a new service about to launch in Washington, DC, that can be called upon to handle all the dirty details.

DC-area consumers begin by signing up online. Once it launches, Compost Cab will then provide them with a standardized bin equipped with a sturdy, compostable bag liner. Each day clients will fill the bin with their organic material, and once a week—on a reliable, fuel-efficient schedule—Compost Cab will pick up the bag, leaving behind only a clean bin with a new liner. The cost is simply USD 8 per week per bin; no long-term commitments are required. Compost Cab's primary composting partner is Engaged Community Offshoots (ECO), a seed-stage urban farm in College Park, Md., that uses finished compost to grow natural, nutritious food for local kids.

At least as interesting is that clients who have been with Compost Cab for nine months or longer can claim some finished soil in return. Specifically, for every 50 pounds of organics the company collects from them, they can receive five pounds of fresh compost and one pound of worm castings in exchange. Those who choose not to claim their share, meanwhile, can ask Compost Cab to donate it on their behalf to ECO. Compost Cab is a production of Agricity LLC, a Washington, DC-based company focused on sustainability.

The average American family produces more than 500 pounds of leftover organic material every year; composting not only keeps that waste out of methane-generating landfills, it also produces nutrient-rich, fertile, natural soil. Looks like another win-win-win—for eco-minded consumers, the environment, and companies like Compost Cab that make it all happen. Time to make some of that eco-bounty your own...? (Related: Indoor composting made easy — Garbage into gold, via worm poop.)

Website: www.compostcab.com
Contact: info@compostcab.com

Spotted by: Candice J.