Use an Algorithm to Print Out Your Next Garden

Between lab burgers, Soylent, and iPhone-controlled hydroponic greenhouses, it's an interesting moment for what its evangelists call foodtech (of course).

Most of the innovations are focused on concocting new kinds of food, though; nutrient blends, synthetic meats, and so forth. Innovative consumer technology actually designed to improve the growing of foods we've already got access too is still relatively scarce, which is why the Seedsheet caught my attention.

As per its name, it's essentially a seed-loaded sheet that prospective growers can fully customize online in a 'virtual garden' before ordering. Seedsheet HQ then prints the sheet to spec, and sends it to your doorstep. All you have to do then is prep the soil, lay the sheet in the dirt, and water away. The company claims the product eliminates the need for seed selection, planting—and for weeding.

Seedsheet the brainchild of a new Vermont-based company called Cloudfarm, and its Kickstarter crowdfunding effort launches today.

According to the company, users will access a "software program that provides users the ability to build their own virtual garden, based on a comprehensive algorithm that takes the guesswork out of gardening. Users input their existing garden dimensions, identify their plant hardiness zone via zip code, and then using a simple drag-drop interface, select which vegetables, fruits, and herbs they wish to grow and arrange them on their virtual garden."

Cameron MacKugler, Cloudfarm's founder and CEO, calls it "an agricultural paint-by-numbers."

"The idea came to me while I was 'house' sitting a couple of summers ago for a co-worker," MacKugler told me in an email. "Since this was Vermont, the house was an 80-acre dairy farm, and had a stable full of animals and a prolific garden. I was paid in access to the garden, and I got my monies worth. One day while harvesting I had a sort of 'AHA moment', when the realization hit me that I loved having access to such an abundance of produce, but being a recent college grad with no money, small apartment, and a busy schedule, I had no ability to grow my own. I wondered how I could simplify the process of gardening, so that anybody could grow their own delicious food."

Sound familiar? Shades of Soylent CEO Rob Rhinehart's origin story abound—but where Rob went for an engineered a meal replacement shake, Cameron envisioned an easier way to garden efficiently.

"The primary aim of the Seedsheet, and our company, is to make healthy food accessible for everyone," MacKugler said. "The Seedsheet is a value-add to people that already garden, as it is an innovation that will save time and improve upon the process that they already love. By incorporating a user-friendly software program, we make gardening approachable to millennials that would otherwise be intimidated by a 100-page seed catalog. By removing the barriers to entry of gardening, we strive to become the catalyst that converts Whole Foods shoppers into home gardeners."

Cloudfarm has already partnered with the National Gardening Association and Kidsgardening.org (pony up for a seedsheet on the Kickstarter, and they'll help you donate one to a school). MacKugler says he's already planning on teaming with more nonprofits that fight hunger, and that he'd like to "use pre-designed Seedsheets as long-term disaster relief aid."

Eventually, he wants to be able to sell the sheets not just to gardeners but organic farmers. "Our source material can come in a maximum size of 12'x250', so we aim to grow to a point where we can produce a field-sized Seedsheet that a farmer can simply unroll behind a tractor and have a weed-free farm planted in the matter of minutes, instead of days."

He also adds that the sheet "warms the soil for better early-season germination, stabilizes the soil and seeds to withstand erosion, removes the necessity of weeding, and reduces the amount of water needed," and "is a definite value-add over conventional gardening by saving time and increasing harvestable yields."

Finally, about that no-weeding bit. That's probably the peg that's most likely to hook avid gardeners:

"The Seedsheet is comprised of a weed-barrier fabric, with holes cut within it containing the user-selected seeds and a barrier of soil enveloped in a rapidly-composting Seed Disk," MacKugler said. "When watered the Seed Disk dissolves, and the seeds germinate through the openings in the weed-barrier. Because the weed-barrier is UV-resistant, it prevents weeds from getting the sunlight to photosynthesize and grow."

He says that the Seedsheet has been through a series of comprehensive tests, and claims that plants grow just as well as typical gardens. That remains to be seen, as the product hasn't yet hit the market. It's a fun idea, regardless, and one of the best efforts yet to imagine a way to combine design, tech, and food production at the consumer level.