Diver Creates World’s First Underwater Veggie Garden — Now It’s Full of Lettuce, Tomatoes and More

With the growing demand for food and agriculture, whilst trying to curtail the climate crisis, one person has enlightened the world with his innovation underwater. Sergio Gamberini, founder of a diving firm and a gardening enthusiast, combined both of his passions to create the world’s first underwater vegetable garden in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Italy, as reported by Messy Nessy. The innovation came in 2012 as a mere experimental biosphere to harvest simple vegetables like basil. Since then, the biosphere has grown into a full-fledged underwater greenhouse that has successfully grown more than a hundred plants. 

Nemo's Garden: A pioneer in underwater agriculture

Agriculture on land is undergoing a severe crisis, relating to water consumption, toxic chemical usage, and impact on the overall environment. Amidst all that, Gamberini’s underwater vegetable garden, called Nemo’s Garden, offers hope for the future of food production and agriculture farming. Veggies like tomatoes, strawberries, basil, and flowers grow in Nemo’s Garden, situated 20 feet deep in the Mediterranean Sea, and he takes pride in his mere experiment that can be a watershed moment in modern farming methods.

However, the garden is anything but simple and requires complex strategies to ensure the plants grow successfully. It is worth noting that the biosphere system is self-sustaining as the condensation on the inside walls from the evaporation of sea water becomes a source of freshwater. Their Instagram page, @nemos_garden_official, shares glimpses of the underwater wonder. Six plastic pods filled with air that can hold up to 2,000 liters of air are planted on the seabed. Divers can gain access to it only partially while the rest of their body is still in water. 

The sensors in the pods indicate the environmental factors like air temperature, carbon dioxide content, humidity, and oxygen. Moreover, divers can communicate with a shore Control Tower. At the center of Nemo’s Garden lies the Tree of Life, symbolic of evolution and “the strive for innovation and technological advancement” that looks optimistically towards the future. “Every year, we are discovering new possible applications for the biospheres,” said Gianni Fontanesi, the company’s project coordinator. 

First-of-its-kind lab

Nemo’s Garden has also enjoyed a transition from a network of underwater greenhouses to a unique pioneering laboratory that creates opportunities for eco-tourism and research. The plants growing within the biosphere are grown hydroponically, meaning they do not require soil but extract nutrients from a rich water solution. This kind of growth yields faster growth rates and higher yields in comparison to traditional soil-based agriculture, per the National Agriculture Library. The polymeric film that makes up the doms provides sunshine to the underwater plants while the increased pressure helps germinate the seeds, with an extra amount of essential oil content in it. 

Future prospects for Nemo's Garden

Pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies have shown interest in Nemo’s Garden. The University of Engineering in Genova is collaborating with the garden to study and research the thermodynamics inside the biospheres. This is essentially to discover ways in which agricultural farming can adopt alternative strategies to ease the dependence on industrial, traditional, and monoculture-based methods. Land agriculture uses up 70% of freshwater worldwide to cater to the demands of production. With Nemo’s Garden, farmers could potentially reap the benefits without using up water resources or using pesticides that harm pollinators and the quality of soil. An animated YouTube video by Ocean Reef Group explains how Nemo's Garden works.