Micro Gardens: A Way To Feed Kids Nutritous Fresh Food In The city

How many kids in your city have ever eaten a fresh carrot?

If low cost micro gardens can supply fresh food for these kids in Ecuador, why aren't we feeding kids in New York City the same way? It would definitely help fight childhood obesity and diabetes.

The South American Regional Office of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization calls it "simplified hydroponics" but it is more widely known in the FAO as "micro gardening".

Guess what! It's really sub-irrigated planter (SIP) gardening, also known erroneously in the U.S. as "self-watering”.  Bret Harte school kids experienced the benefits when they visited the Smart Home at the Museum of Science and Technology in Chicago.

Incidentally, someone can correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that there would not be EarthBoxes at the Smart Home but for the intervention of The Growing Connection, a branch of the UN FAO. These EarthBox SIPs were not originally included in the Smart Home design. As an afterthought they parked them on the entrance steps to the museum. There are now EarthBoxes on the upper deck of the Smart Home which is where they should have been when it opened two years ago.