A garden in my apartment | Britta Riley

A garden in my apartment | Britta Riley

http://www.ted.com Britta Riley wanted to grow her own food (in her tiny apartment). So she and her friends developed a system for growing plants in discarded plastic bottles — researching, testing and tweaking the system using social media, trying many variations at once and quickly arriving at the optimal system. Call it distributed DIY. And the results? Delicious.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the “Sixth Sense” wearable tech, and “Lost” producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.

50 Comments

  1. Contemplandomicamino on April 19, 2022 at 6:12 pm

    Something happened to her – can someone tell me what exactly?



  2. Cesar Yoc on April 19, 2022 at 6:12 pm

    Energy intensive, where are the materials for maintaining this come from? Where is the energy to maintain this come from? Need natural processes that in itself can regulate and maintain itself.



  3. Health Mind & More on April 19, 2022 at 6:14 pm

    The site is dead. Please anyone got new links ?



  4. Satadal Chakraborty on April 19, 2022 at 6:14 pm

    soil less farming is not organic . You are using electricity (pump) to grow food.. ha ha ha..



  5. Karina S on April 19, 2022 at 6:15 pm

    One should not grow good in a plastic bottle. Toxic chemical leaks



  6. Lindsay S on April 19, 2022 at 6:15 pm

    Well isn’t this a sad story that had huge potential. I almost went home and started my own window farm wall.



  7. Trollika Devi on April 19, 2022 at 6:17 pm

    The art ofsaying little to nothing after talking a whole bunch



  8. Ben Bedard on April 19, 2022 at 6:17 pm

    I am extremely skeptical about all the energy being used to produce a weekly salad as being good for the environment.



  9. M J on April 19, 2022 at 6:22 pm

    SHE should spend less time focusing on gender so SHE can spread her ideas faster



  10. Diana Bernardellli on April 19, 2022 at 6:23 pm

    im so interested



  11. mo a on April 19, 2022 at 6:23 pm

    Great talk! Thank you



  12. Asan Emirsale on April 19, 2022 at 6:25 pm

    does it work?
    rndiy.org



  13. Sonu Chaurasiya on April 19, 2022 at 6:26 pm

    hy



  14. Dk Zëë on April 19, 2022 at 6:27 pm

    Great work i want to do this in my room



  15. Avitar Magnus on April 19, 2022 at 6:28 pm

    in the 1940 was tried failed in 50 failed in the 60 -70 failed you cannot eat enough form a little 10,000sqft windows you need mega structures equal to farm surface area so lets not kid ourselves !!!! food has to be cheap easy and fast!!! waste has to be converted and reused cheap and fast and only Gods worms that can fuckthemselves as dominant male hemaphrodites as no females are needed will be the survival next step!!!! nice to see kids getting dirty and not on their cells but windows alone won’t get it done!!!! solar wind farms with soil and clean will!! and that will never change for humans!!!! grow your little herbs in recycled plastic toxic coke bottles but thats as far as you go!!!!! BE REALISTIC volume is the key!



  16. TransHuman on April 19, 2022 at 6:31 pm

    I don’t have 800+ dollars to build an apartment garden because I’m poor from brutal capitalism and class warfare, so I guess I’m gonna have to leave it to the well off to save the world. Good thing they make up 1% of the population.



  17. A. T. Hawke on April 19, 2022 at 6:31 pm

    The rndiy.org website is gone.



  18. ZDan C on April 19, 2022 at 6:31 pm

    This is a Great idea to Start now!! during this pandemic/soon to be Great Depression. Stay strong NYC!



  19. Hydroponie maison on April 19, 2022 at 6:31 pm

    Hello how did you do for the automatic sprinkler system? I’m looking for everything and it doesn’t work for me. Watch my videos I have to fill every day … I become a slave … Thank you very much.



  20. Celo on April 19, 2022 at 6:33 pm

    What happened to rndiy.org ? it is not working anymore?



  21. Mamadaliev Kamil on April 19, 2022 at 6:33 pm

    Какой же сайт у них сейчас



  22. dianegarcia2469 on April 19, 2022 at 6:33 pm

    im down as long as i can grow some seeded grapes!!!



  23. HYDROCEMPLUNG BERKEBUN KREATIF on April 19, 2022 at 6:33 pm

    👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 I SUBSCRIBED



  24. Michael Jayson Banua on April 19, 2022 at 6:34 pm

    We plant vegetables in our yard a habit passed down by my grandmother. In our school and house we use empty plastic bottles and cans as pot.



  25. Michael Adamson on April 19, 2022 at 6:35 pm

    "she" whats with the feminist rhetoric….that ruins permaculture….i



  26. Sandya raju Raju on April 19, 2022 at 6:37 pm

    Nub



  27. DIY Rich on April 19, 2022 at 6:38 pm

    This is awesome ideas… another new things to do



  28. The Adhd Gardener on April 19, 2022 at 6:38 pm

    I think I’ll try the window farm hydroponics out .I already use leca



  29. Lisa on April 19, 2022 at 6:40 pm

    Didn’t this turn out to be a scam?



  30. tai_chi_88 88 on April 19, 2022 at 6:42 pm

    <3 <3 <3



  31. Mitali on April 19, 2022 at 6:43 pm

    The plastic can leech into food items…



  32. Shadowhand Media on April 19, 2022 at 6:44 pm

    ..who live in a pineapple under the sea



  33. Jungle Theme on April 19, 2022 at 6:45 pm

    Everybody knows that hydroponic weed is very very different from weed that is grown outside. I believe growing food hydroponically is a mistake. Plants need the actual sun. We need the actual sun.



  34. S C on April 19, 2022 at 6:46 pm

    I admit she made a powerful and persuasive speech, but it can’t interested me at all. You don’t need to pay such a high price to buy that system. The only advantage of her method is that you don’t need to do watering by yourself (I guess?) so even someone who know nothing about plant growing can be capable of growing vegetables.

    Getting a T5 LED plant light only cost US$9 in my city, with electricity bill less than US$0.5 a month if you turn on 10 hours a day. Pots and soil are very cheap as well. You don’t need to pay hundreds for a window farm. I live in an apartment with more than 30 plants, most of them in soil, where some in water. It’s an indoor herbal tea garden, enough to make tea every day for my mom and me.

    Many people hate using soil just because of the fear of bugs, but as long as you microwave your soil for 5 minutes all bugs will just die. And soak every new plant in detergent water and microwave the soil before putting it in your indoor garden. I grow those plants near my bed but within these 4 years, yet no bugs every climb on to my face haha.

    Knowing nothing about horticulture is no big deal. Go to Houseplant Journal or other IG plant blogs. Plant youtubers like James Prigioni and Nick Pileggi. Join a plant forum and get help. You can grow plants cheap and nice easily without that expensive system!



  35. PRANKz ON POINT on April 19, 2022 at 6:48 pm

    This is super exciting not only the money this can make but the family’s it can help feed



  36. caitlin forester on April 19, 2022 at 6:48 pm

    isnt she a con artist? why is ted promoting a scammer??



  37. chumleyok on April 19, 2022 at 6:52 pm

    Another person presenting a community enhancing idea when it was ultimately a lie and eventually a cash grab. A miniature Theranos. There’s a theme there I think…



  38. BotanicsTech on April 19, 2022 at 6:53 pm

    #OpenSource



  39. Ron Bowers on April 19, 2022 at 6:55 pm

    Michael Pollen is great



  40. CJG Studio on April 19, 2022 at 6:56 pm

    This person Britta Riley has appeared to have taken the money from the kickstarter and tried to make a career for herself elsewhere. He body language here was super commercial and not hippie love the earth positive vibes. Got cooperate bs all over this. What a shame.



  41. abhishekanshu1 on April 19, 2022 at 6:56 pm

    This serves the greater good. The people, the environment and the gardener. Truly utilitarian



  42. Michael Gfroerer on April 19, 2022 at 6:57 pm

    Amazing! The US government pays $25 BILLION in farming subsidies to non-organic farming. Time to make farming Earth-friendly and get everyone cooperating.



  43. Taiga Amf Corp. on April 19, 2022 at 6:57 pm

    This is golden. Thank you.



  44. kim warburton on April 19, 2022 at 7:00 pm

    exactly what ive been hunting for! i have idea to turn my apartment lounge into a mix of vertical window farming, inc on walls with LED lights, powered by gravity-fed hydro (archimedes screw/waterwheel, which also help transport n keep water flowing around my room, cleaning, oxygenating n filtering naturally for the fish which will fertilise the plants. im thinking to use bamboo ‘pipes’ as much as possible. 10 years ago, i asked to grow plants in the communal area n got denied (fire hazard -.-) i am concerned about condensation issues, but there’s ways to mitigate this apparently (not looked into it as yet, just enough to see info out there)



  45. Kalonji Edward Richardson on April 19, 2022 at 7:03 pm


  46. AwHailBree on April 19, 2022 at 7:03 pm

    i cant find any info on this but im going to try it with a water pump and solar power



  47. Stephanie Jordan on April 19, 2022 at 7:04 pm

    So peaceful so full of life.



  48. M k on April 19, 2022 at 7:07 pm

    I appreciate your idea



  49. Alan Solomon on April 19, 2022 at 7:08 pm

    Thanks for this video Britta. I have questions about aquaponics and starting something. I looked into contact rndiy.org but could not find an email or phone number. Can you possibly send me an email or a phone number of someone I can talk with about this please? I believe you have my email with my request? Thanks..



  50. Nic Andrews on April 19, 2022 at 7:10 pm

    This woman stuttered through the whole video, that’s usually the sign of a scammer.