“Necessity is the mother of invention.” This is the adage that two cousins came up with when they invented the ‘Vertical Gardening’ system that seeks to help city dwellers enhance food security. And although vertical gardening is not entirely a new concept, Fred Mwithiga and Fred Kimani started the business with the aim of handling farming in a ‘digital’ way.
“We came up with the idea of ‘let’s grow food without soil’ that’s what we call hydroponics. The reason why we like it is that we have grown up in a farm all our lives, but we wanted to come back to agriculture in a way that was relevant to ourselves and that was cool to us,” said Mwithiga, Co-founder of Vertical Gardens. The kick to boost this new venture was the Corona Virus pandemic, everyone was scampering for Organic foods and how best was it to grow the food in your own compound or balcony with limited space.
“We thought you know what, everyone is locked down. Most people became health conscious about where their food is coming from. This new concept helps you not deal with the burden of agriculture that comes with weeding, pest management, and watering as it is an automated system,” noted Mwithiga.
As at the end of 2021, they have so far sold 200 gardens which include vertical pouch garden, vertically stacked garden, vertical tower garden among others. The two cousins have tailored made the vertical gardens looking into the specification of the client.
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