Innovations that enable city-dwellers to grow their own plants and food have been coming thick and fast over the past couple of years, with new ideas such as spiral-shaped growing environments helping to maximise the use of space. Now, DesignLibero’s Green Wheel provides a rotary garden compact enough to fit on an indoor shelf, with aesthetics to match. In order to allow astronauts to have access to fresh produce while on long space missions, NASA developed the rotary garden as a way to grow herbs and leaves without soil. Using the same technology, the Green Wheel is a relatively miniature version that can be housed indoors. While previous versions have been bulky and definitely look like a complicated piece of equipment, Italy-based DesignLibero has streamlined the aesthetics of the system so as to make it an attractive appliance for the home. The company aims to make the device an “iconic object” and thus has taken cues from the iPod with its plain white outer case, which hides the engine that rotates the plants, as well as a water reservoir and a pump which automatically irrigates the system. The organic matter gets its light from a strip in the center of the system as well as a ring around the outside. Users of the Green Wheel can also manage their gardening using their smartphones or tablet devices through an app which allows control of temperature and light levels and warns if water levels are low. Much like Urbio’s magnetic indoor gardens featured on these pages recently, the Green Wheel could be implemented in apartments, offices or other green-less city spaces to brighten up the environment or provide a way to grow food. As for food businesses in urban areas – could this cut down on outgoings and improve your environmental footprint?