IFA 2024: These Home Garden Innovations Offer A High-Tech Twist

Tech lovers have descended on Berlin for IFA, touted as "The world's largest consumer and electronics show." The acronym stands for Innovation For All, and it's nice to know home gardeners have not been left out. We don't often think about gardens and houseplants being the focus of technological advancement, but IFA has proven that not only is general technology for all, but more brilliant, innovative concepts are becoming available to every kind of gardener: the houseplant enthusiast, high-rise dwellers, and anyone wanting to be more eco-friendly.

Among the garden-related products featured at IFA are Balconyfarm's Solo and Duo smart farms, products that fully live up to the brand's name by providing grow space for anyone, including those in the tallest buildings without outdoor space. Minigro incorporates smart technology while providing the perfect environment for a micro-farm. Among the favorites at this massive event is GEME, an electric composter that quickly turns food waste into compost without dealing with common issues, like trying to compost eggshells without attracting pests.

If you're a gardener at heart while living in an apartment without access to outdoor space, Balconyfarm may have a solution for you. This product received a "Best of IFA" award, and it's easy to see why. Shown here is the Duo option with two levels of grow space capable of growing 32 plants. Another option is the Solo, which is about half the size. According to Madisen Swenson, a writer for House Digest who attended this event, "This style of vertical gardening is meant to be inclusive even to those without any outdoor gardening space like a balcony or patio, particularly those in high rises in major cities. The plant identifying element of the app is also really appealing, since it can provide tailored care instructions that take this unique planter's abilities into consideration." 

While there have been products on the market that help make growing food more available to anyone, this innovative design is developed to fit within your existing windows. The Balconyfarm uses the sun's rays with supplemental lighting to grow food while improving your view by bringing a touch of nature indoors. And you certainly don't have to be an apartment dweller to benefit from this product. Anyone with a window can grow their own food without the annoyances of pests and common weeding mistakes.

The Minigro by Grovero also offers an opportunity for indoor gardeners to grow their own food, but the process is entirely different from the Balconyfarm. This product is essentially a self-contained micro-farm that provides the perfect environment to grow your own food. In fact, the Grovero website states you can plant "virtually anything that grows" in this compact space. You can purchase seeds from their website or use your own to experiment with new and exciting combinations. We think the idea of growing fresh herbs and edible flowers without encountering a single slug is pretty exciting!

Speaking of pretty, the Minigro is basically a work of living art and can be displayed as such –- you can literally hang it on the wall to watch your plants grow. After seeing this product in action, Madisen told us, "This is truly a mess-free, stress-free gardening product, not even requiring soil. Instead, seeds are germinated and rooted through a stainless steel mesh plate and fed water and water-soluble fertilizer in micro doses. This product is ideal for microgreens, sprouts, edible flowers, and herbs. Impressively, the plants shown here were grown in just eight days from seed germination to harvesting." A truly smart product, you can monitor everything in your Minigro from growing conditions to scheduling your harvest using your smartphone.

Whether you're growing plants in your windowsill or you have a large garden, the GEME Electric Composter can help you avoid the mess of making your own DIY compost the old fashioned way. Unlike outdoor compost bins, this "Best of IFA" award winner doesn't take weeks or months of turning and waiting for your organic matter to decompose before you can use it. According to Madisen, the turnaround time from scrap to soil is incredible. "I couldn't believe just how quickly the GEME creates real, usable soil. The demonstrator showed me potting soil in one of the machines that was made from his and his teammates lunch from the day previous. Traditional composting bins can take several months to produce anything even close to soil. This is great for anyone who wants to be green and practice sustainability but doesn't want composting to be their full time job. It also doesn't stink or leak like a lot of composting bins."

Not only does this product spare you the hassle of collecting and composting food scraps, but for those who don't currently compost, it keeps those items out of the landfill. The Public Interest Network states the gasses produced by decomposing food waste in landfills is responsible for up to a third of the changes we are seeing due to global warming. Quickly and tidily turning those scraps into useful food for plants sounds like a win for everyone.