Try growing plants below the sea’s surface.
The basil is under the sea, but it is not growing in seawater. Nemo’s Garden puts air-filled greenhouses beneath the surface off the Italian coast.
IT ItalyIn practice. An experimental underwater cultivation project off Noli, Italy, developed through successive submerged biospheres.
What to keep in view
The project demonstrates experimental cultivation, not cost-competitive food production at scale. Access, maintenance, marine conditions and environmental effects remain important constraints.
Use a different growing environment
Transparent biospheres anchored near Noli enclose air below the sea surface. Plants grow in hydroponic circuits inside them. Condensed water is collected, mixed with nutrients and recirculated. Shore infrastructure supports monitoring and power.
A greenhouse moves into a different environment and inherits a different set of constraints.
A prototype asks a practical question
Our reading: the project treats depth as a different growing environment rather than simply an obstacle. It is an arresting way to question where cultivation could happen. But that possibility comes with new work: underwater access, anchoring, maintenance and control of a pressurised environment.
Read next.
Put the growing room beside the energy source.
Both place cultivation in an unusual relationship with its surroundings. Compare an underwater experiment with production linked to geothermal infrastructure.
A working greenhouse becomes the dining room.
A growing environment becomes part of the idea. One tests underwater cultivation; the other lets visitors experience production through a meal.