new delhi from flower bulbs that promise to bloom into various colourful hyacinths and asiatic lilies among others to seedlings for seasonal vegetables and herbs the smart urban farming expo at thyagaraj stadium which came to a close on sunday offered a range of options that one can set up in their balconies or terraces with easevivek bhatt of citybased garden blossom said these are all outdoor plants and all that one has to do is to take any bulb and plant them there are some imported bulbs as well and they can be grown in pots anywhere some of them are more conducive to hilly areas because of the weather but because delhi has extreme climates the plants do well here toothe twoday expo also offered some solutions for those who are inclined to use homegrown vegetables for their saladsavailable in three layered kits tanks are also attached to them providing a constant source of nutrients and one can grow anything from lettuce and spinach to coriander all indoorstanisht chaturvedi an agronomist from barton breeze said there is a water channel attached to the kit as well apart from glowing lights which can help the plants to grow light is required for the plants to grow vertically instead of worrying about whether the vegetables have been grown next to a polluted yamuna or some other unhygienic place one can now grow their own vegetables at home itselfchaturvedi added that separate kits for bell peppers and tomatoes could also be procured by those interested those kits would however be for the outdoors he saidadding to the urban farming phenomena which is growing increasingly popular these days unique water conserving planters were also on display at the expo developed by karnalbased nitin lalit founder of alpha planters these have been made out of recycled caps of bisleri bottles and milk pouchesusually water is not used judiciously as people end up watering plants multiple times a day to save carbon footprint we developed these planters which are 40 recycled and we are now working to make it 80 recycled these planters are completely water conserving and the maintenance needed is almost nil the amount of water required also reduces as the base stores the nutrientfilled water lalit explainedstating that the aim was to move beyond the idea of squarefoot gardening lalit added we are aiming for squareinch gardening the sets developed by us can be used to grow vegetables on the terrace balcony or to develop kitchen gardens it can be done anywhere and one can set it up within five minuteswatch grow at home these diy hydroponic kits are gateway to indoorfarming