Gardening can be a labor-intensive endeavor, discouraging many casual wannabe gardeners from trying to grow any of their own food. A new product called Nourishmat aims to change that, making it easy for city dwellers and people with small yards to quickly and easily plan and plant a garden full of veggies in a simple grid system.
Nourishmat is a roll-out mat labeled with a grid for specific veggies. The pre-cut planting holes provide ideal spacing, eliminating guesswork among gardening novices, and blocking out weeds in between the plants. Even better, you don’t have to dig into the earth to plant. The mats are compatible with seed balls, which are little clusters of clay, compost, chili powder (to discourage birds and animals from eaten them) and GMO-free seedlings.
That means you can simply place the seed balls in each opening, and as the plants grow, their roots will reach down to dig into the ground. It doesn’t get much easier than that. Nourishmat measures 4×7 feet, so it’s compact enough to fit in community gardens and small yards, and it’s reusable, lasting three to five years.
Want one of your own? Check out Nourishmat’s Kickstarter project, which has five days to meet its funding goal. Pledge $55 or more and you’ll get your own Herbmat or Nourishmat, along with a kit of seed balls.

