This spring, I’m experimenting with new ways of germinating tomato seeds. I’ve had my thinking cap on all winter, brainstorming ways to ensure a bounty of fruit despite my garden being less than ideal for the purpose. After much tinkering with the concept, I believe I’ve landed on a solution that may just be crazy enough to work.
I don’t want to give everything away – if this idea proves effective, I could have monetisable product on my hands. Suffice it to say that it involves a complex array of mirrors and layers of plastic sheeting rigged up in a very specific order, and encircling the pièce de résistance: a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. You didn’t see that coming, did you? Therein lies the genius.
I bet you’ve got some questions. For example, what makes me think a medical device designed for specialised use by humans is going to help my tomato plants? And how on god’s green earth do I plan to get around the obvious difficulty of setting up a hyperbaric chamber in my garden?
I’ll answer the second question first, as the answer is very simple. I’ve learnt that there are such things as portable hyperbaric chambers, and they are available for the public to purchase. I’m not sure exactly what ‘portable’ means in this context, but I gather it should be possible to set up the chamber outside, even if it means connecting it to the house using some kind of extension lead hack.
Now, to the first question regarding what makes me think this will work. Well, plants need oxygen, just like humans do. I figure that, seeing as I can’t engineer more sunlight into my garden (aside from what can be achieved with mirrors, which is relatively minimal), maybe I can make up for it by delivering extra oxygen.
I realise that this is going out on a limb somewhat, but sometimes you’ve got to think outside the box.