Smart gardening and connected botany: Jocondo featured in FunnyVegan

In its FunnyVegan interview, Jocondo presents smart urban gardening: a self-watering modular planter, a dedicated app and sustainable design for growing food in the city.

How can balconies, terraces and small urban spaces be turned into smart gardens? That is the question explored by FunnyVegan, the magazine dedicated to the vegan world and to sustainable lifestyles, which in its summer 2026 issue (no. 81) dedicates an interview to Jocondo, the modular smart-gardening system developed by The House Farmer.

The article, titled "Botanica connessa: orto SMART" ("Connected botany: SMART garden"), describes a new way of approaching urban growing, where design, technology and care for the environment come together to make looking after plants simpler and more accessible.

A smart garden even where space is limited

Growing vegetables, herbs and small fruits in the city is an increasingly widespread desire. Not everyone, however, has a garden or the time needed to tend a traditional vegetable plot every day.

It is precisely from this need that Jocondo was born: an intelligent, self-watering and modular planter, designed to bring greenery onto balconies, terraces and shared urban spaces.

As Guido Parazzoli, founder of The House Farmer, explains in the FunnyVegan interview, the idea is to bring the garden into the city, contributing to the sustainability and the beauty of urban spaces.

Jocondo was therefore created to make growing simpler, without giving up the pleasure of watching a plant grow, caring for it and harvesting its fruits.

Smart gardening: technology at the service of plants

One of the central themes of the interview is the role of technology in managing the urban garden.

Jocondo includes an irrigation system that can be controlled through sensors and a dedicated app, which allows you to monitor the condition of the planter and receive useful information for caring for your plants.

The goal is not to replace the experience of growing, but to make it more accessible, reducing the difficulties that often discourage those who wish to start.

The system is designed to help manage water more consciously, avoiding waste and simplifying daily tasks.

The app is also a learning tool: getting to know the needs of plants better, understanding their natural cycles and receiving guidance based on environmental conditions.

An approach to smart gardening in which technological innovation becomes an ally of nature.

Sustainable design and modularity: a garden that adapts to the city

The FunnyVegan interview also highlights another distinctive feature of Jocondo: its attention to design and to the choice of materials.

The system is born from the meeting of different skills, from architecture to agronomy, from technology to industrial design.

Its modular structure allows several units to be combined, adapting the configuration to the available space. The wheels make moving it easy, while the removable, washable shell is designed to accompany the product over time.

The choice to use recycled materials too, and to design replaceable components, reflects a vision focused on durability and on reducing waste.

Jocondo does not want to be just a container for plants, but an element capable of blending into the architecture of outdoor spaces, turning greenery into an active component of the urban environment.

From the balcony garden to a community of connected growers

A particularly interesting passage of the interview concerns the possibility of connecting the various Jocondo units through a distributed network.

The idea is that each planter can become a node of a wider ecosystem, encouraging communication between devices and opening up new possibilities for sharing.

Alongside the technological dimension, Jocondo also envisions a community of people who grow, experiment, exchange knowledge and share experiences.

A smart garden can thus become something more than a productive space: an opportunity to rediscover seasonality, get closer to the plant world and build new relationships.

Technology does not distance us from nature. On the contrary, it can help bring it closer to everyday life.

Growing in the city: a choice that looks to the future

Jocondo's presence on the pages of FunnyVegan reflects the growing interest in solutions that combine innovation, sustainability and new lifestyles.

For those who choose a plant-based diet, growing part of their own vegetables and herbs can be a concrete way to get to know food better — its origin and its natural rhythms.

But the value of the urban garden goes beyond eating habits.

It means recovering a direct relationship with plants, making the most of often unused spaces, and imagining cities in which greenery is not merely decoration but a widespread, accessible and shared presence.

This is the vision that guides the development of Jocondo: to make urban greenery simpler to grow, smarter to manage and more natural to live.

Want to bring the smart garden onto your balcony? Discover the Jocondo system.

The interview "Botanica connessa: orto SMART" was published in FunnyVegan, issue no. 81, summer 2026, pages 64–65, in the Gardening section.