Garden to Plate

The journey, growing & eating crazy-delicious food in the city —with the help of nature.

Though I’ve always been passionate about the natural world, throughout my architecture career I've witnessed the removal of green space, displacement of biodiversity, and the increasing disconnect my generation has with nature and the most basic of human needs - food.

Connection to our food sources has been masterfully engineered out of our cities and culture in just two generations- making us sick, and our planet sick too.

In a mission to reconnect back to the food I was consuming at home (having seen the stats on depleted nutrients, toxic chemicals and ultra-processing; and being a passionate home cook hating the sight of soggy old back-of fridge-herbs), I started to grow my own food. I wasn't born a green thumb, but through trial and error, I became one.

My husband, Hiranga and I now grow half of our household's fresh fruit and veg, as well as compost food and carbon waste into nutrient-rich plant food - all in the space of a carpark. The best surprise was the increase in wildlife (native birds, possums, lizards, insects), that now live in this harmonious little ecosystem that also feeds us. To be clear, we’re way too busy to spend hours gardening, and so we’ve designed and scienced the s*** out of growing food.

And so, Hiranga and I founded Earthli - to empower the world to grow food too - no matter where we live, what we know, and how busy life may be.

Our vision is a generation of changemakers connected across our cities, growing plants, cutting food waste and emissions while supporting nature in the process —all in the simple but deeply joyful and fulfilling way that we do on a daily basis.

Running a bootstrapped, early-stage technology startup across 4 years has meant wearing all the hats of business (often all at once), while diving deep into hardware, learning how to code full-stack AI apps, and pivoting and iterating on multiple solutions after learning from our amazing customers & community.

So far Earthli's mission has been supported by 120+ incredible humans from 25+ countries, the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria; Victoria University; The Sid and Fiona Myer Foundation and Start-Up Victoria. We’re only just getting started.