Consumers want more fresh, organic, and/or local foods, and farmers markets and community supported agriculture (CSA) arrangements are springing up everywhere to meet that demand. A few entrepreneurs are going beyond these relatively traditional models: small companies in Portland, OR, and San Francisco, for instance, are providing organic gardening services for people who want that homegrown food, but don't have the time or inclination to start a garden themselves.

Italian company Azienda Agricola Giacomo Ferraris has taken the concept of convenient garden-fresh food one step further: its "Le Verdure Del Mio Orto" ("The Vegetables from my Garden") service allows Italians to "build" a garden in their web browser, and then have the produce from that garden delivered to their door.

Business trendwatching site Springwise notes that "gardeners" can choose the size of their plot, the vegetables that go into it, and can even pony up for extras such as "...a photo album of the garden's progress (EUR 49), herb and fruit beds (EUR 50/75), and even a scarecrow with a picture of the customer's own face (EUR 39)."

This is a really intriguing concept with lots of possibility: Springwise takes note of the potential for both farmers and web developers. It's also a business model that could attract scam artists by the dozen... transparency, whether in the form of credible organic certification, or web cams situated so that customers can watch the cultivation of the food, will be critical to the overall model's success.

What do you think? A viable method for meeting consumers' desires to reconnect with their food? Or, something a little to close to a Facebook application?

Image credits: Andyrob and totalAldo at Flickr under a Creative Commons license