Gardyn

You still have to do a fair amount of work. It does not take care of itself. Pruning, cleaning, culling plants are regular tasks. Topping off with 2 gallons and plant food can be as regular as twice a week when plants are established. Checking roots and cleaning the tank is about once to twice a month. Get the caddy with wheels, the Gardyn nursery for sprouting y cubes, bands and the trellises for supporting plants (you can get these as plants grow and don’t need to purchase right away). Secession planting is important to know if you want to keep your garden full of plants. That said, it’s fun and rewarding. Salads are as regular as every other week when you have a dozen or more lettuces. You can buy seeds of plants you love and experiment with your own seeds. I suggest doing this with flowers, peppers and your own tomato seeds as the Gardyn’s tomatoes have no flavor. Find a shorter cherry tomato and let it vine up the sides and wrap around the top. You can grown two normal size vining tomato plants. Find short pepper plants that you love, but keep the nightshade plants to 6 or less plants or they will not produce much fruit. Happy gardening, gardyning…?

Overall I like the app- it’s easy to use and highlights all system settings and environmental conditions well. I like the camera views for remote monitoring. The ycube ordering is nice and easy, though the selection is always pretty limited vs the website. Taking one point off because Kelby, the virtual assistant, is basically useless. The AI missed all of my plants burning because I fed them too soon (well after Kelby told me to feed them, though… gardyn plant food is just extremely strong and dangerous for young plants) and when I was on vacation one of the tubes split and an entire column of plants wilted and were all super droopy and sad/nearly dead- Kelby said literally nothing about plants being basically dead, while I watched sadly on the camera view for 3-4 days. When I got back I fixed the tube and all but one plant recovered somewhat. still there’s pretty much no point to the AI, you have to be vigilant, and the advice it gives you is not applicable 75% of the time.

I have the puce thumb of death. Luckily, my Gardyn is very forgiving! Watching my plants growing and thriving has been a thrill and although you can certainly get more sophisticated with custom food mixtures and your own seeds, for me, the simplicity has been a Godsend. My husband and I are vegan so we go through a lot of plants — so much that I recently purchased a second Gardyn so I can grow peppers and herbs in one and dedicate the other to just salad greens. The Gardyn system is clean, easy to use and visually stunning. It makes me smile every day. If you hate throwing out greens that go bad before you can use them, you will love the luxury of picking fresh greens one meal at a time. I have thoroughly enjoyed my Gardyns and cannot imagine a better way to enjoy fresh greens, herbs and peppers year round!