Gardyn

For Christmas 2023, Mary got me (well, 'got us') a hydroponic garden.

Unboxing

The system came in a large box, with indivdual carboard containers, spacers, and sub-boxes, all clearly labeled.  It was pretty nice to see almost no plastic packaging (just a bit of foam to protect the electronics).

The 'starter' kit of plants came with 30 inserts called yPods (rockwool with seeds in a special cup - like a keurig for hydroponics).  I don't know that anybody could actually grow all 30 plants at the same time, but we're giving it a shot.

Setup

The physical setup of the actual tower itself was well illustrated/directed, and worked perfectly.

While the physical aspects were well done, the software is ...frustrating.  The marketing and advertising leads you to believe that buying this expensive setup gets you access to ai that will help you know when to pick your plants, control watering, etc.  And it sort of appears that that is the case.

The app acts like it's a free-to-play iPhone trash game, pushing it's $30/month 'membership' like in-app purchases on almost every click. It also leads you to believe you have to subscribe for the recommendation engine/ai thing (they call 'Kelby') to work.

Imagine my surprise when I started getting Kelby notifications and updates without subscribing...

First Week Thoughts

At this point, we have sprouts on most of the vegetables, and the Kelby system has taken over watering.  The pictures seem mostly useless at this point, but we'll see where that goes once we have lettuce and stuff.

I'm super hesitant to pay $30/mo for something to tell me when to pick my lettuce, but also, if it works and identifies when/how, when to trim, etc., it might be worth it.  My understanding is we should be able to grow just about enough on this 3 tower model for the two of us to eat a few meals a week.

I do like the intro to hydroponics approach though.  I've been toying with the idea of a hydro garden for a few years, and this gets my feet wet a little bit (well, hopefully not literally!).  I haven't had to clean this one yet, so that's also an 'up in the air' bit.

Xen loves it when it waters though...which I'm not sure is a good thing (rock wool isn't good for cats to lick!).  They do offer catnip pods, maybe those can go on the bottom row for him.