Hard-core plant people love the control offered by the latter, but it can be a barrier to entry for the casual kitchen gardener. It can also be as complicated as choreographing a system of grow-light timers and fertilizing schedules customized for your plants’ needs. Hydroponics can be dirt cheap (no pun intended) - if you want to DIY it, it can be as simple as drilling holes in a food-grade plastic tub, filling it with a fertilizer solution, and waiting (if you’re curious, that’s called the Kratky method). In a hydroponic system, roots have more room to grow, and they’re getting nutrients from water-soluble fertilizers instead of from the soil, which gives you more flexibility with how and when to feed them. (Self-watering pots can be great for houseplants - one of my succulents on a hard-to-reach shelf is very happy in this Greenery Unlimited model - but they’re not a complicated technology and should be relatively inexpensive.) Since the water in these systems doesn’t circulate, and they’re also vulnerable to mold. I recommend avoiding smart gardens that are self-watering, a category that includes the popular Click-and-Grow unit - herbs grow more slowly and their size maxes out once the soil in the pod is depleted. In a hydroponic system, roots may start in soil but primarily grow in water. ![]() They sound similar but have some key differences: In a self-watering system, roots grow in soil, and a wick supplies water from a reservoir to the soil as it dries out. Most indoor-garden kits use either a self-watering or hydroponic system to grow plants. “The roots of herbs are somewhat simplistic. ![]() ![]() (The best strategy I’ve found to avoid this: Trim the herbs’ stems like flowers, place in a cup of water in the fridge, and cover loosely with a large Ziploc bag.) I’ve tried growing herbs in pots with mixed success: “Generally, city kitchens do not have the full sun required to keep herbs alive,” says Sera Rogue, owner of Brooklyn gardening company Red Fern. As a heavy herb consumer, I hate spending money on a sad bundle of grocery-store mint that wilts within a couple days. An indoor-gardening kit is a great insurance plan guaranteeing that you’ll always have access to fresh herbs, plus any other produce with a short harvest-to-wilt window, like lettuce and flowers - you can pick your greens minutes before you use them.
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