What I Wish I Knew Before I Bought a Hydroponic Garden Tower

Hydroponics used to be a boring hobby for settlers and home pot makers. What once required a complex setup that resulted in absurd looking home labs has now evolved into sleek modern plastic towers for your home. But are commercial hydroponic garden towers really a good way to grow your own produce?

How hydroponic garden towers work

The main players in this arena are Lettuce Grow , who sells a special convex structure made up of cascading rings; and Gardyn , which favors a series of narrow cylinders. For the most part, the products work in the same way: the tank at the bottom contains water and nutrients (supplied by the company). Seeds or seedlings (also supplied by the company) sit in cups placed either on rings or on cylinders. The roots of these plants hang freely under the cup. Water circulates from the reservoir to the top of the structure and then drains inward so that the hanging roots are constantly flowing. The plants grow up and out of the cups, resulting in a year-round garden that can be grown indoors or outdoors, depending on weather conditions. The advantage of both products is that everyone can grow their own food without experience or research. Even though I’m an experienced gardener , I’ve been blown away by the year-round appeal of cilantro. I was given LettuceGrow by a friend who didn’t even open the box, thinking they just didn’t have bandwidth (that should have been a warning to me). I paid for the shipping and was delighted with the huge box that was on my doorstep. That was 18 months ago and since then I have tried both Lettuce Grow and Gardyn. Here’s what I wish I knew before I even started.

The cost is significant

If you’re trying to save money by growing your own food, these towers aren’t the solution, but they should have worked for someone like me: I don’t garden to save money. I often joke that I grow $30 tomatoes. However, even I require a certain viability threshold, and while a $30 tomato is tolerable (for me), a $300 tomato is not.

Looking solely at start-up costs, hydro towers are hard work. LettuceGrow is a less expensive option; With just twelve plant slots and no grow lights, it starts at $399 and can go up to $1,250 for a setup that can handle 36 plants and grow lights. (If you’re growing indoors, you’ll definitely need grow lights, so you should budget for those if you choose LettuceGrow.) Gardyn, which contains 30 plants and comes with lights, costs $999. Both companies run frequent promotions that will bring these prices down by $50-$200.

Paid membership programs may not be worth it

Both towers come with optional memberships that offer different benefits. Lettuce Grow offers Plant Perks, a free customer rewards program where you earn points for accessories and plants…by purchasing accessories and plants. Gardyn has a $30-$40/month membership program that includes credits for new plants, discounts, and access to an AI assistant named Kelby who can analyze your tower, give you advice, and keep an eye on your plants when you turn them on. something called “vacation mode” that promises to somehow not kill or grow your plants, but magically hold them in a kind of stasis, waiting for you to return.

A great place to find reviews of the towers are the Facebook groups dedicated to each one ; they are run by customers, not the companies themselves. (In company-sponsored groups, critical comments usually disappear.)

While Kelby seems to be part of a sales package for novice gardeners who lack confidence, it seems that throughout the year, most Gardyn adherents choose to turn off the AI ​​and work on their own. Holiday mode seems to just reduce the amount of time growlights work and the amount of nutrients they get, and comments on the forums suggest it might not be worth the monthly cost:

“I recently had an unexpected 3 week hospital stay. I have 2 curtains. One has a membership, the other does not. On the 2nd day, one of them switched to vacation mode, the other to normal mode. After 2 weeks both units ran out of water and I asked someone to come in and just refill with water (I didn’t force them to add food). At 3 weeks, when I came home, they were in the same, overgrown, in some places dead state. -facebook user

The cost of electricity, nutrients, plants and accessories add up

While the energy costs for a 24/7 device are surprisingly low (I estimated the cost of one tower at $10/month), this is important if cost savings is your goal. Moreover, the heat emanating from the towers was stronger than I expected. It used enough electricity that I couldn’t run my heater and cooling tower on the same circuit, which would be nice if it was warm enough, but it wasn’t. I had to move the tower to my office.

As with almost any gadget, the real money is not in the thing itself, but in the things that serve it. In hydroponics, the money is in nutrients, parts, and plants. Your aquarium needs nutrients, and although your aquarium already has them, you will need more over time. You’ll also need the plants themselves, and if you buy them through any company, they’ll be quite expensive – around $4 each, plus shipping, and according to customer reviews, it’s a toss-up whether or not you’ll be happy with the state they’re in. plants are on arrival.

The entire ecosystem of accessories made by the company and supplied on Etsy has also evolved because while you should only grow patio plants that are grown for planters or pots, you will still need to support them as they grow. small pods.

In short, on top of the initial investment, you get at least a few hundred dollars a year, unless you’re a confident, savvy gardener who knows how to shop second hand. I grew my own starters using my own system , so I skipped plants, seeds, and seedling accessories. I was also able to find my own mineral wool, nutrients, and PH tools on Amazon for much less, and I used the usual LettuceGrow grow light hack that saved me hundreds of dollars. Are you ready for all this?

You also have to worry about content.

On any given day, the forums of both Facebook towers are inundated with reports of pests. As an experienced gardener, I expect this because whenever you have standing water and plants you will have pests, but this seems to surprise many beginner gardeners. From thrips to aphids, from fruit flies to ants, you’re likely to end up with some kind of critter, and should be prepared with solutions: neem oil, mosquito dunks, hydrogen peroxide, or a nuclear option: a full reset.

While the package bundle for each of these towers fits the “set it and forget it” mentality, it’s actually a lot more than that. You will need to test water and nutrients weekly, make manual adjustments to PH, specific plant nutrients, hang any plants that need it, and ensure all plants have access to light.

Before I started, I liked the idea that, unlike outdoor gardening, where most of the time is spent growing and only limited time harvesting, indoors I could enjoy a more year-round harvest by replacing plants one at a time. as needed. What is really happening is that you still spend a lot of time growing, a limited amount of time harvesting, and you can’t really plant because in between “seasons” you will need to do a terrible “hard reset” which means empty everything, clean out and make sure everything is clean before starting again. It is not difficult, but cumbersome, time-consuming and annoying.

As with any system, there will always be occasional problems such as clogged pumps, power outages, etc. One of the reasons why pumps clog is that the roots of some plants become very unwieldy and need pruning in order for the pump to work well. . It’s all a lot.

Consider also the dangers (and troubles)

I was surprised at how many reports I saw of Lettuce Grow light rings burning. Not dying, but really burning.

The bottom light ring connector and power connector burned out. We were at home. The lights went out, the wife smelled burnt plastic. I knew it was a junk design as an electrician, but I figured out what the hell it is on gfci. Wrong. The way the power supply is set up will not necessarily include a GFCI outlet. -facebook user

Not to be outdone, Gardyn has some similar issues, namely the lid of their unit that houses the pump and electrical system, which tends to get wet and die right out of warranty. The cap costs $100, so it’s an expensive replacement part.

LettuceGrow seems to be more modular so it’s easier to replace as needed or add on. The Gardyn is a unique device and is more difficult to fix on your own. In addition, Gardyn works over Wi-Fi, which means that if your Wi-Fi goes down, watering will not take place.

Neither company scores highly for customer service, with customers constantly commenting on forums about how difficult it is to get help when they have a problem.

Also worth considering: you really have to enjoy the constant sound of running water in your home. Storage in another room was less noisy, but I didn’t like it during the 2021 Zoom season.

Finally, while I expected the systems to be big, I clearly didn’t think about how big, especially when they were filled with plants. Their respective trails are what you will have to work with and they look as advertised (nice but not too green) for a short while while the plants are young. In reality, they often look overgrown or empty.

So are hydroponic towers worth it?

I lasted 12 months with my towers before I decided to make them myself. I did not like my dependence on companies or the bulkiness of any system. However, in the long run, most people still enjoy having their towers, no matter what company they worked for. When asked, most participants went beyond their original purchase and purchased multiple towers. One person had ten runners at once. Strawberries forever!

There’s no doubt that commercial systems like Lettuce Grow and Gardyn are more aesthetically pleasing than my homemade setup (remember I called them “absurd looking home labs”?). If looks are a priority, it makes sense to invest in them as furniture rather than as a viable money-saving system for growing food.

Hydroponics can appeal to many, despite the workload. Plants are much cleaner because they don’t grow in mud. The growing cycle seems much faster due to the ideal conditions created by the light and nutrients. It doesn’t matter what the weather is outside; as long as the electricity stays on, you can actually grow inside throughout the year. It will just cost you money.