Gardyn Review: Hydroponic Gardening for the “Lazy” Gardener

We live in California so we are blessed with great weather – it never gets much below 40 degrees in the winter and we get plenty of sun, maybe too much in the summer. So you think it would be easy for us to have a nice garden.

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When we first moved here and created our backyard design, we included two raised beds. That first year we planted a bunch of vegetables from seeds. We didn’t try that hard – we just put some soil in, added the drip system and stuck the seeds in the ground. We had great success for the next couple of years. Our peppers and tomatoes were abundant and tasty and we had so many oversize zucchinis we had to make zucchini bread. 

But after those first couple of years things started to go downhill. We got pests – creepy tomato worms that looked like mini monsters, aphids that destroyed the zucchini plants, and some other unidentifiable bugs that chowed down on the peppers. We didn’t want to use chemicals so we tried different strategies – soaps, other plants, and my favorite, ladybugs. The worst was the nutgrass – pretty soon our raised beds were full of it, and it choked out all the other plants. 

Last year, after a presentation from our local cooperative extension, I got excited about planting a garden again. We got up early to hit our local plant sale, bought a bunch of vegetables and tried to do everything right. We kept them in pots until the ground was warm enough, we mulched them and fed them fish emulsion. But soon we were left with mostly grass, no peppers or zucchini and just a few pathetic tomatoes.

While I can complain about my gardening failures all I want, I know what my problem is. I love the idea of gardening but I don’t actually enjoy gardening. To keep my plants going I need to be out there pruning, weeding and maintaining my garden a few times a week. If I don’t do that, the weeds get out of control until it gets overwhelming and I give up.

Technology to the rescue

We have seen hydroponic gardens at CES for years. From tiny tabletop gardens for small spaces to huge, wall size gardens suitable for growing for a huge family or small restaurant. Or more likely for some other kinds of plants that are legal to grow at home in many states. I have always wanted one but have been concerned that they take up too much space – either on the kitchen counter, which is always too full, or worse, a big piece of furniture that we wouldn’t be able to maintain. 

The Gardyn hydroponic system was one of our favorites from (virtual) CES in 2021 and we saw it again this January. It comes in two sizes – the Gardyn Studio, that grows up to 16 plants in about 1.4 square feet of space and the larger Gardyn Home, that grows up to 30 plants in 2 square feet. Since it is just the two of us, the Studio size makes a lot more sense.

When we got an offer to review the Gardyn Studio, at first we hesitated. Could we really find a spot for it? And would we be able to maintain it? We decided to get it anyway and forgot about it for a few weeks, until it showed up on our doorstep in a large box. Now we had to become Gardyners! 

Getting ready to Gardyn

First we had to learn more about the Gardyn and figure out where to put it. Fortunately they have some really great setup videos on their website and a good quick start guide. I don’t normally watch these things, I usually just like to pull things out and start tinkering, but I felt it would be smart to think this one through.

We decided on a spot in the corner of our breakfast nook and rearranged our table and chairs to accommodate it. We considered putting it on a table or getting the optional dolly so we could move it easily, but in the end we decided it would be just fine on the floor. We opted not to use the included bracing straps – we may change our minds in the future if the plants start to get too heavy. 

Unboxing and Setup

This was one of the most complicated setups I have ever done for a smart home product. It started with me dragging the nearly 25 pound box over to the table and laying out all the pieces to make it easier. I estimate that it would take someone 30 minutes to an hour to go through the process, between following all of the steps and filling the tank up with water.

If you get one to set up, I’d recommend you go through the same process – watch the video(s), read the quick start guide, and lay everything out. It is also helpful to have a water pitcher handy – I recommend an old plastic gallon container if you have one – and keep it so you can use it to refill your Gardyn later. 

The Gardyn Studio came with a starter pack of plants to get started. Ours came with “Chef’s Favorites.” It’s tempting to just start putting the plants in any old place but each spot on the pole gets different exposure to the LED lights so they provide a recommended placement chart for the kit that you get. Once the plants start growing, it becomes obvious why they recommend different spots. 

Setting up the Gardyn App

One of the most important parts of the Gardyn is the companion app. It has everything you need to monitor your new plants and keep them healthy. The Gardyn itself includes a camera, LED light bars and sensors to measure temperature, humidity, and the water level in your tank. After setting up the Gardyn physically, you follow the steps in the app to connect it to Wi-Fi and it starts monitoring your plants. 

Gardyn provided a membership for us to use as part of this review, so I activated it after the installation. You can use the Gardyn without the app subscription, which would probably work fine if you know how to grow hydroponically already or want to learn by trial and error. I was happy to have the help, especially at the beginning, so I could avoid killing my new plants.

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From Setup to sprouts

For the first few days, the Gardyn App gave me daily reminders what to do with my new plants and kept me posted on what was going on. It reminded me to verify that they were in the right spots and that the first watering was complete. After that watering, it didn’t water again for about a week.

During that first week, I got a couple of updates from the app telling me that the temperature and humidity looked good. This gave me confidence I was doing everything right, even before I saw the first sprouts. It took about 6 days for those first tiny sprouts to appear. The app noticed them even before I did.

Growth Phase

About 10 days in, the app automatically started ramping the watering to every day. Then a couple of days later, it prompted me to add my first dose of plant food. The food came with the unit and it’s a powder that you mix with one gallon of water to add to the tank. It’s pretty straightforward but the app provides a video to make it super easy. My plastic jug came in handy here!

After 14 days my sprouts were just large enough that it was time to trim. Again, the app gave great guidance on how to trim the plants back so they could grow more effectively. Thinning and pruning my plants has always been tough for me in the past – in my outdoor garden I tended to either not trim enough or cut back way too much – so it was nice to have the instructions and the reminder to take care of them.

Plant Book

In the Gardyn App, they have a great reference, the Plant Book, where you can look up all of the different plants in their catalog and get a quick snapshot of how they grow, what light they need and how to care for them. When I was trimming, there were some plants that were recommended to trim to just one main sprout, while for others they recommended keeping three. I have been referring to this often when I have a question about a particular plant or how to use it.

After that first trim, the Gardyn stepped up its watering to twice a day and the plants really took off. After a reminder to check the roots to make sure they were looking good, the next major milestone was to refresh the tank.

Tank Refresh

About 26 days after we set up the Gardyn, it prompted me to do my first tank refresh. This requires some time to do – it took me about half an hour in total by the time I dismantled the unit, emptied the tank, gave it a quick scrub, then refilled it with water and plant food. Again, the app walked me through the entire process and gave me the confidence that I was doing everything right to take care of my burgeoning plants. I’ve done it a few times now and it’s become much easier.

A couple of tips – get a towel and put it next to the Gardyn so you can set the top on it while you clean out the base. Also, use a glass or a small pitcher to empty out some of the water before you try to lift three to four gallons of water – it’s heavy! 

Also, after I refilled the tank with my four gallon jugs, the Gardyn app told me there was too much water and it stayed high for a couple of watering cycles. I would suggest backing it off just a little bit to keep it from being too high. 

Hydroboost

Gardyn recommends that you use regular tap water for best results. We have some friends who have done hydroponic gardening before, and they let us know that Ph can be a problem with indoor gardening, and that imbalances can cause problems and attract pests. 

There are other ways to address this, but we decided to take the easy route and buy Hydroboost to add to our Gardyn. Hydroboost is Gardyn’s plant-based water treatment that is designed to work in conjunction with their plant food to keep the water and plants healthy and clean. Gardyn recommends that you add Hydroboost once a week. I added it for the first time when I did the tank refresh. 

Harvesting

After I refreshed my tank, my Gardyn ramped up the watering again and pretty soon my plants were looking amazing. About five weeks after installation, the app told me it was time for my first harvest.

I trimmed my greens that were four inches longer or more from the base, following the instructions. I harvested collard greens, yellow chard, kale, spinach, purple kohlrabi and green tatsoi. My next challenge – what to do with all of these? I’ve cooked spinach and kale before but was kind of at a loss for the rest. Well, thanks to Chat GPT I found a simple recipe for sauteeing the greens and pretty soon I was eating my own freshly grown vegetables.

Ongoing growth

Since my first harvest, the plants have continued to grow and we’ve been enjoying the fresh vegetables. I’ve really liked the greens, either sauteed or fresh in salads. The fresh basil is great for seasoning and very prolific. The first few harvests of the lettuce were really delicious, but the last couple of times I’ve tried the leaves they were a little bitter, and they have a funny black line around them. I am learning a lot about plants I’ve never heard of before – like Green Tatsoi, a nice tasty variety similar to spinach. The Plant book comes in handy to try to figure out what to do with the different veggies.

Sprout failures

Three of my Y-cubes failed to sprout. This is a common issue – plants can fail to sprout for a number of reasons. The good news is that Gardyn guarantees the plants so I was able to get credits for cubes that didn’t make it after 28 days. I sent pictures of the cubes to customer service and they gave me credits to order new ones.

If you remove cubes for any reason or choose not to grow plants in all of the available pods, Gardyn recommends that you keep them covered to help prevent algae growth or anything unwanted entering your garden. You can use anything opaque for this but they sell specially designed Gardyn caps that fit right on to the YPods, so we bought a five pack. 

When you get new YCube plants to add to your existing garden, they recommend that you keep them away from the plant food at first to encourage germination. You put them on a tray with a ventilated lid and water them separately, or you can buy the specially designed Gardyn Nursery.

Gardyn Nursery

Around Memorial Day Gardyn had a sale on their website so I decided it was a good time to get myself a Nursery. It’s a specially designed container that will hold up to 10 YCubes to help them germinate before you put them into your existing system. I used my credits and bought some replacement plants, plus some new things I wanted to try like peppers and arugula.

The Nursery is a nice container that makes it really easy to use with the Y-Cubes. The cubes fit right in and you can fill up the basin with water – the instructions guided me to fill it up to the internal line, enough to soak the cubes, then dump it out. Then I covered the nursery with the ventilated plastic top and put the whole thing on the Gardyn Studio base so it could take advantage of the warmth and light of the system. I think you could probably use a different container to do this, but I liked the design and the simplicity of using the Nursery.

When you’re incubating it is important to follow the directions for each plant so you know how big they need to be before they can get exposed to the plant food. It took a few days, but eventually all the cubes sprouted and I was able to transfer them to my Gardyn. 

Changing my plants

After my new plants sprouted, I decided it was a good time to refresh the existing plants. Plus I needed to free up a few spaces! So I removed a few plants that didn’t look that good, as well as a couple of the original plants that weren’t my favorites. For example, Lemon Balm smells nice and I guess you can use it for tea, but I’ll never do that, and I didn’t like the way the leaves tasted. I liked the basil, but the plant looked sickly and it was blocking some of my other plants. I am sure I will try to grow basil again inside once it gets too cold outside. I also trimmed down all the plants and moved some around to make sure the new sprouts got the light and space to get going. 

Vacation Mode

We went away for a couple of weeks so I also got a chance to try out vacation mode. I was a bit worried because I had some new plants in there, but I was really pleased with the results. We were gone for almost two weeks, and all my plants looked just fine when we returned.

And the very prolific plants, like the green tatsoi and collard greens stayed under control. Gardyn doesn’t recommend longer than two weeks, so if we take a longer vacation we might need to figure out another option. 

Kelby

Kelby is the Gardyn app’s smart personal assistant. Kelby has kept me up to date on my upcoming tasks, like changing the water or trimming the plants, and lets me know what’s going on with the watering and the light. You can also ask Kelby questions right from the app in sort of a chatbot, which has been pretty helpful. 

Kelby uses AI and seems new with room to improve. Since I am using the Hydroboost, it would be nice if Kelby reminded me to add it. I just learned while writing this review that I’m supposed to be adding it every week. Also, this week Kelby recommended that I add water, which I did – but then four days later I’m supposed to clean the tank again. It seems like it should have known this and recommended that I put only one gallon instead of two.

Now that I’ve gone through a full growing cycle, I really see more opportunities for Kelby. The app doesn’t seem to know exactly which plants I have – I can keep track of my favorites in the app but I think it would be a lot better if Kelby knew what I have and could make specific recommendations. Now that I have replaced about seven plants it feels like I am on my own for what to do with them – in terms of trimming and maintaining them. Some of the repetitive tasks like cleaning, checking the roots, etc are on a basic schedule so Kelby isn’t really adding much intelligence there. 

Also recently the app has added a Thryve Journey care score from 0 to 100. Right now I’m in good shape so it will be interesting to see how this score evolves over time. Shortly after releasing it they added a feature where I can hide it from my home screen. 

Gardyn Membership

As part of this review, Gardyn provided a year’s long membership so we could better evaluate the product. The memberships are available to pre-purchase with a device for one or two years, and then available monthly afterward. The monthly membership today is $25 per month for a Gardyn Studio and $39 per month for the larger 32 plant Gardyn Home. 

The membership currently includes access to Kelby and the Gardyn Score, smart watering that will automatically set and adjust the schedule, a vacation mode that will pause your Gardyn for up to two weeks, and unlimited time lapse videos so you can see how far your plants have come. 

The membership also includes free shipping once a month and monthly credits you can use for new plants, based on the size of your Gardyn. You can bank these credits, up to 16 with the Studio or 30 with the Home, so you can get new plants, food and other accessories all at once. 

For me as a new Gardyner I have really appreciated the membership. We love to travel so the vacation mode will be a key benefit for us. Ongoing, I feel like I would have to learn a lot more about what my plants need before I’d have the confidence to turn off the membership.

Conclusion

We have really loved using the Gardyn so far. It has a beautiful design and while it’s large, it fits nicely in the corner of our breakfast room. We’ve learned a lot about hydroponic gardening and have tasted some new vegetables we hadn’t considered before. The Gardyn app makes it really easy to use and so far we haven’t killed any plants or had any scary pests. Best of all, there is no weeding and no hard work outdoors in the heat, and we can have fresh vegetables all year long.

The Gardyn definitely is an investment, not just upfront but ongoing. We’ve already invested in Y-Cube Caps, Hydroboost and a Nursery, and ongoing we will have to continue to buy plant food. The Gardyn Studio also takes a decent amount of power to run the power pump and lights. According to our Eve smart power strip, the projected power consumption is 446 kWh each year, which in our expensive area amounts to about $79.  

But for us, the Gardyn studio is attractive, easy to use, and (almost!) fool-proof thanks to the built in smart features. We look forward to enjoying more fresh produce and trying new herbs and veggies!