Forget your spade and hoe... ...just garden plug in your
Click and Grow Smart Garden From €100, clickandgrow.com ★★★★
Whether you’re a flower or vegetable grower, technology is surprisingly starting to play a part in gardening. US company Click and Grow have launched a range of smart gardens that mean the calendar and weather are increasingly less important to what and when we plant.
The Smart Garden 3 is an indoor, you guessed it, smart garden. Now available in Ireland, the Smart Garden 3 arrives in a sizable box with everything you need to get growing. It’s just over eleven inches long and four inches tall – smaller than the comany’s first Smart Garden 9 – and despite being essentially a plug-in plant pot it has the looks and stylish design of a hi-tech piece of kit. As well as the base, is the arm that holds a small but sophisticated lighting set-up to promote growth.
On the base of the Smart Garden are a number of troughs. Three of them will be home to your plants and the fourth is a water reservoir. On the back is a power adapter which has longish cable that needs to be plugged in to the mains after you have set up the garden. I found a rare corner of my kitchen that was unused and setup the Smart Garden there. Packed with the Smart Garden were three packets containing my plant cartridges.
The soil is part of the magic of this set-up and is inspired by technology from NASA. The so-called Smart Soil releases nutrients that are synchronised with the plant’s life-cycle and ensures that the pH is balanced.
It uses minute oxygen pockets to ensure plants get enough breathing room and nutrients, even while the soil is wet. Installing the plants in the little removable cavities is quickly done and there are small u-shaped lids that snap back on. With the lids back on and the plants installed I popped them back in to the Smart Garden. Also included are three little transparent domes that can be clipped back on to each plant. These act like miniature greenhouses and ensure healthier and faster germination. They can then be removed when the sprouts reach them. I labelled a little tab with the type of plants and date and filled the water reservoir. There’s a little float in the water reservoir and it’s a visual indicator of when the water needs to be refilled. With everything installed, I plugged the garden in and immediately the light activated which has a sixteen hour on cycle. There’s an app for iOS smartphones that you can download to accompany the Smart Garden.
It’s not necessary though but does have the ability to scan a QR code on the plant packs so you can see how your plants should look after specific growing times.
This isn’t the smartest gardening system I’ve seen, but it is effective. There’s no doubt that the soil and hi-tech light promote growth and since Christmas the basil I’ve planted has grown five or six inches.
There is a good selection of refill plants available and I’ll probably get around to trying them all. Like many smart gadgets for the home though, it’s as much a talking point as it is practical. But this one tastes good too.
THIS IS AS MUCH A TALKING POINT AS IT IS PRACTICAL