Gardyn Studio 2 evaluate: this sensible backyard turned my black thumb inexperienced

I can’t develop something. Multiple makes an attempt to create a cottage backyard, first in Idaho and now in South Carolina, have introduced disappointment. Both are difficult climates, however the place others have succeeded, I’ve been left with little greater than a pile of cherry tomatoes for my huge efforts (these issues are bulletproof).

I’d all however given up on the thought of ever efficiently rising my very own meals — I can’t even maintain these pots of herbs you purchase on the grocery retailer alive for greater than every week — till I met the Gardyn Studio 2.

A sensible indoor backyard, the Gardyn Studio 2 is an automatic rising platform that deploys AI to do what I did not do: watch over and correctly deal with my crops.

It works by a mix of hydroponic watering, automated lighting, a digital camera that captures plant pictures, and algorithms that analyze the crops’ development phases and adapt. An AI assistant known as Kelby, which requires a subscription, manages the sunshine and water cycles, sends alerts once I have to intervene, and processes all the information from the Gardyn’s sensors and digital camera to assist your crops develop.

It’s a powerful, albeit very costly, system. In the three months I’ve had it in my dwelling, I’ve grown a sunflower, a full kohlrabi, a number of basil, lettuce, inexperienced beans, chard, and another tasty unique veggies I’d by no means heard of. I’m presently engaged on strawberries, cherry tomatoes, lavender, jalapeño peppers, and buttercrunch lettuce — in December, in my eating room. This is why I really like know-how.

Everyone loves the thought of rising their very own meals, however few of us have the house, time, or experience to dedicate to the duty. It’s a bit like baking; it’s lots more durable than it seems.

Gardyn Studio 2 is designed to deal with these issues. It prices $549, with an elective $25 monthly subscription (or $19 a month with a two-year plan). That will get you Kelby’s help, new seed pods each month to maintain your Gardyn rising, and reductions on plant meals, amongst different perks.

My Gardyn began producing inside 6 weeks, and I used to be capable of reduce my household of 4’s weekly produce shopping for in half, simply protecting the month-to-month subscription. Plus, I actually get pleasure from that each time I am going to get one thing from the Gardyn, it’s recent and prepared, not wilted in my fridge. I’ve additionally discovered I generate far much less meals waste.

The Studio 2 is Gardyn’s latest mannequin and is a smaller model of its flagship product, the $900 Gardyn Home. The Studio has house for 16 crops (in comparison with 30 on the Home) and is a redesign of the first Studio, which launched in 2024. The Studio idea addresses buyer suggestions that the Gardyn Home produced an excessive amount of produce for smaller households to maintain up with, and its footprint was too massive, founder and CEO FX Rouxel advised me.

The Studio 2 makes use of new columns that require much less upkeep, an upgraded digital camera with greater decision, and a wider subject of view to higher monitor its costs. There can be a brand new dawn/sundown lighting mode for the massive 60-LED lamp that helps the backyard develop.

The columns are what make Gardyn distinctive amongst indoor plant methods (none of which I’ve tried). It’s a patented vertical rising, hydroponic system that Rouxel calls “the most compact way to grow food at home.”

Proprietary yCube seed pods that use rockwool as a rising medium match into the columns, which sit on a big water tank with a pump inside and a gorgeous picket lid. The strip of LED lights with a digital camera in-built sits in entrance of the crops, dealing with the wall (so it’s not going to be snapping footage of you, solely the crops, each half-hour).

Gardyn comes with straps to anchor the system to the wall, as totally grown crops might trigger it to topple. A button on the backside permits you to flip the sunshine on or off shortly, and you may as well schedule it within the Gardyn app.

Assembling Gardyn was easy and took about 20 minutes. It got here with a starter equipment of 16 seed pods known as the Chef’s Favorites, together with herbs reminiscent of thyme, basil, and lemon balm, in addition to celery, collard greens, inexperienced tatsoi, spinach, salanova, and yellow chard. There was additionally a sunflower.

I inserted the pods utilizing the app to find out the perfect place for every and sat again and let Gardyn do the remainder. Other than topping up the water based mostly on Kelby’s prompts within the app and including some plant meals, I didn’t must do anything till 4 weeks in, once I was advised to wash the tank and examine the roots.

One problem of Gardyn is discovering an acceptable spot for it. At 1.4 sq. toes huge and about 5 toes tall, it takes up various house. While the kitchen could be the logical place, the sunshine is just too shiny for my open plan house. You can regulate the timing of the sunshine, however Gardyn recommends 14-16 hours of full gentle per day. I ended up placing it within the eating room simply off the kitchen.

Once the crops began to bud, Kelby advised me to trim just a few to encourage stronger crops, and inside a few weeks, I had my first harvest of younger sprouts, which made for a scrumptious, if uncommon, salad.

Harvesting received extra labor-intensive as issues began to essentially develop; the inexperienced tatsoi was going like gangbusters and began blocking the sunshine to a few of the herbs. I did a little bit of strategic reconfiguring of the pods, together with a number of harvesting — it was nice as a bok choy substitute.

I can see why folks wished a smaller Gardyn, though I feel if I had extra crops I used frequently, it might be a bit simpler.

I did have two pods that by no means sprouted, and my bull’s blood beets didn’t appear to be doing a lot, so I swapped them out for 3 new pods, together with inexperienced beans, cherry tomatoes, and strawberries. (These wanted to be began exterior of the Gardyn as they’ll’t take plant meals till they sprout). Those will clearly take longer to proffer their items, though I received not less than one serving of inexperienced beans inside a month.

It will take some fine-tuning to find out which plant lineup works greatest for my wants. At this level, I’m leaning in direction of a mix of herbs, salad greens, cherry tomatoes, and chard. I can see that after getting a stable rotation that matches together with your culinary habits, Gardyn might substitute most of your recent produce purchases.

I’m additionally experimenting with transplanting the mature crops into my backyard. However, on the market, they are going to be at my mercy and away from the watchful eye of Kelby. I used to be stunned to seek out Gardyn’s AI assistant was very helpful. It principally did what I’ve did not do in my time as a grasp plant killer — regulate and deal with the crops, roping me in to assist now and again so as to add water, plant meals, skinny the sprouts, harvest, prune roots, and different actions to encourage development.

Now, if you’re extra attentive and attuned to crops than I’m, you would do a lot of this your self, however if you’re a newbie or a failure like me, Kelby feels pretty important.

Rouxel defined that the AI fashions crunch information from temperature, humidity, and water sensors, together with pictures of the crops, to compute how briskly the crops are rising and to optimize variables to advertise wholesome development. “It’s like having a personal master gardener on your side 24/7, always monitoring what’s going on, taking action where it can, and when it cannot, it lets you know what to do,” he says.

If you choose out of Kelby after the free month’s trial, you’ll be able to proceed to develop crops and automate the watering and lighting on a schedule you could customise, in addition to purchase new yCubes instantly from the Gardyn app beginning at $5 a plant.

I’ve loved utilizing the Gardyn, and the whole lot I’ve grown has tasted scrumptious. It does require some upkeep, however far lower than rising something from scratch on my own. It stays to be seen if my plan to transplant veggies into my backyard will probably be profitable. If it’s, I might be much more inclined to speculate on this. But for anybody who likes the thought of getting freshly grown greens, fruits, flowers, and herbs of their dwelling, Garden actually is a foolproof system.

Photos by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge