We seem to forever buy pots of herbs – hello, basil and coriander, especially – which will often end up withered and only fit for the bin. They’re always bought for a specific recipe, and whatever isn’t immediately used on the plant, never seems to thrive, however much we look after them. We have resorted to buying those triangular plastic packs of fresh herbs – these seem to fare better as one pack usually is what’s needed for a recipe, but I hate the plastic packets they come in. So, I was intrigued by a hydroponic system I saw online, which seemed to be the solution we were looking for.

According to the website, the system :

…requires no plant knowledge or constant monitoring. Click & Grow gardens, equipped with grow lights and passive watering systems, use proprietary Plant Pods that provide everything the plants need. Compared to traditional pot-and-soil or complex hydroponic systems, there’s minimal maintenance and fewer chances for things to go wrong. Plant Pods come pre-seeded with all necessary nutrients, require no water quality or pH checks, and need less frequent cleaning. Simply plug it in, add pods and water, then do occasional plant care for best results…

As the systems go up in price to nearly €3,000 for the Wall Farm Vertical Indoor Garden, I decided to go entry level and test things out, opting for the least expensive model – the Smart Garden 3, for just under €100. This price includes the actual white garden, with water tank, extendable arms, LED lights, three plant cups, three domes for germination and three basil packs. The plant pods – already seeded – are pesticide free and provide everything needed for the plants to sprout. And set up really is as easy as it says on the website – you literally insert the Plant Pods into the chambers, add water to the small water tank at the side and plug it in. Automated grow lights and passive watering take care of the rest. It really does take less than five minutes to set up and five minutes a month to maintain. And the maintenance consists of filling the water tank – we’ve found every couple of weeks – and removing any leaves which are not doing too well. So far, in two months, we’ve removed two or three from all three plants. We turn the LED lights on overnight, and off during the day, and this has worked well.

The system was bought in January and we’ve just started using the basil very recently, so I suppose two months is quite a long time to wait for your first “crop”. And, we’ve now realised that by staggering the insertion of the pods, we can have herbs at different stages of growth, to avoid in future, what we have now, which is a bit of a glut of basil. Probably fine in the summer when we use it a lot more, but I’m not sure if this time around we’ll get through three plants – although we’ll see what a bit of pruning does too, to add to the life span of the plants.

I’m also going to mix up the types of herbs next time around – and this is where Click & Grow clearly make a lot of their additional income. You can’t buy packs of three mixed seed pods – say basil, coriander and oregano. Each triple pack seems to contain only one type of herb, so it seems a bit naughty that to get three different herbs, you need to buy three packs of three. The triple packs are only €13, so not expensive, but I’d much rather have the choice of a mixed box, than having to stockpile. However, a small issue and one which won’t lessen our pleasure of having fresh herbs “on tap”. And, I suppose, once you’ve ordered your seed pods, in whatever quantity, you then have them and can rota the pods to ensure you always have the freshest of herbs.

We planted ours up at the end of January, and have been quite excited to see the initial tiny sprouts (after about 5 days) developing into thick, healthy basil plants…

This is not a sponsored post. We paid full price for our Click & Grow and have not been asked to do a review. We just think it’s a great product, and if you want to minimise your food waste, we’d definitely recommend this great little product.