This Smart Garden Transformed My Gardening Skills

I’ve struggled with gardening for ages. My attempts to cultivate a cottage garden in both Idaho and South Carolina have ended in disappointment. While others have thrived, I’ve been left with just a handful of cherry tomatoes from my efforts (those little guys are tough to kill). I was ready to throw in the towel on growing my own food — I can’t even keep those grocery store herb pots alive for more than a week — until I discovered the Gardyn Studio 2.

This smart indoor garden is an automated growing system that uses AI to do what I couldn’t: care for my plants effectively. It combines hydroponic watering, automated lighting, a camera that snaps plant images, and algorithms that analyze growth stages and adjust conditions accordingly. An AI assistant named Kelby, available through a subscription, manages the light and water cycles, sends alerts when I need to step in, and processes data from the Gardyn’s sensors and camera to optimize plant growth.

It’s an impressive, albeit pricey, setup. In just three months, I’ve successfully grown a sunflower, a full kohlrabi, plenty of basil, lettuce, green beans, chard, and some exotic veggies I’d never even heard of. Right now, I’m working on strawberries, cherry tomatoes, lavender, jalapeño peppers, and buttercrunch lettuce — all in December, right in my dining room. This is why I’m all about technology.

Growing your own food is a dream for many, but few of us have the space, time, or know-how to make it happen. It’s a bit like baking; it’s trickier than it seems. The Gardyn Studio 2 aims to solve these issues. Priced at $549, it also offers an optional subscription for $25 a month (or $19 a month with a two-year commitment). This subscription includes Kelby’s assistance, monthly seed pod deliveries to keep your Gardyn thriving, and discounts on plant food, among other benefits.

My Gardyn started producing within six weeks, allowing me to cut my family’s weekly produce expenses in half, easily covering the subscription cost. Plus, every time I grab something from the Gardyn, it’s fresh and ready to go, not wilted in the fridge. I’ve also noticed a significant reduction in food waste.

The Studio 2 is Gardyn’s latest model, a more compact version of its flagship product, the Gardyn Home, which retails for $900. The Studio accommodates 16 plants (compared to 30 in the Home) and is a redesign based on customer feedback that the Gardyn Home produced too much for smaller households and took up too much space, according to founder and CEO FX Rouxel.

Specs: Gardyn Studio 2
* Price: $549 (or $23/month for two years)
* What’s in the box: Gardyn Studio, 16-plant starter kit, grow guide
* Membership: Starting at $19 a month paid annually or $25 paid monthly (includes monthly plant refills, Kelby AI assistant in app, additional features like Vacation Mode).
* Size: 17”W x 12”D x 54”H, 1.4 sq ft footprint
* Sensors: water level, humidity, and interior temperature
* Camera: 8MP ultra-wide camera (photos only, can be disabled)
* Lights: 60W full spectrum LED lights
* Connectivity: Wi-Fi, 2.4GHz band
* Warranty: 2 years

The Studio 2 features new columns that require less maintenance, an upgraded camera with higher resolution, and a wider field of view for better monitoring. It also includes a new sunrise/sunset lighting mode for the large 60-LED lamp to promote growth.

What sets Gardyn apart is its patented vertical growing hydroponic system, which Rouxel describes as “the most compact way to grow food at home.” The proprietary yCube seed pods, using rockwool as a growing medium, fit into the columns, which rest on a large water tank with a pump and an attractive wooden lid. The LED light strip with a built-in camera faces the wall, ensuring it only captures images of the plants every 30 minutes, not you.

Gardyn comes with straps to secure the system to the wall, as fully grown plants could cause it to tip over. A button at the bottom allows for quick light control, and you can also schedule it through the Gardyn app.

Setting up the Gardyn was straightforward and took about 20 minutes. It came with a starter kit of 16 seed pods called the Chef’s Favorites, featuring herbs like thyme, basil, and lemon balm, along with celery, collard greens, green tatsoi, spinach, salanova, and yellow chard. There was even a sunflower.

I placed the pods using the app to find the best arrangement and let Gardyn handle the rest. Aside from topping up the water based on Kelby’s prompts and adding some plant food, I didn’t have to do much until four weeks in, when I was reminded to clean the tank and check the roots.

One challenge with Gardyn is finding the right spot for it. At 1.4 square feet wide and about 5 feet tall, it occupies a fair amount of space. While the kitchen seems like the ideal location, the light is too bright for my open-plan area. You can adjust the light timing, but Gardyn recommends 14-16 hours of full light daily. I ended up placing it in the dining room just off the kitchen.

Once the plants began to sprout, Kelby advised me to trim a few to encourage stronger growth, and within a couple of weeks, I had my first harvest of young sprouts, which made for a delicious, albeit unusual, salad. As things really took off, harvesting became more labor-intensive; the green tatsoi was thriving and started blocking light to some of the herbs. I had to strategically rearrange the pods and do a lot of harvesting — it worked great as a bok choy substitute.

I understand why people wanted a smaller Gardyn; if I had more plants I used regularly, it would be easier to manage.

I did have two pods that didn’t sprout, and my bull’s blood beets weren’t doing much, so I swapped them out for three new pods, including green beans, cherry tomatoes, and strawberries (which needed to be started outside the Gardyn since they can’t take plant food until they sprout). Those will obviously take longer to yield, but I did manage to get at least one serving of green beans within a month.

It’ll take some fine-tuning to figure out the best plant lineup for my needs. Right now, I’m leaning towards a mix of herbs, salad greens, cherry tomatoes, and chard. Once I establish a solid rotation that fits my cooking habits, Gardyn could replace most of my fresh produce purchases.

I’m also trying my hand at transplanting the mature plants into my garden. However, out there, they’ll be at my mercy, away from Kelby’s watchful eye. I was pleasantly surprised by how useful Gardyn’s AI assistant was. It essentially did what I’ve failed to do as a self-proclaimed plant killer — keep an eye on and care for the plants, nudging me to help with watering, adding plant food, thinning sprouts, harvesting, pruning roots, and other tasks to promote growth.

If you’re more attentive to plants than I am, you could handle much of this yourself, but for beginners or those like me, Kelby feels essential. Rouxel explained that the AI models analyze data from temperature, humidity, and water sensors, along with plant images, to determine growth rates and optimize conditions for healthy development. “It’s like having a personal master gardener on your side 24/7, always monitoring what’s happening, taking action when possible, and guiding you when it can’t,” he says.

If you decide to skip Kelby after the free month trial, you can still grow plants and automate watering and lighting on a customizable schedule, plus purchase new yCubes directly from the Gardyn app starting at $5 each.

I’ve enjoyed using the Gardyn, and everything I’ve grown has tasted fantastic. It does require some maintenance, but far less than starting from scratch. Whether my plan to transplant veggies into my garden will succeed remains to be seen. If it does, I’d be even more inclined to invest in this system. For anyone who dreams of having fresh vegetables, fruits, flowers, and herbs at home, Gardyn truly is a foolproof solution.