Lettuce Grow Farmstand Review: The Mars Garden
Purchase Price: $799
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I will be the first to admit that I was incredibly skeptical of this product when Alex unexpectedly told me one day that he purchased it. I had been served this Instagram ad a few times but didn’t consider myself a green thumb nor did I think I would ever be a millennial who would own one of these in my home. However, here we are, months later with plants that are still alive and thriving. We’ve had one full harvest so far and it is now time for my full review of the Lettuce Grow Farmstand.
What the heck is a Farmstand?
Hydroponics have been around for a while now, but if you’re not familiar with the plant growing game, it’s essentially the ability to grow plants without soil. There’s a system in place allowing for water to trickle through a series of plants that assist it to grow without the need to have traditional potting. This provides people the ability to efficiently grow multiple plants next to each other without having to waste a lot of space and water.
The Lettuce Grow Farmstand is a stacked modern hydroponic system that allows you to grow up to 36 plants in one body that can be used either indoor or outdoor. It waters itself, after you fill up the tank initially, and only requires a 15-minute maintenance session once-a-week. It’s perfect for small homes, apartments, or urban families that want to try growing plants without putting in a ton of effort. It also may very well fulfill your dream of becoming a farmer from the comfort of your couch, just like when you played Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing as a kid.
We started off with the smallest Farmstand starter kit which allows for 12 plants (approximately 3 feet tall) and added an additional layer for six more plants after our first harvest during a sale. For those who are growing indoors like we are, you’ll need to also purchase the ring lights (known as Glow Rings) needed to give the plants optimal light for them to grow efficiently.
A Modern Mars Garden
I received countless compliments from my coworkers about how modern it looks on Zoom calls. One colleague even referred to it as a Mars garden.
Without a doubt, the Farmstand is eye-catching and an architectural design element in its own right. It’s sleek and modern white frame meshes well with both indoor and outdoor furniture. The Farmstand is made with BPA free materials that are FDA food grade and recycled from ocean-bound plastic. I received countless compliments from my coworkers about how modern it looks on Zoom calls. One colleague even referred to it as a Mars garden. We were able to place it in a corner of our dining room that actually lets it blend in seamlessly. Separately, we chose to purchase a movable pot stand for rotating more easily during harvests. In addition, a large silicone mat was also a quick buy on Amazon for easy cleanup when doing maintenance.
The pieces for the Farmstand ship separately but connect together easily like Lego pieces. The Farmstand has multiple bins that connect together on the inside using PVC pipes that runs water through it. If you’re growing indoors, you’ll alternate layers with Glow Rings. The whole process took us under an hour to set up. Instructions were clear for the most part and Lettuce Grow also has videos on YouTube for you to watch for reference if needed. I love that Lettuce Grow ships your seedlings last so that you can prepare ahead of time and not worry about your seedlings wilting. We prepped our Farmstand a few days prior to our seedlings’ arrival, then simply added water to the tank, and popped them in when they came. There’s also timers that come with the Farmstand that you have to manually set for watering and for when the light turns on.
How do seedlings work?
So how do plants actually grow once the Farmstand is set up? Another unique aspect to the Lettuce Grow method is that you can order a variety of seedlings from their website. They are approximately $2.50 each and are the foundation to what you grow in your Farmstand. There’s over 200 different options to choose from on their site. Lettuce Grow pre-grows these non-GMO seedlings so they’re a few weeks old already when they arrive at your home. This improves the chances of survival from the farm into the Farmstand. They are perfectly molded to fit your Farmstand cases and you simply pop them in and give them a slot on your Farmstand.
Some seedlings arrived in rough shape
When we originally ordered our starter kit, we had selected a variety of seedlings. Keep in mind that if you’re growing only indoors, you’ll have a much smaller selection of plants to choose from. Unfortunately, due to FedEx shipping, our seedlings arrived late and about half of them were wilted and dead upon arrival. You have a week to reach out to Lettuce Grow during this time if your seedlings arrive in bad condition and they’ll ship out a new set for you free of charge. While we were a little worried the first time around, our second batch arrived perfectly healthy and on-time. It’s hard to expect perfection with how everything is shipped and handled nowadays, but it’s reassuring to see Lettuce Grow take care of its customers like this.
We also added labels to each of our pods so that we can keep track of what we’re growing. Lettuce Grow will offer recommendations for some plants that should be placed towards the bottom of the Farmstand due to their weight when fully grown, but you otherwise have freedom to place them anywhere. For now, we’re growing a variety of cherry tomatoes, basil, strawberries, blue kale, mixed greens, and lettuce varieties. If you have multiple people in your family or prefer some vegetables over the others, I highly recommend ordering multiple seedlings of the same plant so you can enjoy them.
For those who are a little more adventurous, you can also create your own seedlings from scratch. However, they will take a little longer to grow if you’re starting from nothing but soil and seeds. We haven’t done that quite yet but once we get the hang of farming a bit more, we may very well try growing our own too.
Ready for Harvesting
Our first harvest came about three to four weeks after we set up the Farmstand. I’ll chat more about the app later and its notifications, but once you start seeing your Farmstand fill up, you have a pretty good indicator that your plants are ready for harvesting. Some seedlings like lettuce and greens mixes can easily be harvested using the cut and come again method so that you can harvest multiple times throughout one season.
The first time we did this, Alex and I really had no idea what we were doing. Lettuce Grow has plenty of videos on how to harvest, but if you’re a newbie, it takes some confidence and practice to get it right. We are still learning as we go and we’ve cut either too little or too much in a few instances. Trial and error. Nevertheless, harvesting is probably the most rewarding part of owning the Farmstand. This is simply due to the fact that like in any kind of farming, you get to see and taste the fruits of your labor come to life. We’ve come to love grabbing our bins and buckets while taking turns trimming and harvesting our plants. It is such a satisfying process. I personally have enjoyed harvesting vegetables like lettuce because there’s a lot of bang for your buck and it’s such a versatile vegetable that can fit into so many different meals.
Maintenance is nearly Nonexistent
I was skeptical about the perceived idea of how much maintenance would go into the Farmstand. I grew up in constant awe at the amount of effort my parents took in tending to their garden and worrying about over or under watering. Although there is still some maintenance involved to having a healthy Farmstand, it’s surprisingly minimal and easy to do.
In terms of regular care, simply check the water level of the reservoir weekly to ensure there’s water in the tank. While Lettuce Grow recommends 20 gallons, we found that to be excessive for Farmstands that don’t have the maximum number of seeds. In our scenario with 18 plants, we are able to efficiently water and grow the plants with about half of the tank full. With the starter kit, you get two types of plant food that you’ll scoop each week and mix with a wooden stirrer. In order to ensure an optimal environment for growth, the last thing you’ll want to do is check the pH level of your water. Depending on where you live, the water may be hard or soft. This does attribute to your plant growth. Ours is especially hard here in Southern California thus requiring us to typically add about two scoops of pH down with the plant food. We then check the pH levels with drops that you mix together in order to check for the color of the liquid. This will let you know if the mixture is proper for the system. And that’s it! The whole process takes less than 15 minutes each week.
Lettuce Grow also recommends a seasonal reset of your Farmstand. You’ll be able to typically harvest somewhere between three and four times with each set of plants depending on how well you’ve maintained and previously cut them. We’ve only done one reset so far but the process is basically taking apart your Farmstand and cleaning it before growing new seedlings in them. Not surprisingly, once your seedlings have reached full maturity, the roots grow pretty deep within the tank and it’s a good idea to get all that gunk out before restarting. We rinsed our Farmstand outside on a sunny day and just let it dry in the sun before bringing it back in and reassembling the pieces.
Does the app help?
So far, I’ve mentioned a lot of what I love about the Farmstand. It works just as advertised and is easy to care for. Lettuce Grow does a great job of also advertising their app which is supposed to remind you when to care for your plants, while also providing easy access for re-ordering supplies and seedlings. For those who are sustainably-focused, you can also see the impact you’ve created on the environment and how much water and plastic you’ve saved through your app.
The app has potential value but is unusable due to bugs
While there are some nice features on the app, this is probably one area that I am hopeful Lettuce Grow will improve upon. Firstly, the shipping information for our original seedlings was incorrect where the app had a shipping date over a year before we even ordered them. It never updated that they were delivered to us. This threw off the entire scheduling we were hoping to use the app for in order to remind us when it was time to harvest and to do maintenance. Eventually, you get into a groove where you know your plants pretty well and no longer need to refer to the app. But for those starting out, it would be great if the Lettuce Grow app was a little more intuitive and accurate. Additionally, if you change your watering or maintenance day, or delay harvest where it differentiates from the app’s recommendation period, this all becomes manual inputs you’ll have to keep making yourself. The app isn’t designed to handle this level of adaptation because the Farmstand can’t technically recognize the status of your seedlings forcing it to make broader assumptions based on when items were delivered to you.
However, there are some cool technological features in the app like Plant ID where you can take a picture of your plant and the app will recognize it. Sadly, I found that at least on iOS, the app was buggy and more of a nuisance to use than just manually inputting. I’m looking forward to seeing more updates for the app and hopefully it’ll continue to improve. Modern tech products require a committed software support system and that remains to be seen from Lettuce Grow.
Is it worth it?
The Farmstand is an upfront investment and if you’re comparing dollars to what you grow, it will take a while to make back what you initially paid for it. The Farmstand starts at $399 (plus an additional $250+ for Glow Rings if growing indoors) and goes up to $700+. Our particular model with 18 plants and ring lights retails at around $800. You’ll also have to pay for supplies (plant food, grow cups, seedlings, etc) regularly. There are occasional sales and discounts that Lettuce Grow offers, but the Farmstand is more expensive than building or buying an alternate kind of hydroponic system.
That being said, I truly think this is a unique product that they offer. At the end of the day, you’re paying more for the ease of use, and the convenience of having an all-in-one system. We wanted to try “farming” and growing plants without the messiness and complexities of including soil, water quantity, and timing that traditional gardening deals with. I ultimately love being able to do quick maintenance each week on my plants and feel rewarded when I eat and share what we grow with our family and friends. For what it is, I’m truly impressed with the Lettuce Grow Farmstand and can’t wait to see what else we grow next.
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Lida
Always the number cruncher, the former narrative journalist turned data scientist, can’t help but find herself bursting with excitement with each new generation of tech gadgets. After all, predicting future trends is Lida’s forte. Any gadget that survives Lida’s torturous, adult working woman itinerary of over 700 notifications a day deserves praise!