Pandemic Gardening Moves Indoors With a Smart Garden in The Kitchen

By Mandy Behbehani | July 3, 2020

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The Click and Grow Smart Herb Garden uses “smart soil” to provide everything the plants need. The company has seen huge increases in orders because of the coronavirus.

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle 2016

In April, after the shutdown had made going to the grocery store a risky proposition, Jon Lechich plunked down nearly $1,000 for a three-tier, indoor smart garden. Living on a hill in Lafayette, the entrepreneur and his physician wife had limited outside space and could only grow plants in pots.

When the kit arrived, Lechich dropped a dozen pods that look like coffee capsules into a “nursery” container. After a couple of weeks, when the pods had grown roots and leaves, he transferred them into a sleek white unit that evokes a tropical bookcase. He added water, plugged in the system, and sprinkled in some nutrients. Already he’s harvested basil, kale, lettuce, peppers, and strawberries. Soon, says Lechich, “the only thing we’ll need to get at the grocery store will be meat.”

Indoor smart gardens are having their moment in the sun — er, under the LED lamp — with companies reporting unprecedented sales and even backorders. Rise Gardens, which made Lechich’s system, received a $2.6 million, ahem, seed round in May. Across the United States, Google searches for “smart garden” reached an all-time high the second week of April.

It’s not hard to see why. Even as public spaces begin to open up, many people remain leery of winding through the narrow aisles of their grocery stores. A springtime of understocked supermarket shelves reminded us not to take food-supply chains for granted, and shelter-in-place orders made spring planting season more stressful than usual. Besides, when every day feels the same, the prospect of something blossoming before our very eyes, and within the walls of the home we’re mostly confined in gains appeal.“

It’s very aesthetically pleasing,” Lechich says of his unit. “I love the light, it’s very quiet and has a great green look to it.” He and his wife have been discussing whether to move the unit from the spare room into the living room. She seems open to it, he says.

To be sure, the promise of the smart garden is not new. Neither is the indoor garden and, in fact, people throughout the Bay Area have long embraced the idea of growing their own fresh produce in micro greenhouses on their kitchen counter, a bookshelf or on a ladder up against a wall, without battling pests, contaminants or their friendly neighborhood rabbit.

Or their own non-green thumbs.“

I pretty much kill everything that is not a succulent,” says Michelle Leigh, who lives in a loft in an industrial area of Oakland where she has been advised not to grow food outdoors. She got the coronavirus in March, ordered a Rise Garden in April and received it May 20.

She planted basil, lettuces, cilantro, bananas, peppers, tomatoes, and green beans.“

My partner and I were also nervous about food shortages,” says Leigh, 43. “My diet is meat and vegetables, and I thought, ‘Oh my God if I get stuck having to eat canned or frozen food in some (economic) depression, I’m going to be screwed.’”

To reduce the chances for mishaps, Leigh wanted a hydroponic system, which grows plants using nutrients and water rather than soil and sunlight. So far, so good: All she’s had to do so far is fill the water once a week, and she’s already harvested her lettuce, basil, and cilantro.

Rise Garden says 50 percent of orders come from the Bay Area. But hydroponics are not the only game in town. Units from Click and Grow, one of the older purveyors, use a proprietary “smart soil.” The fluffy substance keeps the levels of oxygen, water, pH, and nutritional ingredients at optimal levels. You insert plant pods (biodegradable, natch) into the mix, add water, and plug the thing in.

Click and Grow, which is based in Estonia but does most of its business in California and New York reports huge increases in orders because of the coronavirus. In March, April and May, revenues were three to five times higher than in the same months last year, says Martin Laidla, a company spokesman. He attributes the jump in sales to fresh-food shortages and fear of them. “Leafy greens are not things you can stockpile,” he says. “You have to have them fresh.”

That’s exactly why Ken Lamb, 60, ordered his unit in April. “I use a lot of basil and oregano,” says Lamb, who lives in San Francisco and co-founded an early-stage VC firm. “I knew they would be useful during a time when there might be trouble having access to fresh herbs for a while.” He’s growing herbs, piri piri chile peppers, and more. “They’re so easy,” he says. “You get the package, which took five minutes to put together, fill with water, open the capsules, stick them into the holes and all you have to do is to fill it with water.”

Worth noting: Major appliance-makers are sowing their own indoor gardening dreams. At the annual Consumer Electronics Show in February, Samsung unveiled its prototype BeSpoke Plant Fridge, while LG showed off an indoor gardening appliance.

Might such technology be used on a much larger scale for commercial farming indoors? Not yet, says Hank Adams, CEO, and founder of Rise Gardens. “There are plenty of empty buildings out there, but it’s not the space, it’s the cost of electricity and of labor to harvest,” he says. The economics just aren’t favorable, he says.

But the “counter-to-table” model has plenty of appeal, he says. There’s a lot of food you can’t grow year-round outside, Adams notes. Besides, he says, plants lose half their water-soluble vitamins within 48 hours of harvest.“

My vision is that in the same way we never envisioned dishwashers and washing machines in everybody’s house and now we can’t live without them, I’d like that for indoor gardening.”

Mandy Behbehani lives in San Francisco. Email: Culture@sfchronicle.com

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