Growing herbs using the Click & Grow Smart Garden

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Last year, I was given a Click & Grow Smart Garden as a birthday gift by a family member and was immediately intrigued. She knew how much I had been investing in my balcony garden and that I had been working in the hydroponic farming industry for years, but I had no idea home hydroponic kits even existed!

Until then, the only home hydroponic system I had seen was a DIY setup a former coworker had built in his small Brooklyn backyard—a tangle of hoses, buckets, pumps, and channels. Definitely a DIY project that most people wouldn't be able to put together. In contrast, the Click & Grow was sleek, compact, and beginner-friendly. But how well does it actually work? It uses a different growing method than I was familiar with, so I was excited to put it to the test.

What is hydroponic growing?

For those unfamiliar, hydroponic farming is the process of growing plants without soil. Instead, plants get everything they need—water, nutrients, and support—from a different growing medium (known in the industry as “substrate”). Within hydroponics, there are several different growing styles.

The method I’ve worked with professionally is called NFT hydroponics (Nutrient Film Technique), which is commonly used in commercial farming. Without getting too technical, NFT is great for large-scale operations but not at all practical for a small city apartment. The Click & Grow system, on the other hand, uses wick irrigation, a much simpler hydroponic technique.

In a wick irrigation system, plants grow in a substrate above a water tank. A fabric wick draws water from the tank to the roots, keeping the plants hydrated without the risk of overwatering. Because this method doesn’t require complex irrigation systems, it’s an ideal option for home gardeners.

Setting up the Click & Grow Smart Garden

I got the Smart Garden 3, Click & Grow’s smallest model. The setup process was incredibly simple:

1. Find a spot for it—somewhere near an outlet, but not necessarily near a window since the built-in grow lights provide all the light the plants need.
2. Fill the water tank.
3. Plug in the light.
4. Insert the plant pods.

Once the light is plugged in, it will turn itself on and off as required, which mimics the natural light patterns of the sun. Plants have become accustomed to the natural cycle of day and night, so if you plug in your Click & Grow in the morning, it will turn itself off at night, giving your plants optimal growing conditions. Then, fill up the tank with regular tap water, there's no need to add fertilizer to the water since all the necessary nutrients are incorporated into the plant pods. The plant pods also contain the seeds, and at this point all that's left to do place the pods in the hole. There's a clear plastic done that goes over each pod just until the first sprouts emerge. It makes a more humid environment to help germination, and once you see growth starting simply remove it.

Setup is a breeze, and it's amazing to see all the things that we take great care and effort to accomplish in commercial hydroponic growing, simplified for home use.

Growing basil at home

Each Click & Grow system comes with pre-seeded plant pods, and mine included basil. At first, I found this pretty amusing—basil was one of the main crops I was growing at work at the time. I’d spend the day tending to basil in a commercial greenhouse, then come home and do the same.

The difference was that at work, we used advanced hydroponic systems that produced crops at an incredibly fast rate. So when I didn’t see sprouts forming in my Smart Garden as quickly as I was used to, I started second-guessing things. Was I doing something wrong? Did I need to add extra nutrients?

In the end, I had nothing to worry about as the sprouts started to emerge. They just weren’t growing at the lightning-fast pace I had become accustomed to in a commercial setup.

Watching the sprouts grow

One of the most fascinating things about gardening is how plant growth speeds up as the plants get bigger. The bigger the plants, the faster they grow.

The tiny basil sprouts in my Smart Garden gradually became larger, and before I knew it, full leaves were forming. As the plants matured, I needed to:

• Raise the grow light to prevent it from being too close to the plants.
• Refill the water tank more often since larger plants require more hydration.

That was it! In less than 10 weeks, my basil was big enough to start harvesting.

Final thoughts on the Click & Grow

I really enjoyed growing my first basil crop in the Click & Grow and have since tried several other kinds of plants. I purchased some cilantro pods, which grew exceptionally well, and eventually transplanted some outside. Grow Anything pods allow you to use your own seeds in the nutrient filled substrate and I've used them to test Perilla and Fenugreek seeds. Now, they are admittedly not the cheapest way to start seedlings with most packs of 3 pods over $12, but it's a great way to easily grow many different plants, especially in the winter.

For anyone interested in hydroponic gardening but intimidated by complex systems, growing herbs using the Click & Grow Smart Garden is a great option. For a home gardener, it’s a fun way to grow an indoor edible garden any time of the year with minimal effort.