My thoughts after 40+ days
Brief Description
The Véritable Garden first made its appearance on Kickstart in 2015. It was successfully funded by 224% in Dec 2015. The "smart" garden is a simple hydroponic indoor garden with LED light. The garden is self sufficient, meaning it will turn on and off automatically, no need to add fertilizer and you can go days without watering and. is required. There are several versions, the top model includes the app. I purchased the Cooper and black version, with no app.
The reason I got it
Before getting the indoor garden, I already had some plants at home but no herbs or anything edible. I knew it would take a long time to grow and my window sill won't give vegetable or fruits enough light to grow. Without a balcony or an outdoor garden, I thought it was impossible to grow veggies and fruits. I saw a hugh hydroponic system when I was scrolling through the Flower Market, that grows veggies. It was a wonderful device but simple too big. So I began researching on the options. There were quite a lot of brands, Click n Grow, Aerogarden, etc. When I came across the Véritable Garden, I was really excited. It had the perfect aesthetics (black and copper, matching tone with most of my decor) and the size was appropriate. Beside the look, I also thought it was important to easily purchase pod replacements. Véritable Garden has a local distributor in HK. So, that was taken care of.
The Journey
The setup is simple. Assemble the light, add water then add the lingot/seed pods, then wait for it to grow. Depending what you are planting, you should see sprout in 1 to 2 weeks. I found that if you don't see any sprout, the seed probably didn't germinate. But don't throw the lingot away, it cost HKD100 each. Simply add your own seeds and wait another week or so for it grow. After three weeks, basil's were ready. Then 4 weeks, lettuce was also ready for harvest. Tomato and strawberry tend to take longer to grow. By day 40, the tomato had some flowers, I'm still waiting....
Follow my IG story if you are interested in seeing the day to day update
Common Problems
Common issue is the low germination rate. I have tried 8 lingots, only 3 germinated.
Another issue is fungus gnats. I found a t white worm with black head crawling around. Not a surprise when the soil is constantly wet. An easy solution is to use hydrogen peroxide 3% (1 part HP and 4 parts water), spray on top, or pour slowly. This should kill the larvae. Repeat after 7 days if you still see those tiny white worms.
The light isn't as smart as I thought. There was no sensor for on/off. The device is set to turn on for 16 hours and this thing is pretty bright. So you have to plug it in the morning, otherwise it will be on the whole night.
Final thoughts
The Véritable Garden is great if you like to cook, tend to kill your plant easily, don't have time to take care of your plants, don't know anything about fertilizing and have a busy schedule.
It is wonderful to watch plants grow and very soothing. Beside that, with frequent access to fresh greens, my husband always asks me for lettuce. The taste is amazing! I never tasted anything so fresh before. The supermarket stuff simply fall short of freshness.
In the beginning, the watering is very minimal (once every 2 weeks). Once the plant starts to grow bigger (near 3 weeks), I found it requires more frequent watering (3-4 days)
Since purchasing my first Véritable Garden, I got another second hand garden. So...this tells you how addicted I am.
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