I GREW MY OWN GARDEN

It felt like this spring all my friends were starting a garden. The idea of it always sounded so cool to me, growing your own food and going to pick some fresh cilantro for dinner, but I thought I didn’t have the time to give it the proper set up and care it would need. And then, like a sign, Lettuce Grow reached out to me and wanted to gift me one of their Farmstands in exchange for sharing my experience in a blog post. So here we are a few months later and I can officially say I’m part of the garden gang now.

What’s a Farmstand?

It is a self watering, self fertilizing, hydroponic garden. Meaning, there’s not much you need to do to kick off your own backyard (or even indoor) garden.

Delivery and Set Up

First comes the stand, then come the seedlings. The process was all pretty simple, from picking out the seedlings online to receiving and assembling the Farmstand itself. It took me around an hour to completely put together my 24 seedling Farmstand, but I’m sure it could be done even faster. Then once it was built, it was ready to house the seedlings. I ordered cilantro, tomatoes, jalapeños, strawberries, bok choy and more! I set it up on a flat concrete surface where it would get a good amount of sun each day. I followed the suggestions on where to place each seedling (heavier plants on the bottom and some required more shade). I followed the instructions on filling it up with water and set my watering timer based on the daily average temperatures. All of this info was in the booklet that came with the stand! I added the nutrients and balanced the water pH using the testing kit it came with. Then … I just left it to do it thing!

Maintenance

5 minutes a week. Literally that’s about all it takes. I check the pH, add nutrients and make sure the water level is where it should be. Then I just keep watch until they are ready to harvest! They have info on what you order in the Lettuce Grow app, so you have an idea of when they should be ready!

Final Thoughts

I think the Farmstand is here to stay. In the future, I think I will order more than one of some of my favorites, because I had one seedling of green beans going, but then didn’t know what to do when only 3 green beans were ready to harvest since it wasn’t enough for a meal. (But was it cool to grow my own green beans? Heck yes!) I also had some mild pest issues (slugs came calling weirdly enough with the heavy spring rain) and would want to find ways to manage those better.

The day I set up my Farmstand we had unexpected hail that night, and then a week later we had freak freezing temps in March, and I had to wrap up my Farmstand. But you know what? I only lost a few plants. I’m talking 3-4 out of 24. Months later from those unexpected cold nights I would be picking fresh strawberries to put in my oatmeal and making homemade salsa featuring cilantro from my backyard. If my plants could survive the weather apocalypse and my lack of experience, anyone who has been wanting to start a garden but needs a smaller time commitment should try this out!