Let’s answer some questions!
I recently put up a chat box on Instagram for people to submit any questions on my indoor tower garden, the Lettuce Grow Farmstand.
This futuristic hydro setup is my first time using a vertical-style garden and it’s quickly turning into one of my favorites.
It’s a modular, stackable grow tower so you can pack a ton of plants within a very small 4′ x 4′ footprint.
On a square foot basis, it’s definitely one the most efficient hydroponic systems I’ve seen.
I also just love the way it looks.
It’s given my very old pre-war NYC apartment a bit of a modern, Mars-like upgrade.
So far, I’ve had it for about 3 months, which is enough time for an initial planting + harvest cycle.
(I’m growing a mix of all different cherry tomatoes, Asian broccoli and bok choy.)
setup > 1 month > 2 months
Lettuce Grow Q&A
I’ll do a big harvest compilation video soon showing everything that I’ve grown, what I’m doing with it, and some of the pros & cons.
But for now let’s get to the questions!
Quickly jump to:
- How do you grow this at home?
- Where do you purchase this from?
- What made you choose Lettuce Grow vs Gardyn?
- How do you decide which plants are best to grow in this setup?
- Do you grow root vegetables and tubers?
- If you can’t consume all the plants, do you have to remove everything? Or can you continue to let it grow / will it regrow?
- Do you need to keep it near a window?
- Does this grow in whatever temperature at home or does it have to be closely monitored?
- Is it time consuming to maintain?
- Does it attract pests?
- What do you water with?
- How often do you need to add water to the tank?
- How do you perfect the nutrient blend and timing to water?
How Do You Grow This At Home?
I think what this person meant is, what is this garden tower and how are you growing vegetables indoors 😅
The company is called Lettuce Grow and the specific setup I have is the Medium Indoor Farmstand with glow rings.
It’s a hydroponic garden that grow plants entirely in water (no soil at all).
Growing plants in nutrient water sounds futuristic, but if anything it’s the opposite.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are believed to have been built using hydroponics!
The term hydroponics comes from Greek words ‘hydro’ meaning water and ‘ponics’ meaning labor.
Hydroponics is actually used in lots of commercial farms, greenhouses and nurseries. There’s lots of benefits to hydroponics:
- it conserves water
- it grows plants much faster than traditional soil gardening (3-5x as fast)
Growing hydroponically indoors allows you to grow all year round, conserve water and eliminate the need for pesticides.
Where Can You Buy the Lettuce Grow at a Discount?
The garden I have is the Indoor Farmstand and it’s sold by a company called Lettuce Grow.
You can purchase as many garden tiers as you like, and you can use the garden inside or outdoors.
Since the garden is a bit pricey, I went for the 4-tier medium option. Each tier has 6 grow spaces, so I can grow 24 plants in total.
The Farmstand is modular, so you could start with the smaller 3-tier option and add on more tiers later on.
Lettuce Grow Discount Code
Use SHER125 for $125 off any farmstand
I love how easy the Farmstand’s been to use, and how productive the hydroponic system is for such a small footprint of space.
So I recently upgraded and got 2 more tiers!
cherry tomatoes slowly ripening. I’ve been amazed at how quickly the Lettuce Grow works, it feels like plants in here grow much faster than in my other systems
What Made You Choose Lettuce Grow vs Gardyn?
I’m curious about all the different brands making indoor gardens!
While I haven’t tried the Gardyn yet, I’ve always been drawn more to the Lettuce Grow for its design.
I like how futuristic it looks, I love the modular, stackable component and I like that you can fully make use of 4 square feet by growing in a 360° direction.
I also like that you can place the Farmstand on a dolly and wheel the garden around from room to room, or turn it like a lazy susan.
The Gardyn is designed to be placed against a wall, and I don’t really have free wall space.
For my small apartment space, it just seemed like the Lettuce Grow would be a better fit.
I also took assembly and cleaning into consideration.
I don’t love assembling furniture and I really don’t love to clean, lol.
Both Gardyn and Lettuce Grow seemed slightly involved to put together but the Gardyn seemed more difficult to clean.
I read reviews on both, but people complained about the Gardyn cleaning process in particular.
The Gardyn is made of lots of little tubes and sleeves that all need to be individually disassembled.
The company has come out with several upgrades though, and they say their 4.0 model is easier to clean..
I haven’t had to clean the Lettuce Grow yet, but there’s no individual parts.
I can do an update on the cleaning process eventually when it’s time to do a reset!
And finally, I like that the Lettuce Grow can be used both indoors and outdoors.
I don’t plan to move anytime soon, but if I ever did get a house or apartment with outdoor space, it’s nice to know that I could move the Farmstand outside!
I haven’t seen many hydroponic gardens with a dual indoor-outdoor ability.
How Do You Decide Which Plants are Best to Grow in the Lettuce Grow?
‘Best’ is subjective, but the Lettuce Grow is pretty flexible.
There’s a lot you can grow indoors, especially in a large machine like this.
Right now, my first harvest includes these plants:
- gailan
- baby bok choy
- baby shanghai bok choy
- purple bok choy
- tatsoi
- orange cherry tomatoes
- red cherry tomatoes
And for my next round of planting, I’ll be keeping the cherry tomatoes in but harvesting all the greens and replacing them with more fruiting plants.
I’ve eaten a lot of the Asian greens so there’s not too many left.
Here’s a cooking video I made with tatsoi if you want to see the garden in bloom + what I made!
mille feuille nabe, with tatsoi from the indoor farmstand
Oh! I almost forgot – Lettuce Grow includes seedlings with your Farmstand.
You pick the selection at checkout, with the options targeted to your garden grow zone.
I skipped this – I like to grow all my own plants from seed.
But if you’re a beginner, you may want to take their seedling offer.
They’re free and the Lettuce Grow mobile app will send you helpful tips and reminders for what you’re growing if you use their seedlings.
Can you grow root vegetables and tubers?
Root vegetables are tricky to grow hydroponically, since there’s no soil.
I’ve seen people grow radishes and garlic, but tubers like onion bulbs or potatoes won’t work.
I personally have only tried wasabi turnips and haven’t been able to get them to work!
If you can’t consume all the plants, do you have to remove everything? Or can you continue to let it grow / will it regrow?
It depends how you harvest.
For lettuce, bok choy and any type of salad green, there are 2 main ways to harvest:
- ‘cut and come again’ method
- ‘full head’ method
If you just need a couple leaves for a side salad, you can harvest the outer leaves and the plant will continue to grow.
If you want to use a whole head of lettuce, wait until it’s completely grown and cut it at the base. You’ll get a large full-size head of lettuce but it won’t regrow.
I usually grow enough lettuce so that I can do a mix of both.
Do you need to keep the Lettuce Grow near a window?
Nope! No need for a window.
If you’re using the Lettuce Grow farmstand indoors, you’ll want to purchase the company’s glow rings.
They’re rings of LED lights designed for plant growth and each ring attaches in between the grow tiers.
I have a YouTube video here where you can see how I assembled the garden, and I also wrote a more detailed post about the initial setup here.
I have my Farmstand set near the window, just because that’s where I had free space.
But ideally you would place it away from a window so that you fully control the light schedule for the plants!
the glow rings on at night – they’re bright! it lights up my whole room :)
Does the Lettuce Grow need a certain temperature at home?
Normal home temperature, between 60-80°F works best for indoor gardening.
How time consuming is the Farmstand to maintain?
Very minimal!
One of the reasons I like these hydroponic systems is because they’re very hands off.
After the initial setup phase, I basically leave the machine alone and the plants grow on their own.
Different vegetables have different needs, but lettuces, salad greens and Asian veggies in particular are incredibly straightforward.
Since the hydroponic system is taking care of the lighting, watering and consistently keeping everything on a schedule, it’s doing all the hard work for you.
What I mainly do to maintain the Farmstand is make sure it’s topped up with water, and I add nutrients every so often.
I’ve been quite busy with personal things in the last couple months and have actually completely neglected my plants.
Aside from filling up the garden reservoir with water and nutrients at setup, I didn’t do anything for a solid 2 months.
(I don’t recommend doing this, just being honest).
I was really surprised that all the plants grow from seedling to full size without needing either a water top or nutrient top up!
The tomatoes pollinated on their own too.
indoor Farmstand progress without much help from me..
The water reservoir did get quite low, but everything was still chugging along.
I was most surprised by the nutrient aspect.
Lettuce Grow includes a bag of Jack’s Nutrients with the Farmstand and instructs you to add 4 capfuls of each part (A and B) at setup.
Jack’s Nutrients are very concentrated, so they were enough for my 24 plants to grow pretty well!
But I do think if I had monitored the nutrient levels and topped up regularly, I’d be getting a bit more tomato production..
Does the Lettuce Grow Farmstand attract pests?
No, none of my indoor gardens attract pests on their own.
But it is possible to bring bugs indoors with you, so you do want to be careful about maintaining a clean space.
I wrote more in-depth about preventing bugs here.
What do you water the Farmstand with?
I use tap! NYC tap water is great.
How often do you need to add water to the Farmstand?
All the water is stored in the Farmstand base.
The teardrop shaped reservoir is huge – it holds a lot of water!
20 gallons to be exact, which is 15-20x the size of most of my indoor gardens.
I’ve been busy lately and taking a more hands-off approach to gardening, so I top up the reservoir every 45-60 days.
Top ups will depend on what you’re growing though, and what stage of growth the plants are on.
I did recently pick up this hose.
I got really tired of carrying water jugs back and forth from the sink to the garden so this new hose attachment should make it super quick and easy.
mixing up nutrients for the Farmstand
How do you perfect the nutrient blend and timing to water?
Lettuce Grow includes Jack’s Nutrients and a pH testing kit with the Farmstand.
With Jack’s, you top up every ~2 weeks or so.
You can also test the EC or water pH to make sure the nutrient water is in the right zone.
I get a lot of Instagram DM’s and I’ve been doing my best to get back to everyone. But, a lot of questions are variations of the same thing or already covered in content I’ve shared before on my website.
For every DM I’d answer, I’d get a follow-up question with 2-3 more questions and it just started feeling overwhelming. If I left any unread, I’d feel guilty, but I also don’t have the time to be on Instagram all day.
So my solution: question boxes!
Every now and then, I’ll put up a Q&A box on IG stories. You can submit any questions then :)
I’ll also be opening up direct advice + more q&a’s to my paying substack members in the near future. Stay tuned!
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