# A year of growing salad inside my house > One reviewer ran nine indoor gardens for a year, and the winners are not the ones with the biggest price tags. - Title: A year of growing salad inside my house · WIRED | Shortify - Summary: One reviewer ran nine indoor gardens for a year, and the winners are not the ones with the biggest price tags. Pick the garden that matches how much fuss you… - Keywords: hydroponics, indoor gardening, smart home, product reviews, home tech, year, growing, salad, inside, house, WIRED - Source: WIRED — https://wired.com/gallery/best-indoor-gardening-systems - Author: Kat Merck - Published: 2025-07-23T12:00:00+00:00 - Read time: 3 min - Topics: hydroponics, indoor gardening, smart home, product reviews, home tech ## Lettuce, grown indoors With a cyclosporiasis outbreak hitting store lettuce, the writer kept eating salad anyway, grown in a few square feet of her own house. > Are you missing being able to eat lettuce due to the recent cyclosporiasis outbreak? I'm not. ## A year of testing Nine systems ran in her home for a year, producing tomatoes, peppers, strawberries and even zucchini out of season. ## Gardyn wins overall The Gardyn Home 4.0 was the easiest to assemble and the most productive. Flowers, kohlrabi, thyme and a whole cauliflower all thrived in its pipe system. ## Front lights, no ceiling Gardyn mounts its lights on the front rather than above, so plants can grow up and out without hitting a lid. ## The subscription question Gardyn's Kelby app uses cameras and sensors to schedule light and water, and reportedly runs on ChatGPT under the hood. It costs $259 a year. ## Gardyn had a security hole CISA issued advisories in 2026 about flaws letting someone take remote control of a Gardyn, view plant photos, and pull names, addresses and phone numbers. ## Scrubbing is the real cost The Gardyn needs a monthly tank scrub and root checks every few weeks. Skip them and resetting between plantings scores a 2 out of 10. ## Lettuce Grow is furniture Zooey Deschanel's Farmstand looks like a strawberry planter redesigned for 2001: A Space Odyssey, and snaps together from 18 to 36 plants. ## Free seedlings, free bugs The Farmstand ships live seedlings that gave her a whitefly and aphid outbreak. Facebook groups show it is common, and a $36 spray kit now fixes it. ## Twenty gallons, no wheels Once filled, the Farmstand cannot be moved or easily drained. The dolly that solves it costs $80 and is not included. ## EVE hides in plain sight Just Vertical's EVE has the softest light and quietest pump of the bunch, with the tank tucked in a wood cabinet. It only holds 12 plants. ## No pods, no subscription EVE ships a year of seeds and a bag of sponges, and takes any seed you want. Almost nobody else in this category does that. > We believe that food is a right and you should profit from your gardening. ## AeroGarden came back The brand folded in 2024 and returned with the Bounty. The Elite adds vacation mode, a color touchscreen and sunrise lighting for $115. ## Microgreens in five days The InstaFarm uses soil trays instead of hydroponics and sprays on a sensor-driven schedule. She had more microgreens than she could eat in under a week. ## LetPot is the value pick At around $100 with generic 7-cent refill sponges, the LetPot is one of the few gardens likely to pay for itself. The short light bar rules out tomatoes. ## Rise grows the most, and cooks The Rise 3 holds up to 108 plants, but its 195-watt lights pushed tray surfaces to 95 degrees, bolting lettuce early. Tomatoes loved it. ## Auk for herbs alone Four pots, no pump, no pH tests, and a gravel topper that keeps basil upright. Pesto-ready in a few weeks for $239. ## Mushrooms need no light North Spore's Boomr Bin automates humidity and airflow for fruiting blocks. One week in, she had so much lion's mane that neighbors started avoiding her. ## Pretty but pointless Modern Sprout jars gave a few usable leaves in a year. The Lettuce Grow Counterstand yields a small handful a week for the counter space it eats. ## The one to skip Plantaform's $900 fog garden won a CES award, but it grows only one plant type at a time and degraded the tester's indoor air quality. ## Key takeaway Pick the garden that matches how much fuss you will actually tolerate, because maintenance, not hardware, decides whether you keep eating from it.