Best Indoor Herb Garden with Artificial Light

Over the years, there has been a rise in the growing of herbs indoors with the help of smart indoor gardens (LED light and self-watering). Buying herbs from the market is often a waste of money because they're bought to spice up your meal. Only a little quantity of the herb is used for a meal, and the rest ends up going to waste. Indoor garden, give pleasure to a lot of people when growing plants as one doesn't even need a green thumb for this.

This article would point out some of the best indoor gardens with artificial light.

Herb Garden Seeds VS Plants

There are several benefits of growing plants from seeds. The sense of accomplishment and joy one gets from growing an entire garden from a little seed is one of them. Although starting a garden from seed takes up a lot of time and effort, it's very rewarding.

In gardening, timing is very important. You can choose when to start planting with seed, but with plants, you have to guess the last frost. When seedlings are started indoors, you would have more control over climate and environment, thereby ensuring the healthy growth of your herbs.

One of the benefits of plants is that they are usually more garden ready and take little or no effort to mature. Crops like melons, tomatoes, peppers, and other long season varieties, are best grown using plants because they will bear fruits more quickly than seeds.

Another benefit of plants is that there are quite a few varieties to choose from, and there are usually very interesting hybrids available. Some of these hybrids can't be found in seed form, which makes plants your best option. An example of this hybrid is heirlooms.

Starting your garden with seeds rather than buying plants can be more cost-effective. This is because you can save up your own seeds or start your own indoor transplants with the seeds you bought.

Some plant varieties don't transplant well and even if they do, they would require a lot of attention to get to a good start.

You can also determine if starting your garden with seed or plants, which is better for you and your zone. This can be done by doing a chart for both and taking note of how they both reacted. This way, you'd use the most successful one the next year.

What Herbs Can you Grow Inside?

Although most herbs can be grown indoors, there are quite a few that can be grown with no fuss. Herbs can be grown from seeds, but it is easier and faster, to begin with, seedlings. It is always advisable to never get one that's growing outside already since that might affect its growth once it's brought inside.

Some herbs that can be grown indoors include:

• Lemon Grass: This is one of the easiest herbs to grow indoors as it does not even require soil to grow. All that you need to grow this plant is to get a stalk with plenty of stems. Then, cut the top of the stalk and carefully place it in water.
• Oregano: Oregano, due to its nature, is quite easy to grow even though it needs about six to eight hours of light daily. Oregano is a must-have spice for Italian, Mexican, Central American and Middle Eastern cuisines. It is a member of the mint family. When dry, they are strong and pungent. Oregano is grown like other mint plants which are by watering whenever the soil surface is dry.
• Thyme: Thyme is a versatile herb and it is popularly used to accentuate flavors in dishes. It is quite similar to oregano. Thyme loves a fast-draining soil mix. The surface should always be a bit dry but never to the point that the leaves begin to wilt. It needs about six to eight hours of sunlight every day.
• Chives: Chives are very easy to grow indoors as they do not even need much light and their growth is very productive.
• Parsley: Parsley brings color and flavor to your dishes like soup, chicken, stuffing, sauce, and salads. They thrive well in rich and organic soil. It is one of the most common herbs since it doesn't require much sunlight or maintenance during planting.
• Mint: Although mint is a herb, it is just like a weed. When grown with other types of herbs, can easily choke them out. It is always best to grow mints with seeds and not with its roots or leaf. There are different varieties of mints. Mints usually thrive well in a rich soil that is always moist. It can tolerate high temperatures.
• Basil: Although Basil is hard to grow during winter, it has a rewarding yield when successful in maintaining it. Basil is a foundation herb for most cuisines.
• Rosemary: Rosemary is one of the best choices for indoor planting. This herb or spice is usually used in chicken, pork, lambs, soups, potatoes, tomato and cream sauce, and even flavored olive oil. It does not really need rich soil nor does it need much water. It can thrive in hot or sunny locations.
• Vietnamase Coriander: This is the seed of the cilantro herb but this particular one is quite easier to grow than the regular one.

Where should I put an Herb Garden Indoors?

The location for your indoor herb gardens is very important. While making your decision for the location of your indoor herb garden, you need to take note of light because herbs need at least six hours of sunlight which may be really tough to accomplish during winter months.

When picking a location, you need to pick a place that's facing either east or west windows. Placing your indoor garden near windows provides not only sunlight but heat as well. The heat would help the seeds to germinate. Placing your garden in a cold room or near an air vent or fan can slow down the growth of the plants.

How to Build a Smart Garden?

A smart garden (hydroponic and aeroponic) monitors and tracks environmental conditions thereby helping you ensure that your plants grow. Having a connected plant sensor could give your plants a voice. The sensor could also make recommendations for care, and send reminders for important activities to you.

The good news is that you can easily set up a cheap smart gardening system that's fully equipped with reminders and recommendations. The basic system development for a smart garden is usually centered around the following components:

• Resilient garden; garden environment for the system.
• A device or two that's normally powered by a microprocessor.
• An Android Things hub that can help connect the garden care device to the cloud.
• Cloud server component; register and analyze data received from the sensor.
• A machine learning implementation.
• Humidity sensor.
• Temperature sensor.
• Sprinkler; usually activated by the humidity sensor.
• Intel Edison board; usually attached to the humidity sensor.
• User Client to monitor the garden's progress.

How Does a Smart Garden Work

A smart garden is an environmental monitoring system for plants. The smart garden monitors air, temperature, and humidity of the plants, and the soil moisture. It can also automatically water the plants based on the data it receives from its sensors.

It is always quite impressive on how quickly plants grow with no stress involved. Some factors that contribute to the fast and seamless growth of plants are:

1. Smart Soil: The smart soil creates the perfect environment for plants to thrive. The smart soil is usually a NASA technology inspired soil and it releases nutrients in sync with the life cycle of the plants. The soil can as well keep the pH balanced, and employs the use of tiny oxygen pockets to ensure that the plants can get enough room to breathe, and also able to get nutrients even when the soil is wet.
2. LED lights: The LED light system of smart gardens needs only 6 Watt of energy. It is a strong and consistent light source that is usually of ñvgreat benefit to people not fortunate enough to live in a sunny area. In gardening, the scarce and unpredictable sunlight is a frustrating factor but this smart garden is a perfect way to combat this problem. In some smart gardens, the LED lights can be lifted to give more space when the plants start growing tall.:
3. Self-watering tank With this smart garden, you would never need to calculate the quantity of water needed for your plants to grow. All you need to do is to pour water into the subtle opening at the corner of the base. Whenever the garden deems fit as the right time, the plants are then watered with the right quantity of water at that time. The smart garden also has a water fill indicator that lets you know when it needs to be refilled. Most smart gardens have a sprinkler and drainage system. The sprinkler is to evenly water the plants so no one gets less or more while the drainage system is to remove excess water.

Top 5 Indoor Herb Garden With Artificial Light

Click and Grow Smart Garden 3

The Click and Grow Smart Garden 3 opens doors to indoor gardening with smart technology. It is self-watering and has a built-in grow light. It has an LED over each plant so that each one gets the same amount of light. Each LED comes with a metal ring. It also comes with an install-able plastic extension for the light so that it can be adjusted however you want. This indoors garden is also one of the WireCutter's top picks.

The Smart Garden 3 has a perfectly calibrated watering system (1.2 l/40 oz water tank) that can last up to three weeks. This Indoor garden comes with an app that can help become a true plant expert.

The smart soil technology integrated into the Smart Garden 3 offers an accelerating technology with specialized growth that usually speeds up the growths of plants. This garden ensures that your plants always have the right pH level and the right balance of nutrients, water, and oxygen. It is made from renewable materials and in no way contains any harmful substance. With time, the Smart Garden 3 tends to get moldy.

Although Smart Garden 3 may be relatively higher than some similar smart indoor gardens, it has features that make it worth the price.

Miracle-Gro AeroGarden Harvest

The Miracle-Gro AeroGarden Harvest is a world-leading indoor gardening system. It is quite reliable but it's less stylized and quite expensive. It has a 20 Watts high performance, energy-efficient LED lighting and can grow up to six plants at a time.

This Harvest is natural goodness as it is a smart countertop garden that uses water and patented nutrients to grow herbs. The LED light tunes to different spectrums that allow plants to maximize photosynthesis thereby aiding rapid growth. The white LEDs are for fast growth, blue for bigger yields and red for more flowers and fruits.

The Harvest's LCD control panel that is easy to use, guides you from setup to harvest. It reminds you when water and nutrients are to be added. It also automatically turns the light on and off thereby creating optimal conditions for plants. The harvest usually comes with Genovese basil, curly parsley and some other herbs and vegetables that are normally sold separately.

Umbra Giardino Indoor Herb Garden Set

The Umbra Giardino Indoor Herb Garden Set is the best option for rookie gardeners. It is a compact two-tiered indoor herb and plant garden set with an integrated watering and drainage. The integrated watering and drainage system prevents water from pooling and enables excess water to easily flow out through small holes on the perforated top base and plastic insert tray.

Giardino was designed to perfectly fit standard sized window sills, counter tops, and dining tables. It also comes with three stamped metal name tags (13½ x 12 x 5½ inches) that lets you organize your garden by assigning their names. It is a ready-to-use indoor garden that can be easily cleaned.

Click and Grow Smart Garden 9

The Click and Grow Smart Garden 9 is a self-growing garden. The user-logic is quite similar to that of Nespresso and Keurig capsule coffee machines. The seed pods that usually come with this product are usually GMO's free and herbicides or pesticides free. So, all plants grown are usually 100% organic.

Smart Garden 9 has an automatic watering system. It also has the perfect amount of light due to its pro-grow lights as well as the perfect amount of nutrients and oxygen at the root level. It also comes with an app that puts you through everything you need to know about plant or herb growing.

While purchasing this indoor garden, you would sometimes have a chance to pick out your pre-seeded plant pods from their selection of 50+ pre-seeded plant pods. In a situation where you don't get this chance, you would get a complimentary set of plant capsules: 3x tomato, 3x basil, and 3x salad.

With the Smart Garden 9, there would be no more mass production of food that sacrifices taste and nutrients since you would be growing solely high-quality nutrient-dense herbs or plants. 95% less water compared to the normal traditional garden is usually used. The only disadvantage is that it is really expensive although it's worth the price.

Veritable Indoor Smart Garden

The Veritable Indoor Smart Garden is one of the most efficient smart indoor gardens. It is an ultra-compact and sleek accessory for your counter-top in your kitchen. It is quite easy to use and allows you to effortlessly grow herbs, greens and vegetables in your kitchen. It is capable of growing veggies all year round.

The Indoor Smart Garden requires custom made pellets or lingots that are usually slot into the appliance. The pellets or lingots contain organic seeds, nutrients, and biological substrates. It is totally self-sufficient and ensures that your plants have the perfect environment to grow.

The water tank of the indoor smart garden holds all the water and nutrients needed for your plant to thrive. The water is usually refilled every three weeks and it has a warning light that indicates when it needs to be refilled.

The Veritable Indoor Smart Garden has two distinctive LED lights that help in plant photosynthesis. The LED lights emit optimal intensity and wavelength for the edible plants grown in the smart garden. The LED light can be easily adjusted.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed in detail the best way to start a herb garden indoors (either with seed or plant), the best herbs that can be grown indoors and the best position for your herb garden indoors. We also carefully picked out the five best indoor herb gardens with artificial light pointing out each and every feature, advantages and disadvantages if any.

The development of smart indoor gardens has done a great deal in the life of people with black thumbs (people that can not grow plants on their own). It has made planting quite easy to maintain.