You don’t need a yard to have a bountiful garden. With new high-tech indoor planters, hydroponic plant stands, and smart gardens, you can harvest lettuce, microgreens, herbs, fruiting plants, and other types of produce right inside your home (and without setting foot in a grocery store).
Gardening at home reconnects you with your food source and boosts your greens intake, and it also helps minimize the plastic waste that comes with store-bought groceries. If you’re not known for your green thumb or you have low light in your house, this type of gardening is perfect for you. Many kits come with grow lights and irrigation systems that can be monitored through apps, plus you can pick from a wide variety of seedling pods to grow year-round.
Whether you live in a studio apartment or a house, there’s a garden to fit your space. Consider these nine smart indoor planters and plant stands, organized from smallest to largest.
The Best Indoor Planters for Year-Round Gardening
1. GrowLED LED Umbrella
The most wallet-friendly pick on this list, the GrowLED umbrella is a great starter option. The device is simply a height-adjustable metal pole with a plastic “umbrella” that’s equipped with low-voltage LED lights. Stick it inside an existing pot of basil, tomatoes, or other plants, and the LED light will help promote photosynthesis. It’s automatically programmed to glow for eight hours and turn off for 16 hours to mimic the natural cycle of day and night. Watch your plants grow faster than they have before, even in the lower-light winter months. It comes in five different colors, too.
[$26; i-growled.com]
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2. AeroGarden Harvest 360
You could tuck this bucket in the corner of your kitchen, nearly forget about it, and you’d still have enough leafy greens to make a hearty salad. Automatic watering and feeding reminders make it easy to care for, and a halo of LED lights hovers above the planter, leaving 12 inches of room for leaves to flourish. With the Harvest 360, Aerogarden claims you can grow up to six plants five times faster than in raised garden beds outside.
[$150; aerogarden.com]
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3. Modern Sprout Smart Hydroplanter
This might look like a regular bamboo planter on your countertop, but inside, there’s a whole hydroponic system working to nourish your plants. The bottom reservoir holds up to a gallon of water and the top tray fits up to five plants. A pump connected to four irrigation tubes gradually feeds water and nutrients to help them thrive. Better yet, you can connect the system to the Modern Sprout app to customize your irrigation schedule, and you can also start your garden with seeds, transplant thriving houseplants, or grow from clippings.
[$169; unitedbyblue.com]
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4. Ingarden Starter Set
Add some crunch to your favorite meals with a handful of microgreens grown steps from your kitchen table. Unlike typical plastic indoor planters, this Ingarden set is made of high-quality ceramic and steel. The space under the LED grow lights holds three metal trays of seeds that quickly grow into antioxidant-packed greens. One pack comes with seven garden pads, which equates to about a month’s worth of fresh microgreens. Plus, Ingarden is a carbon neutral company that donates one meal for a child in need for every product sold.
[$100; ingarden.com]
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5. Back to the Roots Water Garden Duo
This unique water garden doubles as a fish tank. If you decide to keep a fish below, you can watch the aquaponics ecosystem work in harmony. The fish waste fertilizes the plants above while the plants clean the tank below—and provide you with fresh food. But it’s not just for veggies: You can also grow bamboo, succulents, and other houseplants instead. Use it to add some zen to your home or as an educational experiment for kiddos.
[$100; backtotheroots.com]
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6. Rise Gardens Personal Rise Garden
Another countertop option, the Personal Rise Garden is like a miniature smart greenhouse. Don’t worry about remembering to water: the one-gallon self-watering system takes care of it for you. And same with sunlight: Overhead LED grow lights mimic the sun. All you have to do is harvest your leafy greens, and it’s WiFi-enabled and app-controlled, so you’ll know when it’s time. Want something bigger? You can also upgrade to a Single Family Garden or a Double Family Garden.
[$279; risegardens.com]
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7. Click and Grow Smart Garden 27
This three-tier indoor planter with a stand takes the cake for aesthetics. Three Smart Garden 9 containers sit atop a pine and birch shelving system to create a four-foot-tall indoor plant stand. The kit comes with lettuce, basil, and tomato plant pods—everything you need for a tasty salad. All you have to do is insert the pods into the nine cups, fill the water tank, plug it in, and wait patiently for your seedlings to sprout. Most varieties will bud within one to two weeks.
[$600; clickandgrow.com]
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8. Lettuce Grow Farmstand
If you thought living in an apartment restricted you from growing produce, think again. The Farmstand just needs an outdoor spot with six-plus hours of direct sunlight or an indoor spot with grow lights. It has a small footprint and comes in five sizes, so you can pick one that fits best in your space: The smallest model is three feet, eight inches tall and holds 12 plants, while the largest is just over six feet tall and holds 36 plants. You can choose from more than 200 seedling varieties (including herbs, fruits, and veggies), and then just water, add nutrients, and test its pH levels once a week to get fresh produce.
[$348 to $649; lettucegrow.com]
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9. Gardyn Home Kit
This vertical tower of greenery grows 30 plants simultaneously in only two square feet of space. The base holds five gallons of water that travels up the plastic tubes to feed your plants. The arches are equipped with LED lights to give them extra sunshine, and multiple sensors help you monitor their health through the Gardyn app. It tracks water levels, offers tips and tricks, and tells you when it’s time to trim the leaves. Set it to vacation mode when you’re away so you don’t come home to wilted leaves.
[$899; mygardyn.com]
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