(playful music)
- Why not?
- [Narrator] This is Timothy Hammond,
a Houston-based gardener who knows his arugula.
- I'm an urban gardener and educator
and one thing I know is that you'll never find anybody
in this world who loves gardening more than I do.
- [Narrator] So what better person
to help us test this.
The Rise Gardens Family Garden.
(lively music)
As people spent more time at home during the pandemic,
demand has surged for activities,
like cooking, home improvement and yes, gardening.
So that's why we're testing the Rise Gardens Smart Garden.
It's an indoor smart garden that uses hydroponics.
It allows you to grow up to 12 vegetables
and herbs per shelf
using a self-watering system and grow lights.
- I'm interested to see if this garden,
this Rise Garden produces better
than some plants that I'm gonna start
at the same time outside.
- [Narrator] So why did we pick this smart garden?
A few reasons.
This smart garden is designed for small indoor spaces
and claims to grow larger vegetables,
not just herbs and leafy greens.
It's also adjustable.
The modular system lets you add shelves up
to three different growing levels.
It's Wi-Fi enabled with a connected app
so you can control the light,
water and nutrient levels
and get reminder alerts and updates.
- So I've never really thought
about bringing my gardening inside.
Now, they promised that you will be able
to recreate outside harvest inside.
- [Narrator] The Rise Garden systems come
in three sizes, ranging in price from $549 to $949.
There's also a smaller personal garden for $279.
The one Timothy is testing is $749 but is it worth it?
Timothy has more than four weeks
to test out this smart garden
and give us his final review.
- Here we are
and I guess now it's time to start gardening.
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- [Narrator] Timothy first assessed the planting process
with the garden.
- Arugula should sprout in five days they say.
Now, some of these seed cups say
that these things like the lettuce
or the arugula or the basil
will take anywhere from five to eight days to sprout.
- [Narrator] Then he planted
his own seeds outside to compare.
- Let's go ahead and pot up some basil,
some arugula and some lettuce.
So I can tell you,
one of the benefits of using that Rise Garden
is you don't have to deal with this intense heat,
so you're probably able to grow things,
a variety of things year round.
Now we'll set these in a shaded area
and we'll check back in about a week or so
to see if these sprouted at the same time
as our Rise Garden.
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- [Narrator] Next, he gauged how easy the garden
is to maintain.
- I think the flashing light means it's working.
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Ha, your garden is connected.
Look at the lights dimming.
It's testing the lights.
The fact that it sends me alerts through an app
is pretty cool.
I mean, it makes it a lot easier
to remember things involved with the garden
and that's one thing that we really want
is to make sure that we are staying on top of it
and the app helps you stay on top of the gardening.
So today we're gonna do a reservoir change,
change the water out in the reservoir
because you can check the water level.
Now we're down to two.
And then we're actually gonna throw in,
I'm gonna throw in some of these nutrients here.
I'm excited.
Check out the arugula taking off.
Okay.
Onc you put the nutrients in,
I think it was about a week and a half in,
about 10 days in once I put the nutrients in,
then stuff really started taking off.
(playful music)
- [Narrator] Finally, he compared
how the same seeds grew outside
in comparison to the smart garden.
- This is day two with the Rise Garden
and I wanted to show you that the seeds
that we planted outside have already sprouted.
We already have some arugula sprouting.
While the Rise Garden has still not sprouted.
Nothing beats the sun and Mother Nature.
We have some basil sprouting in the nursery up here,
which is pretty cool.
But let's take a look at the rest of the garden.
See, we have basil sprouting here also.
That's on the top shelf.
- [Narrator] So how did the outdoor seeds
ultimately compare?
- So as you can see here,
the ones that we had outside,
they have to deal with the elements.
While they were the first to sprout,
they quickly stalled and slowed down
once that 100-degree weather,
that 100-degree Houston weather came into account.
- [Narrator] So what's Timothy's final take after 25 days?
- So when it comes to this Rise Garden Smart Garden,
I'd give it a four out of five.
First, I love how well it grows leafy greens.
I love how simple it is to use.
I love the app keeping up with when I planted
and when I need to do water changes and things like that.
But a few things that I don't like with the system,
first, I don't like that the shelves are not adjustable.
Meaning I have to put my taller plants on the bottom
and also, they get less light down on the bottom.
Second, it's not easy to clean out the reservoir
and empty and change the water
whenever it's time for water changes.
And third thing is the price.
At over $700,
that's a little too steep for me
but I love what this garden is able to do.
And I love the fact
that you could grow year round with this thing.
- [Narrator] A Rise Garden spokesman said the purpose
of the shelf height
is to keep the structure simple and refined.
They're also working on improving the cleaning process.
He added, "While the price point is quite high
for a hobby like gardening,
we really wanted to not cut corners on materials
and technology in order to allow people
to go from a fun hobby to truly replacing items
on their grocery list."
- And just like that,
you have a nice bowl of salad greens right here.
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