I got into countertop hydroponics three years ago after moving into a small apartment with exactly zero outdoor space. I missed having herbs around — fresh basil in summer, mint for mojitos, that kind of thing — and a coworker mentioned she’d been growing lettuce in an AeroGarden on her kitchen counter.
I bought a used AeroGarden Harvest off Facebook Marketplace for $40, not expecting much. The basil that came up in week two genuinely surprised me.
Since then I’ve run maybe fifteen different growing cycles across a handful of systems. I’ve got two units running right now on a shelf I cleared in the kitchen — one for herbs, one for a lettuce mix I rotate every eight weeks or so. My partner, Marcus, has made peace with the grow-light glow that spills into the living room at night. He draws the line at me adding a third unit, which feels fair.
My budget for most things is $75–120. I’ve splurged on a couple of pricier systems when I thought the research justified it, and I’ve been right about half the time. I’ve also bought things that I thought were going to be terrible and turned out to be genuinely good. I try to write about both.
I’m not a botanist. I don’t have a greenhouse or a grow tent or 40 square feet of dedicated growing space. I’m someone with a normal apartment who wanted fresh herbs without the supermarket markup, and who got a bit obsessive about the details along the way.
What you’ll find here: honest takes on kits and accessories, what actually grew well and what died on me, and the occasional deep-dive into nutrients or lighting when I’ve spent enough time going down that rabbit hole to have something useful to say.