8 Indoor Garden Kits That'll Help Refine Your Green Thumb (2024)

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If you’ve ever dreamed of having a countertop herb garden where you can pick fresh ingredients while cooking, the AeroGarden Harvest is the gadget for you. This compact indoor garden is practically foolproof to use, as it has a nearly self-sufficient hydroponic watering system and LED grow light to help plants thrive. (If you’re not familiar with the term, hydroponic gardens grow plants in water instead of soil.) In short, it takes care of all the hard stuff, letting you sit back and enjoy watching the sprouts grow.

The Harvest can grow up to six plants at a time, and the brand offers seed kits for herbs, vegetables, flowers, and more, allowing you to mix and match what you want to cultivate. The compact unit has an LED grow light that automatically provides your plants with optimal levels of (faux) sunlight, and the base even has warning lights that remind you when it’s time to add water or plant food. If you’ve always considered yourself a bad plant parent, the Harvest may very well transform you into a successful gardening guru.

True to its name, the ēdn SmallGarden is, in fact, a small indoor garden with a sleek design and Wi-Fi connectivity. This cute gadget can live on your countertop, table, or a shelf (just make sure there’s an outlet nearby), and its walnut wood and aluminum frame is pretty enough to double as décor. Not a lot of natural lighting in your home? No problem! This unit even has a built-in strip of LED lights to help your plant babies grow.

The SmallGarden works with the brand’s soil-free SeedPods, and it can hold up to 10 plants at a time. ēdn offers mostly herbs, lettuce greens, and flowers, but there’s also a “Plant Your Own” SeedPod that lets you sow your own seeds. As if that wasn’t cool enough, the SmallGarden syncs up with your phone via the ēdn app, allowing you to create an automated lighting schedule for your seedlings and get alerted when your plants need water, as well as get care tips throughout the growth process.

An app-controlled garden? Yes, really! The high-tech Click and Grow Smart Garden 9 Pro can be controlled right from the palm of your hand, making it a cinch to grow herbs, fresh veggies, and more. Plus, this indoor garden can accommodate nine of the brand’s plant pods at a time, allowing you to grow almost anything your heart desires.

The Smart Garden 9 Pro offers app-controlled light features and light scheduling, and it automatically waters your seedlings from its four-liter water tank, which only needs to be refilled once a month. So go ahead, go away for the long weekend—your plants will be just fine! The light bar across the top of the unit can also be controlled via touch; just swipe your hand over it to turn the bar off or on.

If you firmly believe there’s no such thing as too many plants, you’ll be happy to hear that Lettuce Grow's Farmstand lets you grow up to 36 at one time in its compact tower-style form. While pricier than other indoor gardening systems, the Farmstand is ideal for anyone who wants to be able to grow larger plants, including vegetables like broccoli and bok choy, as well as strawberries. Of course, you can use it to grow a wide variety of herbs and salad greens, too—just imagine picking fresh kale for your daily smoothies!

The Farmstand is crafted from ocean-bound plastic and comes in several sizes, supporting anywhere from 12 to 36 plants. When growing indoors, the brand recommends purchasing its Glow Rings to provide supplementary light to your seedlings, but beyond that, care is minimal—all you have to do is add water and nutrients, then sit back and watch your babies grow. In as little as three weeks, they’ll be ready to harvest, providing fresh ingredients that your family will love.

A lot of indoor gardening systems have fairly utilitarian designs, but not the Single Family Garden from Rise Gardens. This cool unit will fit right into your existing décor, as it’s designed to look like a chic—and functional—side table that you can display in your living space or kitchen.

The Single Family Garden can grow up to 12 plants at a time, and its five-gallon self-watering system will keep plants hydrated for about one week before it needs a refill. There are LED panels underneath the top of the table that provide all the light your plants need to grow—helpful if your apartment is lacking in natural light—and it's even app-enabled, helping you to keep tabs on your produce and manage their light and nutrient needs.

Oh, and did we mention that the Single Family Garden offers a huge selection of seed options? You can grow anything from fresh lavender to red peppers and tomatoes, making it an ideal choice for anyone who loves a good salad.

This modern take on a traditional raised garden bed is perfect for an apartment or small home. The Nest Raised Bed Planter comes in six colors and three sizes, and it’s made up of a sturdy steel frame with a ribbed polyethylene planter. Unlike other indoor garden systems that use brand-specific pods, you can plant anything your heart desires in this unit—simply fill it with soil and sow your favorite flowers, herbs, vegetables, and more.

This planter has a self-watering design that makes plant care a breeze. Its double-walled reservoir can hold enough water to last two to six weeks, and its TruDrop system delivers the perfect amount of moisture to your seedlings. Its elevated design helps keep plants out of reach of pets who might be tempted to take a bite, and if you’re hoping to grow tomatoes or another vine-y plant there are compatible trellises sold separately.

Microgreens make a delicious addition to salads or sandwiches, and they’re surprisingly easy to grow right on your kitchen counter. If you’ve never heard of them before, microgreens are basically just young vegetable greens that you harvest and eat when they’re a few inches tall. Popular varieties include mustard, kale, arugula, spinach, and beet greens, all of which are packed with both nutrients and flavor.

While they may be expensive to buy in the store, they're surprisingly simple to grow at home. The Chef’n Countertop Microgreen Grower comes with everything you need to set up an at-home growing station, including a small planter, soil, and a month’s worth of seeds, all for a pretty budget-friendly price. Just give your seedlings plenty of light and regular water, and you’ll have delicious greens growing in no time.

Feeling timid? Dips your toes into the world of gardening with the Modern Sprout Tapered Tumbler, a self-watering grow kit that will sprout just one plant at a time. You can choose between lavender, mint, or basil seeds, and all that’s required on your part is adding water to the base—the tumbler will take care of the rest.

The Tapered Tumbler includes a smoked glass planter that uses a hydroponic system called “wicking” to bring water and nutrients to the plant’s roots. The system includes a stainless steel net pot, a wick, soilless growing medium, plant food, and instructions, and when done properly, your plants will sprout in one or two weeks. Plus, you can reuse the tumbler again and again, experimenting with different types of seeds as you get the hang of it.