Review: Plantaform Smart Indoor Garden

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This past winter, Plantaform’s new smart indoor garden arrived at my Brooklyn home. I was excited at the prospect of growing heads of leafy green lettuce, channeling my inner Mark Watney, the left-on-Mars botanist in The Martian. Like many apartment dwellers, I don’t have access to a backyard garden, and even if I did, it was below freezing outside. The giant, space-age-egg growing system promised low effort with high yields using Plantaform’s innovative fogponics watering system.

Similar to aeroponic systems, where roots are suspended and sprayed with a nutrient-rich spray, Plantaform employs ultrasonic foggers to generate the visible, “nutrient-rich” fog that hydrates the roots and plants, rather than traditional nozzles or sprinklers. At $750, Plantaform’s indoor garden ...