I get that a lot of people don’t have any experience growing food and that city people might not have garden space, but so called high tech gardening has gone one step too far with Click & Grow’s exorbitantly expensive “smart herb garden.”
Amazingly, Click & Grow raised nearly $626,000 on Kickstarter for their plastic smart herb garden, which retails for about $100. They only asked for $75,000. Which means a lot of people around the world think this product is worth supporting.
The startup promises that people who don’t have a garden, who like to cook but never managed to keep a plant alive, and who are simply too busy can enjoy fresh herbs year round without doing anything but plugging the pot in and putting a bit of water in it.
Whilst people still have to take care not to cut off all the leaves at once and to ensure that the plants are receiving some natural light, pretty much the person who buys such a product is no closer to understanding the cycle of life after growing a full basil plant than they were before the seed was planted.
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Several years of R&D culminated in a design that uses nanotechnology to deliver the requisite oxygen, water and nutrients to ensure that basil, thyme, mini tomatoes, or rocket salad are able to grow.
And instead of using the harshest LED technology, Click & Grow worked with engineers to develop a softer light that still only costs $3-4 per year in electricity costs.
When the first round of herbs are all gone, one need only purchase refill cartridges, which cost $6.95 each. Except for peppers, which cost nearly $10. And then all of this has to be shipped.
On the other hand, one could purchase a package of organic, heirloom winter thyme seeds, organic and heirloom being not only the healthy choice, but also the most expensive, for about $5. That package will contain enough seeds to last several plantings.
Seems to me it’s nice for people to have fresh herbs, but it’s not that hard to make them grow. And what better opportunity to learn than now? Seriously – we need to be deepening our connection to nature, whereas products like this alienate us even more.
Smart technology is making us dumb. And poor. It’s daylight robbery to spend money like this on herbs!
That being said, if you absolutely can’t make your own garden grow, and you’re in the Middle East, Click & Grow products are for sale in Abu Dhabi at the Virgin Megastore.
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