Off to the Races

There’s no way around it… I have a black thumb. Always have.

I’ve always had a deep desire to grow my own food. I’m not sure where that desire came from but the idea of working the land and eating what you’ve grown is very appealing. If I could change my life with the snap of my fingers, I would teleport to Italy; we would live in a small town, work the land, buy meat from the local butcher, and kick around a soccer with the local kids on our way home…

Back here in reality, I kill succulents. You’re probably thinking “I didn’t know you could kill a succulent” and you know, that’s what I thought too. I’ve tried growing mint, strawberries, kale, and peppers but it never lasted long. As far as I can tell, I either overwater or underwater. Both? Honestly, I don’t always know which of those I’m doing but generally speaking, nothing survives long around here.

Taking that into consideration, I’ve spent some time looking into hydroponic options. I’ve seen a million hacks on Pinterest about growing herbs in mason jars. I’ve looked at countertop herb systems but they’re expensive and honestly, I don’t cook with herbs that often anyway. And seeing as we’ve always been renters, I’ve never jumped into anything too intensive or that took up too much space.

Enter: The Internet. A couple times a year, I visit crowdfunding sites and check out the cool inventions that are headed our way. Sometimes I see gardening options but they are always very… proprietary. To grow more _____, you have to buy our seed kits that only fits our product.

I don’t love that for a couple of reasons: one, I want to customize what I grow with what my family will use. And two, the truth is, businesses go out of business. I never want to be left with an investment I can no longer supply or use.

Enter the iHarvest from IG Works. It seemed to be just what I was looking for: a ton of grow slots, small footprint, vertical design, automated watering(!!) and most importantly, once you bought the machine, everything else could be easily purchased online or at a local gardening store.

I became obsessed. It was pricey but there’s always ways to find room in the budget. We reevaluated our food budget and if we gave up our couple times a month Dinnerly subscription, we could make it work. After all, this wasn’t wasted money, it was also going to provide food! Plus, the “first year cost” might be high but the maintenance cost would drop dramatically!

Eventually, we came to an agreement and I bought one… naw, who are we kidding?! I’m an all or nothing gal and as usual, I’m jumping headfirst into the deep end. We bought two for the price of one year of our Dinnerly budget. Maybe it would crash and burn but maybe it would be AWESOME and we decided to take the risk.

And here we are, months later. Production completed. Boxes shipped. Before I knew it, they were here.

So please, join me on this journey. Let’s (hopefully) grow some food 🌱