I Tried a LePot Indoor Garden and Now I’m Growing Salad and Herbs All Year in My Kitchen

I’m an old-fashioned gardener. I love the smell of soil and the feeling of dirt under my fingernails. So when I was tasked with testing a high-tech indoor hydroponic growing system, I was a bit suspicious. Though I’ve read about and researched hydroponics for my job as a gardening editor, I had never tried this technique myself.

For my first foray into the world of hydroponics, I tested the LPH-Max Hydroponics Growing System from LetPot to see if it could give me a constant supply of fresh produce in the dead of winter. And I’m happy to report it really is possible to grow salad greens and herbs indoors all year – but there are a few caveats.

If you’re a tech buff and plant lover and have a couple hundred bucks burning a hole in your pocket, this may be the perfect growing system for you. But if this is your first go at indoor vegetable gardening, I’ll share some beginner-friendly and budget-conscious alternatives to try out instead.

What I Liked

The LetPot LPH-Max, which is available from Amazon, is a compact way to grow a lot of edible plants indoors all year long. With 21 small pods (and two large pods) for hydroponic plants, you can practically grow a whole garden from the comfort of your kitchen. That makes this growing system ideal for apartment-dwellers, gardeners with small yards or yards that make growing a vegetable garden impossible, as well as home chefs who want fresh herbs or greens right there at their fingertips.

This system is mess-free, too. That’s one of the big draws of hydroponics – there’s no dirt involved. The kit comes with 21 small sponge-like pods that fit into plastic baskets and are suspended in water mixed with plant food in the tank underneath. All you have to do is fill the tank with water, add the plant food mixture (this kit comes with two types you mix up and simply pour into the water tank), then pop your pods into the tray, and plant your seeds. After that, simply refill the water tank and replenish with plant food as needed.

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If you’re lean more tech-savvy or are interested in a bigger hydroponic setup, there’s an option to use the LPH-Max in automatic mode (I opted for manual, which I’ll explain later). This allows you to totally step away from any care or maintenance of your indoor garden. The LPH-Max and the app do it all for you. This is an awesome feature if you’re headed out of town, especially for an extended time. Or if you want fresh produce, but don’t want to do anything to grow it.

The LPH-Max was fairly easy to set up. It took me about an hour to read through the directions, sort out the pieces, figure out how everything fit together, then fill it with water, and plant your seeds. It could have been more straight-forward but, even for someone who’s technologically-challenged like me, it really wasn’t that bad.

LetPot also provides stickers to cover the seedlings during germination (but some seeds need sunlight to sprout) and humidity domes to help keep seeds moist. I tested a combination of with and without each element to see if it made a difference to germination rates. It did not.

I was genuinely shocked that my basil grew so well in just a mixture of water and plant food. Hydroponics is kind of amazing! While I still believe nothing beats planting seeds in the ground and watching them emerge out of nowhere, watching them sprout out of a damp sponge is pretty cool, too.

What I Didn’t Like

Though the LPH-Max had a lot of really great features, especially for those who are tech-inclined or have limited space to grow, it also had some drawbacks. The first problem I ran into when setting up my LetPot was deciding whether or not to use the automatic mode or manual mode.

I really wanted to test out all the features, including the automatic watering and feeding because that was one of the main draws of this particular hydroponic system. But in order to use the automatic mode, you need a 7 liter reservoir to hold the extra water that the LetPot will pump in to replenish the tank when it gets empty.

That just wasn’t an option for me. I have a rambunctious cat who loves playing in her water bowl. I can’t imagine what she would have done to a whole bucket full of water. That also would have limited where I could put my LetPot. I have a pretty compact house and I have recently-refinished hardwood floors. There was no way I was going to put a big bucket of water on my new wood floors.

But even if I had no cat, lots of space, and floors I didn’t care about, there was still the issue of finding a container that could hold 7 liters of water. The automatic mode is one of the major selling points of this system. All of the components you need to set that up should be included – especially at the LPH-Max’s $250 price point.

Which brings me to my next stumbling block. After I decided on manual mode and put my LetPot together (the top tray didn’t fit properly, which was another minor hiccup), I was ready to plant. It was then I realized that the LPH-Max doesn’t come with seeds.

Now, this isn’t a make or break problem that should turn you off of buying the LPH-Max completely, but it was yet another frustration that didn’t need to exist. And again, at $250, you would think a few cents worth of seeds would be included.

I hadn’t done my annual seed shopping yet and it was too early to find seeds in most stores when I was testing out this system. So I ended up using old, expired seeds from several years ago. Most of them didn’t sprout, which isn’t LetPot’s fault. But it does mean that this system isn’t necessarily the best choice for beginners who are brand new to gardening.

I’ve been gardening for over a decade, and even I was a little intimidated by the hydroponic element. I’m not sure what grows best in a setup like this because I’ve never done it before. So it would have been helpful to have everything I need, seeds and all.

Why You Should Buy

Ultimately, I think LetPot’s LPH-Max would be a good choice for someone who already has a hydroponic system or has used one in the past. It would be a nice addition to another hydroponic setup that’s already in place. But with the need for an extra reservoir (and the extra space that requires), it’s not the best for someone with limited knowledge and room.

If you’re just dipping your toe into hydroponics, another one of our editors loves the Click & Grow Smart Garden 9. She said it was incredibly easy to set up and use!

The LPH-Max is also a solid option for people who like to integrate technology into gardening. The app has some interesting features (though a few don’t work), helpful growing information, and the ability to control your LetPot from either the couch or the other side of the country.

Beginner (and Budget) Friendly Alternatives