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Can you use your own soil with Click & Grow Smart Gardens?
For optimal results and the most hassle-free experience, smart soil is the best option for your Click & Grow smart garden. Smart Soil is specifically intended for the cultivars we grow today and there are currently over 60 plant pods available to grow.
We’re sometimes asked, however, whether it’s possible to use other types of soil with your smart garden. The answer is yes, you could. Gardening is all about experimenting. Bear in mind, though, that using other types of soil may not lead to the best results!
Why don’t we recommend alternative potting soil?
When using alternative soil with a Click & Grow smart garden, fertilization becomes difficult.
This is because adding fertilizer to the water tank is not ideal. While it’s technically possible to add plant food to the tank, most of it will remain in the tank and some of it will be filtered out by the wick. Only a small amount of what you added will feed the plant. This makes it difficult to measure the exact amount of fertilizer needed.
A smart garden’s wicks act as a tight filter and won’t allow salts to pass through to the soil. They are designed to draw water up to the smart soil which already contains all the nutrients and minerals your plants need. In fact, adding fertilizers to the water tank could greatly reduce the wick’s viability. Plant food would need to be added from above the surface, directly to the soil.
Click & Grow works differently from hydroponic systems that require liquid nutrients to be manually added to the water. Our smart gardens make use of capillary precision irrigation (CPI). This type of system helps to control moisture in the soil, distributing water and nutrients at specific times according to the needs of the plant. Not every type of soil is able to take up water from the wick like smart soil does. Other soils may dry out too quickly or stop taking up water while growing.
What about jiffy peat pellets?
Products such as jiffy peat pellets have some benefits for growing seeds and could be used in hydroponic systems. They’re not ideal, however, for using with your Click & Grow smart garden. Jiffy pots are relatively small and seedlings can get crowded. In addition to this, some users have found that these pellets do not decompose well. A more reliable option for planting your own seeds in a Click & Grow smart garden is to use our experimental pod. This contains an advanced version of our smart soil that boosts the sprouting and growth of any plant you wish to experiment with.
So, why is smart soil the best choice?
Smart soil is the core of our technology, designed to work in harmony with every Click & Grow garden. It goes above and beyond regular soil to create the most life-affirming environment for your plants, helping to make indoor gardening a stress-free experience for you. Smart soil automatically releases minerals according to the temperature and how moist the soil is. At the same time it keeps the nutrient levels optimal for your plants to thrive. It contains no pesticides, fungicides, hormones or any other harmful substances that could pose a threat to your health.
The heavy gardening and testing is done beforehand by professional gardeners. When using smart soil, you’ll never need to purchase a pH or EC meter to constantly measure and calibrate to the correct level (something you’d have to do with many other types of soil). You’ll never have to worry about adding fertilizers to smart soil to grow healthy plants either. Furthermore, smart soil comes in one piece and never causes such a mess as regular, loose potting soil does. The seeds of selected cultivars and seeding patterns are carefully tested beforehand for maximum yield.
Got a question you’d like to ask our gardening team? Get in touch using our gardening forum! Receive advice from our expert horticulturists and take your gardening skills to the next level.
To learn more about the benefits of our smart soil and smart gardens, check out the following posts:
7 Benefits You’ll Enjoy When Growing With Smart Soil
The difference between Click & Grow and hydroponic systems
Gardening is all about experimenting!
Use our ‘grow anything’ pods to experiment with your own seeds.
