Where did GardenByte come from?

About 3 years ago I purchased a cheap hydroponics garden online. It had many problems, but I was really excited about the possibility of growing fresh herbs and edible flowers indoors all year long. I wondered if I could make a better hydroponics garden myself and so I started building a custom hydroponics system in my spare bedroom.

My home custom hydroponics system worked wonderfully well! It grew the same seeds from my cheap hydroponics garden much faster and much healthier. I was amazed by how much better it was. But it was still an ugly system with bright purple light (and my wife hated it) so I wondered if I could make a product that would be both beautiful and functional.

I set out to make a table-top hydroponics garden that would be so beautiful that you could put it in the best restaurant in the world or in the most elegant home and it would only add to the beauty of the space. But I also wanted it to work perfectly and be so easy that anyone could use it.

So I set out to learn more about hydroponics science and plant science. Over the next two years I spent thousands and thousands of hours researching these subjects and learning as much as I could. One of the key insights that I learned was that white light actually works better for growing plants indoors than purple light. This was a terrific finding because white light is also much more pleasant to humans and makes a space more beautiful. The curve below is called the McCree curve. It shows the relative metabolic impact of different wavelengths of light on plants. This curve is an average of many different plant species and so it represents, in general, which type of light is most useful to plants. You can see that plants do use blue light and red light quite a bit, but they also need green light and other wavelengths in order to grow in the healthiest way possible. White light covers all of these parts of the spectrum at the same time and is ideal for plant growth. This makes sense since, of course, sunshine is a type of white light.

Besides reading about hydroponics science and plant science I also conducted dozens of experiments at home. I tested every possible parameter that could affect plant growth that I could think of including pH level, dissolved oxygen level, nutrient type, nutrient concentration, water composition, water flow rate, light spectrum, light brightness, and many other parameters. I learned a lot from these experiments and from my research.

I spent over a year working on the design of the Herb Garden. I created a detailed computer model of the entire Herb Garden and began to manufacture various components of the garden for testing and further development. The computer garden of the Herb Garden went through hundreds of revisions as every small detail of the design was refined and improved.

Prototype Manufacturing

The next step was to manufacture the prototype and test the Herb Garden. We have spent the past 8 months developing and perfecting many of the manufacturing processes that are needed to build the Herb Garden. Our goal is to manufacture the majority of the Herb Garden components in-house so that we can maintain the highest quality standards while reducing the cost of the Herb Garden to the customer as much as possible. The GIFs below show the CNC machining process of the walnut and maple wood case.

The next step is to glue the pieces of the case together. We use the highest quality water-proof wood glue that is designed to last for a lifetime. After gluing the wooden cases are hand sanded and then 3 coats of an oil-based wood finish are applied by hand.

The Herb Garden – Walnut Case

The Herb Garden – Cherry Case

The Herb Garden – Maple Case

Mobile App

The mobile app allows you to monitor and control the Herb Garden from anywhere in the world. The app lets you set the light schedule, manually change the light mode or brightness, and keep track of any necessary garden care tasks. The app will alert you if the Herb Garden needs more water, needs more nutrients, and if the room temperature is too hot or cold for the plants. You will also be able to order additional seed pods and nutrient solution directly through the app.

Timeline

Who we are

We are a small team of MIT mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, and software developers passionate about helping people grow their own food in their home all year long.