the basil is alive and nobody is more surprised than me

The living-room corner of my apartment has killed three plants. A monstera, a pothos, and a succulent who deserved better. Each one got a name, a decent spot, and my entire personality, and the corner took them anyway.

And yet. It was January in the Midwest, the sun quit at 4:30 like it had somewhere to be, and there was basil alive on my kitchen counter under a little grow light. Alive. Growing. Being basil. That basil does not know what happened in the corner and I will never tell it.

The machine is the Click & Grow Smart Garden 9, and I've had it since October of last year, which is long enough to say the true things.

the honest bit, or what it cost to outsource my thumbs

The feelings part, and the confession: for the first month I did not trust it. I checked that water tank every single day. It's a 4 liter tank that holds for two to three weeks. I did not trust an appliance to keep a plant alive, because I had never personally met a plant that was alive. The basil sprouted anyway, on schedule, without consulting me, and something in my chest unclenched so fast it made me dizzy.

nine pods, one tank, and a lettuce named herbert

Setup is ten minutes and emotionally confusing. Nine pods click into nine cups, you fill the tank to the little float, you plug it in, and the light comes on by itself. It ships with three basil, three green lettuce and three mini tomato pods, so your first garden is decided for you. I read the quick start guide twice. The basil read zero instructions and sprouted first anyway. Plants don't respect effort.

The light is a garden light, not a fifth lamp, and I need you to know that. It runs on a timer, sixteen hours on and eight off, at 13 watts, and it is bright, brighter than anything else I own that isn't the sun. I had it on the bookshelf next to the TV for one weekend and it lit my show like a stage production. It lives on the kitchen counter now, where it earns its keep. I know how it looks from a blog with a lamp problem. A lamp is for vibes. This light has a job.

The tank is the whole job. Four liters, two to three weeks of patience, a float that sinks when it's thirsty, and no low-water alert on the standard model. The PRO version will nag you through a Bluetooth app for fifty dollars more, though the day I checked it showed unavailable anyway. I refill on Sunday nights and the nagging slot in my life was already full. Five minutes a month, the box says. Five minutes a month, confirmed, from someone who has never overachieved at plant care.

The lettuce took so long I named it. WIRED tested indoor gardens all year and called the Smart Garden 9 one of the slowest growers they tested, and my lettuce took that personally in the slowest way possible. Two of my three lettuce pods were salad by spring. The third one sat there being a rumor until April, so I named it Herbert, because you shouldn't rush something you've named. I still don't know what Herbert was waiting for. Herbert has never met a deadline in his life.

The pods are the part with opinions attached. They're proprietary, at $29.95 for a nine-pack, there's an optional subscription if you want pods arriving like produce deliveries, and if a pod doesn't sprout the company replaces it free. I haven't claimed one yet, which is the review in a sentence. The pods cost more than a seed packet and they work at a speed a seed packet doesn't, and that's the whole trade, and I made it with my eyes open.

Stock, the beige situation, and no, the company is not folding. If you go looking right now, the garden lists at $249.95 and on the day I checked only Grey was actually buyable, with White and Sage showing unavailable. My beige left the US store sometime after July, which means I now own a discontinued colorway of a plant, which is the most me thing I have ever done. People in the forums keep asking if the company is shutting down. A new CEO arrived in February and a 2 million euro investment was announced at the end of April, so the smart money says alive and slow, like Herbert. Check the stock before you fall in love with a color. Beige girls, check.

a brief history of plant funerals

Honestly, let me walk you through the corner's record, because context is everything. The monstera died of darkness and neglect, and at its funeral I made a speech in the group chat. The pothos just quietly gave up one February, no note. The succulent is the one that haunts me, because succulents want to be ignored, and I ignored it perfectly, and I loved it to death anyway, which is basically my whole biography in one houseplant.

Since then there's been exactly one survivor in that corner, a fern I've described in the mixer post as pretending, and pretending it remains. Plants and I were never a thing. I bought stationery about it.

And then pesto night happened. Dana K. came over with her pasta roller attachment and the patience of a saint, and I walked to the kitchen counter and picked basil that I grew, by doing nothing but refilling a tank, and we ate it on fresh noodles while the dogs watched from the doorway like it was television. Do you know what it's like to eat something you grew when your track record is three funerals and a fern. I grew food. I need a minute.

the soft landing

The garden is doing its October thing now, light on, tank full, one basil plant that keeps outgrowing its little lamp arm like it's showing off for company. It took a machine, a bright light, and a tank of tap water to get a plant to survive me, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but the pesto was real and so is the basil in the fridge.

There's a fresh 9-pack in the drawer, basil and wild strawberry this time, and the empty slots are right there, and every time I look at them I think okay, next Sunday, and then I

Herbert is still going, by the way. Slowest thing on the counter. Still going.

• ava 🌿