Modern Systems To Help Your Herb Garden Thrive In Small Spaces

Growing fresh herbs at home is wonderful and not just because of how practical it is to always have the freshest ingredients for your meals but also because of how fresh and beautiful the decor becomes. There are a lot of advantages that come with this hobby and you can discover them yourself once you figure out the best indoor herb garden type for you and for your home. These days isn’t not only about pots and soil anymore. A lot of ingenious systems and designs have been created and we’ve gathered some of the most interesting ones.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket

One of the designs is Calla, a table top herb garden that’s meant to make herb growing easy and enjoyable. The design is modular allowing you to have up to six pots, one for every herb that you want to grow. Taking care of the plants is easy thanks to the system’s hydroponic design. An LED lamp mimics the sun and offers all the plants the sunlight they need to grow and stay healthy.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket
ALGOT Wall upright and basket

These chic pockets are called Nomad. They’re practical and portable herb gardens made from scrap boat sails and covers. Their design is simple and versatile, able to fit in a lot of decors, environments and spaces. You can hang the planters with rope, place them on a table or display them in front of a window so they can enjoy the sunlight. You can also put several pockets together to make a vertical herb garden.

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Having a herb garden has never been easier thanks to products such as this grow-anywhere growhouse. It’s a structure made of glass and brass which can be mounted on walls or displayed on tables or shelves. The really cool thing about it is that it allows you to grow plants without needing any sunlight. This is doable with the help of an LED light which has a built-in timer that makes sure the plants get just the right amount of light each day. All that’s left for you to do is add water.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket

If you thought that growing plants by just adding water was simple prepare to be amazed because there are also systems that allow you to do that with even less effort. The Smart Gardens are a perfect example. With one of these planters all you need to do is plug it in, fill the tank and wait. The smart soil has built-in sensors that make sure the plants get the right mixture of water, oxygen and nutrients and that means you don’t have to do a thing. Just watch your garden grow.

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Growing herbs upside down may seem like an odd thing to do but wait till you see how practical this system can be. This is Verdure, a pot designed by Seoyeonjin Choi. The fact that plant grows upside down is actually the least interesting part of the design. The thing that really impresses is the fact that all you need to do is to insert seeds into the sponge compartment in the soil and add some water every now and then. The sponge absorbs water and a halogen lamp keeps the plant healthy once it grows.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket

Designs such as the Biovessel introduce a new idea: turning food waste into nutrients for the plants. Biovessel is an ecosystem which does exactly that. It decomposes food waste which is then transformed into nutrients for the indoor garden. The whole system is completely powered by nature so no batteries or outlets are required to take full advantage of it.

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Designers Nathan Wierink and Tineke Beunders created the window herbs, a set of planters which can be attached to windows via suction cups. This allows the plants to take advantage of the natural light and their owners to save some counter space. The pots are transparent to maximize the effect of the sunlight on both the plant and the soil.

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Because can often be a real problem, we have to find ways to make the most of what we have and that means being clever and combining functions whenever possible. A product that does that was designed by Jörg Brachmann. It combines a planter and a cutting board allowing you to save space and time by chopping fresh herbs right there where you grow them. Several other interesting hybrid pieces are also available.

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Lamps are useful if you want to grow a plant in a spot where it doesn’t get much natural light. Bulbo designed a lovely piece that allows you to have beautiful herbs and plants all year long. It’s called Quadra and it’s a lamp with an adjustable aluminum frame and LED lights. It’s energy-efficient, eco-friendly and suitable for plants of various heights. You can find it in two sizes.

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Since we’re discussing lamps, we should also talk a bit about the Green Light, a product designed by Linda Bergroth for Kekkilä. It’s a wonderful grow light ideal for indoor gardening. In addition to being great for your herbs it will also illuminate your kitchen, providing a pleasant mood light. Another nice feature is the tray which collects the extra water from the plants, keeping the counter dry and clean.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket

Patch is a quirky and cheerful planter that’s perfect for anyone who doesn’t really know a lot about gardening or doesn’t have a lot of time for this. Traditional planters don’t really tell you how much water to put in. This one doesn’t either but it lets you fill a reservoir and be done with it, taking the water it needs when it needs it. The water is delivered to the roots and the plants grow healthy and beautiful on their own.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket
ALGOT Wall upright and basket

This is the Kitchen Farming collection, a series of products created by Cult Design specifically for growing herbs and other eatable product indoors. The collection include terracotta and ceramic pots with various characteristics. There’s a self-watering pot for evergreen herbs and a box for growing shoots and sprouts, called Grow Green. The pots come in different sizes.

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Another interesting concept was proposed by designer Philip Houiellebecq when creating the Auxano system. It incorporate a full setup which includes everything you need to grow beautiful fresh herbs indoors. Your new garden will be window-mounted which means that the plants will take full advantage of the sunlight. The idea behind this system was to offer everyone to grow their own fresh product in the city or when living in a really small space.

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If you’re the type that loves smart devices and accessories, you could share that passion with your plants. You can grow plants in the BB Little Garden, a product designed by François-Xavier Martouzet . It’s a system which combines a C-shaped frame with a set of LED lights and three containers in which to grow herbs. It allows you to grow fresh herbs all year round and it also looks pretty cool.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket

Self-watering planters are very practical and there are plenty of models to choose from. One of them is designed by Joey Roth. It has a distinctive design, with a special chamber at the center that holds water and then lets it slowly seep into the soil hydrating the plant. The inspiration for this product came from an ancient irrigation tool that was used by farmers to conserve water in arid climates. The planter is big enough to hold three herbs or six succulents.

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There was even a kickstarter project focused on the idea of growing herbs indoors. It’s called Windowfarms and its name pretty much says it all. It’s a system which allows one to grow herbs and greens by the window. What’s really nice is that it doesn’t occupy a lot of space and this makes it perfect for small spaces. The innovation is that the containers don’t use soil. The roots are placed in nutrients from the sea instead.

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For those of you who don’t have a backyard or a garden where to plant things like vegetables and fresh herbs, things are a bit more complicated. You can still have a lovely garden, but indoors and don’t imagine it would have to be very big. It could actually be pretty compact. The Mobile Food Garden by Nancy Wang also comes with a design that’s versatile and easy to roll anywhere you want it to be. Let the seeds germinate on the lower levels and then move them on the top trays so they can get more light and grow further. The water comes from the top and flows through the trays. It’s then collected in the bottom tray and recycled.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket
ALGOT Wall upright and basket

Modularity is important when space is limited but for Plantus that’s not a problem. This system of modular planters were designed by Judit Zita Boros and its role is to allow you to grow fresh food indoors. The cool thing about these vertical gardens is that they can double as dividers or privacy screens, sort of like green walls or curtains. You can customize the dimensions according to your needs and your garden can grow in time.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket
ALGOT Wall upright and basket

Meet Pod, a chic and modern indoor gardening system which can be used for the cultivation of herbs and vegetables, a good solution for urban spaces with limited or no outdoor space. It uses a fogponic system which distributes the nutrients and the water as a fog or mist rather than as liquid. The system is automated. The Pod system was a collaborative student project.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket
ALGOT Wall upright and basket

The Green Wheel takes this idea of growing things in a tight space to a whole new level. The wheel uses a rotary hydroponic system developed by NASA and adapted by Design Libero. The wonderful thing about it is that it provides a large growing area while using little space. The wheel has a light source at the center and an engine concealed inside the outer case. There’s also a water reservoir and a pump which ensure automatic irrigation. The plants stay in containers made with coco fiber, placed inside the inner wheel.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket

Inspired by the Edelweiss flower, the Edelwhite is a stylish and modern planter system designed by architect Daniel Pouzet. It comes in the form of a tile/ frame with six reservoirs for plants. It can be displayed on tabletops, shelves or on walls, either alone or in sets that form a mosaic wall. The design is simple, clean and modern.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket

As a general idea, hanging planters are really great for small spaces. They can be hung from ceilings, on walls or on porches and they take up zero floor or counter space. That’s what inspired designer Gabriella Asztalos when creating the Floating Gardens. These planters are suspended by thin metal cables and this makes them appear to float in the air, this giving them a lightweight appearance despite the metallic design. The planters are suitable for both indoor and outdoor use.

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If you’d rather have a separate corner just for your indoor garden, then you’re probably not too impressed by all the hanging planters or window pots featured so far. No worries, we have something for you too: a design by Atelier 2+. It’s a small greenhouse that’s sort of like a tiny room within a room. It’s the perfect environment for a miniature garden or a few fresh herbs for the kitchen. It sits on a pedestal and it has a glass shell.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket
ALGOT Wall upright and basket

Ikea doesn’t only offer great furniture for low prices and tons of quirky decorations but also something that lets you grow your own herb garden indoors. The IKEA Indoor Garden is a collection of different kits designed with everything required to set up a hydroponic garden. The kits come with seeds, sponge-like plugs, trays and planters with absorbent punice instead of soil. There’s even a grow light that makes sure the plants are happy during those rainy days.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket

Part aquarium and part herb garden, this unusual system is based on the aquaponic principle. The fish in the tank contribute to the garden above them. Their waste is turned into nutrients. The system was developed by two friends and was featured on Kickstarter. It consists of a grow bed, hydro stones, a fish tank, eco seeds and a low-energy pump. Basically if you keep your fish happy and healthy, your plants will look great as well.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket
ALGOT Wall upright and basket
ALGOT Wall upright and basket
ALGOT Wall upright and basket

All the products described so far are meant to make it easier and more practical for us to grow plants, herbs and even vegetables indoors. Each of them is interesting in its own way and comes with a special set of unique characteristics. But which ones are the best for your own space? That’s up to you to decide. Perhaps you could find some inspiration in this contemporary kitchen which was designed with a built-in herb garden.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket
ALGOT Wall upright and basket
ALGOT Wall upright and basket

The Segev Kitchen Garden is a restaurant in Hod Hasharon, Israel and it too has a herb garden. The space was designed by Studio Yaron Tal and it looks a lot like a greenhouse. It has planters with herbs hanging from the walls, the ceiling and even placed between the tables. The chefs actually use these herbs to cook with and that offers the guests a unique experience.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket

A lot of the products we discussed are designed to deal with the lack of space but if that’s not exactly a problem then you can afford to create something on a larger scale, like this vertical garden featured on Manmadediy. It’s really roomy, big enough to hold lots of herbs and even some veggies. The wood containers can be arranged and displayed in lots of different ways. You can even have your herb garden placed outdoors or on the balcony or deck.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket

Ever thought to put your herbs and plants in bags? This could actually work but you can’t use any bag. Go ahead and have a look at these Pot Cradles by Hean. They’re specially designed for plants and you can hang them anywhere you want.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket

A basket could work fine as well and you can actually make such a hanging planter yourself. Use a metal bowl as a container, drill a few holes along the edges and hang it with chains. It’s an idea that we found on Abeautifulmess.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket

How cool and easy would it be to just stick your favorite planters on the wall using magnets? It’s actually possible thanks to designs such as the one proposed by Urbio. The planters stick to the wall using magnetic plates. They’re easy to move around and reconfigure in case you want to reposition your herb garden or to adjust the decor.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket

If you’re worried about space, what better way to save some than with upside down planters? They basically allow your plants and herbs to grow upside down, keeping the soil and the water in and making the greenery easily accessible. In addition to being practical this way, planters such as the ones from boskke are also really interesting visually. You can definitely make a statement.

ALGOT Wall upright and basket

Another way to save space is with vertical planters. You can find some cute ones at Ikea and you can display them along the window or anywhere you can find a free nook such as next to the door frame or in a corner.