Since I started my company almost a decade ago in 2012, there has been some great development in products and this blog is to highlight them. In this post, I will highlight some of what I believe are worthwhile investments for your indoor urban farm.
These appliances are mostly for larger-scale food production, from wall farms to fridge farms, to help you cultivate a variety of produce right in your home. If you are looking for smaller, more compact appliances for your kitchen countertop — perhaps to grow herbs and microgreens — take a look at my product review here.
1. Urban Cultivator
Commercial Unit 
16 Grow Trays 
Fits into your counter
The Urban Cultivator was first to market — and is still leading the charge on — urban farming appliances. Starting in fully automated cannabis growing appliances, they evolved to the microgreens market. The company landed on Dragons Den and got backed for their products.
The Urban Cultivator has two models available: the residential and commercial units, retailing for $3500 and $8000 respectively. Everything you need for growing are included in these machines: automated lighting, watering, and climate control. With a large water reservoir, one of these units can be used as a standalone unit or even hooked up to your plumbing.
The commercial model uses standard 11 × 20 grow trays, making it very easy to find what you need to grow in these units, regardless of where you are in the world.
2. Farmshelf
Farmshelf is renown as a forerunner in growing leafy greens and other herbs in the urban farming industry. With their transparent glass walls, the vertical farm visually brings the urban farming into your space, adding greenery to your dining space or living room, wherever you decide to put the appliance.
With over 190 growing sites spread out over four racks and a nursery in the bottom cabinet, you are going to have plants in continual rotation in this appliance. Its sleek profile will make sure you are not taking up too much space, Farmshelf measures 6.5’ H × 4’ W × 2’ D. With wifi connectivity, you can monitor your farm from your phone to know how things are progressing, even if you’re not at home.
3. Garden Chef
Garden Chef is definitely meant to fit in with the industrial kitchen theme. With everything made with stainless steel, it comes fully loaded and designed with a set-it-and-forget-it mentality. The company currently offers five different machines that grow two, four, eight, 16, and 20 standard 11″ × 20″ grow trays. These systems hook up to the plumbing and have touch screen control with programming for the microgreens that you wish to grow.
4. neoFARMS
neoFARMS is an automated aeroponic indoor garden to grow greens. I find it an interesting product to include on this list as it is not fully available to market. neoFARMS has been through many rounds of financing and even won awards on its design.
5. OGarden Smart
The design of OGarden is one of the best for growing, and boasts a great input to output ratio. With only one growing bulb in the middle, plants rotate around this light source and grow in a hydroponic system. It’s a smaller scale growing machine with only around 90 sites to grow plants. There is also a nursery cabinet with 30 pods for sprouting.
6. Wall Farm
This company definitely makes sure the finished look of the wall farm more resembles furniture than a growing appliance. The buyer of Click & Grow’s Wall Farm would want something that fits into their home aesthetic and modern lifestyle. This machine is fully automated for watering and lighting. There is a reservoir that fill things up only once a week. 57 plants can be grown simultaneously, and the one-time price is $799.
7. LF-ONE by HYVE
HYVE started with grow lights and from there, evolved their farming endeavours, from supply automated commercial farms to customizing a smaller version for domestic setting. The Little Farm (LF)-ONE is great for leafy green production and comes with a water reservoir, automation, lights, sprouting rack, and enough sites to grow 56 plants for six grow cycles.
The company claims that within 25 days, you will be able to start harvesting from your LF-ONE. This product is great to add to your home as it is compact and is a self-contained growing vessel. One of these would really suit someone’s personal leafy green needs, and even feed an entire family.
8. Smart Farm
These farms are built to order but, really, if you want something like this in your home it would be worth the wait. This model is 5.5′ wide by just over 16′ long and can house up to 288 plants. However, according to the website, the company can custom-build these out to any size. The Smart Farm is something that would take your leafy green and herb production off the grocery bill.
9. OPCOM
$999 – 180 Sites 
$2500 – 576 Sites
OPCOM covers all levels of urban farming with these two wall farms. The two systems above are basically the same type of farm, offering LED lighting, NFT watering systems, and a circulating water reservoir. You can even hook the systems up to the internet and monitor them remotely. They both have a real narrow profile, so you can install them in a hallway in your home.
They are both impressive systems, and with something like this, you can cultivate more than enough leafy greens and herbs for your family. Since you don’t worry about enclosing your farm from the surrounding environment, there are great cost savings with these grow systems. You can check out my company review where I go over all the products the company has to offer.
10. Just Vertical
This sleek hydroponic system is a hometown creation from Toronto, Canada. They are going the vertical way of growing, which can support some larger growing crops while saving space in your home. A system like this can support tomatoes and other smaller size variety of fruiting crops.
I am not so sure on the amount of lighting on this system and how it can help the user grow from seed. It looks like it would be a great supplemental lighting if you had enough natural light. However, they seemed to focus on design over more than function.
💧 New to hydroponics? Get your complete guide here.
11. LG herb fridge
This herb garden is something that has only been shown to the market at the CES 2020 conference in LA. The product itself indicates that urban farming is on the minds of larger companies in the world. There is not currently a price or release date for the public. I’ve added it to the list for the sake of inspiration.
My general review of this is that LG is not really utilizing the amount of space one can grow when you switch over to hydroponics. Plants don’t need as much space to search for nutrients and can grow a lot more dense.
Updated August 30, 2021. Originally published February 9, 2020.
