Get Growing

Let’s walk through everything you need to get your Urban Leaf garden growing.
There are two main things you should know right off the bat.

Choose Your Bottles Wisely

Red and blue light coming into your bottle are bad news because they turn the water bad. And water is an Urban Leaf gardener’s BFF. So to stop red and blue light, you need to use a dark green or brown bottle. You probably have plenty of red wine bottles lying around. If you really have no good green or brown options, you can decorate the bottle yourself.

We wrote a whole blog about choosing the right bottle. You can check that out here.

Get Good Lighting

You may or may not know this, but bad lighting is the number one cause of plant death.

Plants need light for photosynthesis. (You probably did know that.) We recommend your Urban Leaf plants get at least 6 hours of direct, full-force sunlight (AKA no shadows) a day. Insufficient light equals frail and weak plants, and no one wants that. Check out our blog post for a better understanding of just how important lighting is. Don’t have access to direct sunlight? Don’t fret. This blog post shows you how to set up a super cheap and effective LED grow lamp for less than 40 bucks.

Now you’re ready to start planting!

‘Planting’ Your Garden

Four simple steps are all you need to follow to get your Urban Leaf garden started.

1. Fill your bottle of choice with room temperature tap water
2. Insert the garden
3. Sprinkle in 3-5 seeds (make sure there aren’t too many)
4. Apply the germination sticker (You’ll need to remember to remove the germination cover before your sprouts touch it.)

If all goes according to plan, you’ll start to see seeds sprouting within 2-10 days of planting.

If you have sprouts, congrats! You’re well on your way to a happy garden. The next step is ‘crowd control’ or culling. Read our guide for that.

Not seeing any sprouts? That’s OK. We’ll get to the bottom of that in our troubleshooting guide. If you don’t find the answers you need here, either drop us an email (help (at) geturbanleaf.com) or text ‘UrbanLeaf’ to 555888. 

Urban Leaf works as your garden’s full-time plant babysitter. It’s a self-sustaining system with enough water and food to last a month. However, eventually it’ll need a refill for all the hard work it’s been doing. Keep in mind that as your plants mature, they’ll start to need more and more water. So you’ll want to keep an eye on the water levels and check in at least once a week. 

Watering Your Garden

To water your garden:

1. Gently remove the insert from the neck of the bottle, leaving the roots dangling inside.
2. With the insert tilted off to the edge, top up the bottle with tap water until its ~80% full (leaving the top 20% or so for air).
3. Slide the insert back into the bottle, being careful not to damage the roots.
4. Return your garden to its windowsill.

Now’s the time to reap the benefits of your Urban Leaf’s hard work. Start integrating your herbs into your cooking. And remember, pruning your plants actually helps stimulate new growth, so don’t be afraid to get in there and cut. Just remember to never take more than 1/3 of the plant off at a time.

Looking for some ideas about what to do with your harvest? There’s a website for that 

Eventually, your plants will outgrow their bottles. You can always reuse your bottles for the next generation. You can even reuse the Urban Leaf garden itself depending on the type of plant you have and how old it is. When it does come time to throw it out, rest assured that everything we make is fully biodegradable. It costs more to do this, but we wouldn’t make Urban Leaf any other way.

Our FAQ blog has a few more end-of-life ideas and suggestions.