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Rise Gardens Makes Indoor Gardening Fun and Easy

Sprout your kids’ interest with a foolproof Rise Garden + save with our discount code!

By Julie Dikken, publisher of Macaroni KID Evergreen and Macaroni KID Arvada, Colo. June 10, 2022

There are so many benefits to gardening with kids, from sneaking in science lessons to encouraging healthy eating.

These benefits can last a lifetime too: Research shows kids who help grow their fruits and veggies are more likely to enjoy produce as kids and as adults. 

But growing a garden is challenging — or at least my family has found it to be! Fighting the outdoor elements, the temperature fluctuations, and pests — from deer-sized to aphid-sized — is frustrating at best.


Rise Gardens provided me with compensation to facilitate this review. As always, my opinions are 100% my own.






Maia starting one of our favorite greens, the Bronze Arrowhead Lettuce.

We’d given up on having a successful garden, but then I found Rise Garden.

Our family has overcome all gardening hassles with our Rise Garden. Their system is fool-proof, turning our entire family into experienced, green-thumb gardeners.

Macaroni KID readers can save $75 on all Family Rise Gardens. Use Code MACARONIKID75 to save! Click here for details.

What is Rise Gardens?

My husband bought me the Rise Garden for Christmas and since the second month of growing, I have harvested enough lettuce and delicious vegetables to enjoy with every dinner, as well as many flavorful salads for lunch. That doesn't count the herbs that we clip to add to just about everything on a daily basis! 

Rise Gardens creates the perfect growing environment inside your home and makes it simple to be successful with their patent-pending Smart Care Technology that tells you when nutrients are needed. Plus, the system is equipped with a self-watering system, is Wi-Fi enabled, and uses an app to guide you through the entire process.

All of this means the entire family can be involved and feel good about becoming successful hydroponic gardeners, and you can give your family a farm-to-table experience right in your home. 

Recently, my niece came to visit and was excited to help me with my weekly maintenance and learn about hydroponic gardening along the way. 


Maia measuring the nutrients needed to feed our garden. The app told us the exact amount needed for the week!

Growing our garden

Our Rise Garden plants started as seeds and grew to beautiful plants in what seemed like no time... much quicker than a traditional garden. We’ve loved watching them grow! 

I started my first plants on December 26th and harvested my first salad on January 22nd! If you are looking for instant gratification, growing lettuce and microgreens is so quick, that you can practically watch them grow! My first two Patio Pride Pea plants were producing in less than two months from starting the seeds.

Rise Gardens carries so many varieties seeds and we have loved being able to add more vegetables to our garden to expand our horizons! I love that our family is trying all of these new-to-us vegetables.

Our favorite greens so far have been the Bronze Arrowhead Lettuce, the Butter Crunch Lettuce and our absolute favorite the Iceberg Lettuce. It is so fun to watch the leaves start to grow into a tiny head, and the flavor is out of this world (they make the cutest baby wedge salads)! It is so much tastier than what you can find at the store. 

I have Kitchen Mini Siam tomatoes and Fresh Bite Orange Peppers starting to fruit and my tomatoes are just starting to turn red — I can't wait to give them a try. 

Having the garden nearby is making all of my meals so much fresher. I love that I can clip fresh herbs and take them straight from the garden to the kitchen, adding so much flavor to every meal I make. 

A favorite tip — take a frozen pizza and add fresh basil and oregano. Top with a little fresh grated parmesan and its almost like homemade! 

It’s been such a thrill to be able to harvest beautiful fruits and vegetables as we’ve needed them. Rise Gardens has given my family access to highly-nutritious vegetables all year round without the nuisances that come with outdoor gardening like pests and weed control. (I love not having aphids in my lettuce!) 


Observing the roots that are thriving in the water trays.

STEM learning at home

But the best part of Rise Gardens has been the education it provides.

By gardening with kids, you are setting them up for a healthier future — with the added bonus of learning science with real-world experiences!

Some of Maia's favorite scientific observations with our Rise Garden include:

  • Watching the root systems grow bigger in the water trays while the plant above flourishes under the lights.  
  • Noticing the plants that have brightly-colored stems, like beets and swiss chard, grow roots of the same color.
  • Realizing many of our plant's roots have the same smell as the fruit or plants themselves.
  • Finding out vegetables, herbs, and greens begin losing nutrients the moment the plant is harvested, so by growing our food at home with a Rise Garden, harvesting plants as needed, we ensure our produce is at its most nutritious when we eat it.
  • Learning that a controlled environment gives us the opportunity to grow our favorite veggies, even on the coldest and hottest days of the year.

You can find more fun science facts and educational activities on the Rise Blog.


Science in action! Maia was excited to learn the roots of the beet plant are red, just like the veins in the plant!

Give Rise Gardens a try and save!

Want to give hydroponic gardening a try and discover the joy of successfully gardening with your family year-round?

Get your garden started today! Macaroni KID readers can save $75 on all Family Rise Gardens. Use Code MACARONIKID75 to save! Click here for details.