Beginner indoor farmer with option paralysis, feedback and opinions desperately wanted!
Hello all! As title indicates, I am a beginner indoor farmer and am looking to go more fully into the hydroponics scene! I currently have an Aerogarden Bounty Elite that I got as a gift from a friend and have started small with the basic herb pack it comes with, but my initial success has cultivated (pun intended) a greater desire to expand my indoor gardening.
I have done some research into the Gardyn 4.0 and the Rise Garden Loft, and I am aware that Aerogarden has a "farm" variant as well but have had limited success in where to get it. In any case, I am looking for opinions on these and other indoor garden set ups that I have not looked into to see what I should get, if any at all!
Some of the things that matter to me:
>Space - My dining room is on the smaller side and I have a little corner section of wall next to my kitchen that is 31.5" wide that would be perfect to tuck either a standing garden or a shelf with individual gardens.
>Cost - Self explanatory, but for more detail, I am trying to take into account both entry and residual costs as it seems some options have optional subscription models? I don't want to set a hard budget, but $1000 upfront is sort of a hard upper bound, and my end goal is to reduce costs in the long run.
>Scope - My first 'benchmark' I have set for myself is I would really like to be able to grow my own Greek salads (tomatoes, red onions, and cucumbers to go with the dill in my herb garden), but the more versatile, the better!
>Effort - Its very quickly becoming apparent that this is becoming a fun hobby for me; better than wasting all my time gaming lol. I would like to get something that is 'beginner-friendly' while also having a reasonable 'skill-ceiling' so I'm not bored/underwhelmed too quickly.
Any and all opinions are welcome and appreciated! I also promise I'm not a blogpost AI trying to get feedback, so here's a mildly pronounceable nonsense word! Shpleemabamaflorpeedoo! I'm... actually kinda sad I don't know how else to prove I'm a human.
Tl;dr - What's your favorite, moderate-scale indoor garden system and why?