Aerogarden - got one? Watcha growing?

[Arynnah]

I got an Aerogarden for christmas and I must say it's so much fun!!! I'm already beginning to harvest basil and it's so nice and fresh!

Right now I have a 7 spot garden with the gourmet herb collection (mint, thyme, dill, basil, purple basil, chives, and parsley)

Does anyone else have one? How are you liking it? Or if anyone is thinking of getting one and wants to ask any questions- ask away!

 

[IanT]

I got an Aerogarden for christmas and I must say it's so much fun!!! I'm already beginning to harvest basil and it's so nice and fresh!

Right now I have a 7 spot garden with the gourmet herb collection (mint, thyme, dill, basil, purple basil, chives, and parsley)

Does anyone else have one? How are you liking it? Or if anyone is thinking of getting one and wants to ask any questions- ask away!

I dont have one, however I am no stranger to hydroponic (and aeroponic ni the case of Aerogarden) gardening, I was a bio major in college and thus I developed a strong attraction to controlled environmental agriculture. I practiced it heavily, harvesting pretty much all of my own veggies until I moved in with my girlfriend... there isnt much room in this apt as its only 500sqft, and she wont let me set anything up anywhere, and my cat eats everything... ... I miss it though and as soon as I am able to I am going to get back into it!... If you ever have any questions or concerns feel free to ask me, Ive got looooooooooads of knowledge on that stuff!

I remember growing basil leaves the size of my hand! I wish I could start up a hydroponic farm, because you literally have no limit to how much you can grow (other than of course budgeting!)

I LOVE the cherry tomatoes I was able to produce.. mmmm mmm mmmmmmm tasty!

At one point I had a 1000 watt HPS Deep water culture system, 400w MH/HPS conversion Aeroponic and a 150w HPS running all at once... power bill!?!? scary!!!.... but I love the fact that you can pretty much get onto a perpetual harvest cycle if you take clones and plan correctly. The only thing I have against aerogarden is that you need to buy their seed packs because of the holders for them in the system, its harder to use something like peat plugs and then just plant your own seeds in them...


I could talk forever about this so Im going to stop...



I love this stuff though

 

[Arynnah]

Yea I think some of the herbs/plants would be toxic for kitties also-mine are high up in case my dog ever decided it looked tasty...

My current issue is that the basil is growing so tall and out of control it's about to bump into the lights and the lights are locked in their highest position!!

I'm not supposed to harvest yet but I went ahead and pruned the area that was about to run into the lights and had it on a sammy with tomato and deli meats mmm mmm! I just hope I didn't kill the plant- we shall see...

They also make empty lil pods that you can pop your own seeds into- I got that set as well.. I plan on throwing my leftover rosemary seeds in there and see how it goes.

You'll get a kickout of this IanT- I was reading the Aerogarden FAQ's one day and someone asked why they didnt' offer more variety of product- like apples and oranges LOL!

I'm so disappointed the public school system failed them to the point they don't realize how apples and oranges grow...

 

[IanT]

Yea I think some of the herbs/plants would be toxic for kitties also-mine are high up in case my dog ever decided it looked tasty...

My current issue is that the basil is growing so tall and out of control it's about to bump into the lights and the lights are locked in their highest position!!

I'm not supposed to harvest yet but I went ahead and pruned the area that was about to run into the lights and had it on a sammy with tomato and deli meats mmm mmm! I just hope I didn't kill the plant- we shall see...

They also make empty lil pods that you can pop your own seeds into- I got that set as well.. I plan on throwing my leftover rosemary seeds in there and see how it goes.

You'll get a kickout of this IanT- I was reading the Aerogarden FAQ's one day and someone asked why they didnt' offer more variety of product- like apples and oranges LOL!

I'm so disappointed the public school system failed them to the point they don't realize how apples and oranges grow...

lol yeah thats crazy!!... Albeit, I have seen a hydroponic set-up that was catered towards fruit trees, the downside (like Im sure you know) is it takes YEARS for these trees to mature to the point to where they can bear fruit... The few trees I have seen were part of University experiments... I never got to see the fruit they produced (and now that I think of it Im going to go back and check... that was like 4 years ago...so it should be nearing fruition now!)...

As far as the basil growing very high, basil is actually a plant you can constantly prune (harvest), however never take more than 1/2 of the plants foliage at one time. my advice would be to cut some of the upper pieces of plants off (starting at maybe the 4th or 5th internode (branch junction), depending on how tall the plant is). Instead of growing up, it will grow out, and get bushier. the areas on the lower section of the plant will grow larger, since they arent shaded by the larger leaves on top. you can also pinch the growing tips on the apex of the plant, instead of the plant concentrating on upward growth, it will grow out, and get bushier

You really cant kill a basil plant unless you harvest more than 50% at a time... they are so resilient

you dont want the top of the plant to get too hot...if you see it start to turn colors around the edges on top it might be getting burned by the light.

it could stress the plant and cause it to go into flower automatically. If you keep the light cycle catered more to vegetative growth (18 hrs on, 6 off or 16:8) and not so close to 12 on 12 off (flowering cycle) it should just keep growing foliage and not flower if it isnt overly stressed



I used to take the basil leaves, a slab of tomato, and fresh mozz. and make a little caprese salad.... omg I could eat that everyday... fresh pesto is so good tooo....


I had so much basil growing at one point i had to start freezing it because i didnt know what to do with it all lol... i made tomato basil soup (thats the besssssssssssst )

 

[Arynnah]

My issue though is that there's only like.. 3 internode areas total (I'm not counting the tiny initial leaves at the very bottom of the plant that aren't bearing basil leaves). The basil is just really tall and skinny... bah..

 

[IanT]

My issue though is that there's only like.. 3 internode areas total (I'm not counting the tiny initial leaves at the very bottom of the plant that aren't bearing basil leaves). The basil is just really tall and skinny... bah..

what kind of nutrients are you using?? Nutrients are usually formulated with N, P, and K, as well as micronutrients and beneficial micro-organisms. It sounds like the blend you are using probably has more potassium (K) in it than Nitrogen (N), Nitrogen is mainly for vegetative growth, and K is more for fruit and flowering plants...

I could reccommend you some better ones if you let me know which ones youre using...also how do you measure how much you are adding?

 

[Arynnah]

They're pre-measured little packets of liquid plant food.. there isn't any ingredient information on the website so I'm not exactly sure what's in them.. I would say a 1 tsp per packet so lets say 2-3 tsp liquid plant food every 2 weeks...

 

[IanT]

I would try FoxFarm "Grow Big" its all organic nutes catered specifically towards use in hyrdoponic systems (its pretty much made of earth worm castings and other micronutrients.) Thats pretty much the only one I used...Then I would use "big bloom" for any fruit/flowering plants.

Also, you might want to look into a "cheap" PPM/TDS meter... it tests the amount of nutrients you have in your water solution. I ve got this one:


Hanna TDS/PPM meter

and also these two:

PH meter

PPM/TDS meter

Theyre kind of expensive, but I use them all the time, I even test my water with them, you can tell how much solute you have in your water (and whether its hard/soft). I can also test my Brita filter for when its needed... water out of my faucet is like 300 PPMS (parts per million), lots of stuff in it.. brita pitcher takes it down to like 40 ppms, which is pretty good... I also bought a commercial grade Reverse Osmosis system, which takes it down to 13 ppm... best water to drink and use on plants.

Id reccommend that you dont use water out of your tap, but fresh RO water, or spring water you can buy in the store... it will help, because if your adding nutrients on top of water thats already at like 300 ppms, its going to nutrient-burn the plants, in addition it makes less of the nutrients available in solution for the plants...

For basil, when it is out of its seedling stage, Basil likes to be in nutrient solution that is about 710-1120PPMs, when its young I keep it under 150ppms, and the PH should always be between 5.5-6.5.

and...yeah if there is 3 internode areas total, I would say just take off some foliage whenever it blocks leaves or new shoots beneath it... that way youll consistently get new growth.

Hope this helps!

this is my other hobby.. I LOVE the whole green thumb thing.

 

[Arynnah]

I just wanted to update on my Aerogarden- I'm not too happy about it! My aerogarden is supposed to *alert* me when I need to refill the water and replenish the nutrients- except it doesn't ALERT me it's on a timer for 2 weeks and then it just says "hey add water- it's been a while"

Well my basil is monstrous and must have sucked all the water up into it's beefy leaves because the tank was bone dry... my mint died- I'm glad I noticed it was looking sickly and investigated or I might have lost more herbs. Also- 2 days later after I'd refilled the tank and added nutrients.. the "add water and nutrients" lights started flashing.

Idk I just found that kind of misleading of the Aerogarden advertisement it made it sound like it actually gauged the water level and instead it's just a 2 week timer. Now I don't trust it and monitor it frequently for adequate water

But at the same time the herbs are growing fantastically (well except for poor minty.. ) So .. I'll stick with it

 

[ChrissyB]

Thanks for the feedback on these things
I was thinking of getting one for my mum for mother's day.

 

[IanT]

they are quite awesome!

I think hydroponics and aeroponics in any application are great for people to learn about plants and produce their own herbs (especially considering that most culinary herbs at a regular store go for $$4 for 1 oz wet weight of herbs! at that rate to make my marinara sauce I need like $20 worth of basil to make it... baaah to that!...

@Ary- Yeah, I ve heard that the measurement indicator can be a little troublesome. Best advice it to add more water at least once every 2 days... when my crop was in full swing, it drank 5 gallons worth of water PER DAY... so I needed to constantly keep it topped off, it got to be part of my daily ritual. you could also make a gravity fed reserve resevoir, this way should your main resevoir go dry, (which it wouldnt in this case) water is fed from a resevoir that is located at a higher position, so the water from the reserve is added into the res that is losing water

 

[ChrissyB]

Ian that's why I want one for my mum too
She cooks with a lot of herbs and they are very expensive fresh here also, and they just don't last.

 

[IanT]

Ian that's why I want one for my mum too
She cooks with a lot of herbs and they are very expensive fresh here also, and they just don't last.

If you have someone good at working with tools I can show you plans to make one (without a light... like a window-sill version) for waaaaay cheaper... yeah it wouldnt have the bells n whistles but it would cost about 75% less too lol

Yeah thats pretty much the reason I got into gardening.. Nothing beats the feeling of pulling up FREE fresh herbs and lettuce and oooooooohh my favorite...cherry tomatoes... theyre like candy