I’ve seen these AeroGarden’s advertised over the years and with spring coming and my garden to be planted soon I realized I really would love to have fresh herbs all year round. I found some great sales on Amazon.ca and went for the full-out experience with the Bounty Elite version with WiFi and 9 pods. Regularly $500 (holy crap!), I got it on sale for $400. It think it’s still a ridiculous price for what it is, but hopefully it will last long enough to be worth it. I know I spend enough money buying herbs that I can never use up before they go bad.
You can see all the differences between the models on the AeroGarden website. If you’re in Canada, however, I would recommend checking out the prices on www.amazon.ca since shipping is free and the selection of gardens and seeds is pretty decent. You can get all your supplies there, and they’re sold by AeroGrow.
My AeroGarden came with Genovese Basil (x2), Thai Basil, Curly Parsley, Italian Parsley, Thyme, Chives, Dill, Mint & 3 oz. of liquid nutrients (enough for a full season of growth). I only planted one of the Genovese Basil’s because I thought 3 would produce too much basil. The tops of the seed plugs tell you if the plants will be tall or medium or short, so you can organize them according to size. As the seeds start to grow you keep the little plastic caps on, and remove them once the plants begin to touch them.
I certainly don’t need a nightlight in my basement with this puppy glowing in the corner! I didn’t want it on my main floor so I put it downstairs. It’s nice that it doesn’t need any extra light from elsewhere, and actually the instructions say to make sure there isn’t any extra light shining on the plants because it can burn the leaves. The lights turn on and off depending on what you’ve planted (with the version I have you tell it what you planted and it programs the lights accordingly and the app tells you when to add water and nutrients). You start with the lights as close to the plants as you can, and move them upwards as the plants grow. If you are growing tomatoes or anything else large and bushy, you plant less of them (not 9!) (and fill the empty holes with spacer plugs).
I’ll share more thoughts on my experience with the AeroGarden as my little greenies grow!
Cleaning
Cleaning this beast wasn’t fun… the roots went a little crazy and clogged up the pump! I had to clean it all out and order more filters through Amazon before I could put it back together. It was interesting – some of the roots were so big that I couldn’t reuse the plastic peat plug holders. I actually had to hack away at the roots and the plastic so that I could get them out of the AeroGarden! The smaller roots had pushed their way through the thin foam filter and into the pump. I suppose I’m lucky it didn’t wreck the pump – something to keep an eye on in the future, for sure!
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