Aerogarden Update

I have learned a few things over the past few weeks......

1) Pruning Pruning Pruning... this is incredibly important with the aerogarden. I try and snip off small amounts here and there but really some of the fast growers (i.e. mint and thai basil) need about 1/3 of each plant pruned every week for the following reasons:

• Overcrowding other plants. The thai basil is notorious for this but the mint is getting out of hand as well.
• The plant itself will get dried/brown leaves if not pruned properly, because it blocks light to its own leaves.
• The plants need to be grown to the same height, and each of the plants grow at different rates so while the chives rarely need pruning, the thai basil needs almost constant pruning.

I found this pamphlet with a lot of nice information about proper pruning/harvesting starting from page 13-21.

 2) Not all herbs taste like their soil grown counter parts... I have found that the mint leaves taste different than those that grow outside in the soil. My daughter confirmed this (she regularly eats mint leaves), she claimed that the mint leaves were "too spicy". I will probably plant this one out in the soil when I get some time. Otherwise the other herbs taste just as good as their counterparts (i.e. cilantro, dill,  chives, thai basil, curley leaved parsley, thyme)


Tomato update:
So I checked in on my mom's tomatoes in her aerogarden. She has a number of nice cherry tomatoes and the plant looks very healthy but the tomatoes took longer than they probably should have to ripen (over a month and a half from when the fruit formed) . This could have to do with the fact that we didn't keep the plant properly pruned so the plant was focused on producing foliage. My dad did some aggressive pruning and the fruit quickly ripened not sure whether it was timing or the pruning. However aerogarden is pretty clear to tell you that you need to keep the plant well pruned(you live and you learn).