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).

Hydroponic setup... the Aerogarden

Hydroponics are the latest buzzword in the gardening world. For those of us who experience "true" winters, hydroponics is attractive because it is a simpler more controlled way to grow crops indoors. The key to hydroponics is there is no dirt. You give the plant roots a suitable "medium" to grow in and you circulate water over the roots to keep them viable. The plants are fed a specific hydroponic plant food. My understanding is that hydroponically grown foods can not be organic because the balanced liquid plant food you feed the plants can not be prepared as organic.

There are some incredibly inexpensive simple DIY hydroponic set ups however I went a different route and ended up getting an aerogarden. This is definitely not the inexpensive route.  I just did not have the "mental energy" to get all the pieces together to make my own (maybe in the future).  I like that the aerogarden is a small contained unit that has its own built in lighting. (getting enough indoor lighting for my plants seems to be a ongoing issue for me, I am always underestimating this). If you are interested in one, Aerogarden frequently has sales and discounts, so I recommend subscribing to their emails and keeping an eye out for sales.

I ended up getting the Aerogarden Extra LED the LED lights are much more convenient and energy efficient than the older version with the proper bulbs. Here is an article on how LED lights are changing how food is grown (it has nothing to do with the aerogardens specifically).

Set up is really easy, it does have to be thoroughly bleached and cleaned between uses. I plan on keeping the plant/root cages, cleaning them and using my own seeds in them. Apparently these replacement plugs work well in the aerogarden plant/root cages.

Herbs and greens (lettuce, bok choi, etc) seem to do well in these set ups. Mine came with  herb kit (pictured in the first picture of this post). The key seems to be keeping each plant pruned to approximately the same height so that each plant is able to receive a uniform amount of light. This means that I have had to aggressively keep some of the herbs trimmed. It can be fun to plan a meal around what herb happens to be growing like crazy that day (one weekend I ended up cooking a pretty successful Thai Basil Shrimp curry). I do end up freezing a bit, I try and avoid that if I can.

I bought a Aerogarden Ultra for my parents and my mom is on her second set of seeds. (I got them theirs a while ago before the LED units were available) This time she is trying tomatoes... it is pretty impressive how healthy these tomato plants are.... These pictures are a few weeks old. I'll try and get updated pictures because she should have a few close to ripening by now. The aerogarden units we have goes up to 3ft tall, so we can not grow huge monster tomato plants It does go through quite a bit of water though. My herb plants need water about once a week and I think my mothers tomatoes need water more often than that.