AeroGarden Reviews : What you NEED TO KNOW!

This post is meant to warn you…BEWARE of the AeroGarden devil! So to give you all a little background, I’ve got several AeroGardens in my home, and needless to say my wife does not allow me to keep all of them in the kitchen (I can’t blame her ) It would be a little much to have 5 AeroGardens crowding our little kitchen. So where do all of my AeroGardens reside? In the garage, where else?

Little did I know that my beautiful AeroGardens were slowly being destroyed by the a tiny little devil. I first noticed that something was wrong when I discovered a few tiny little black “beads” on the surface of a couple of AeroGardens. I didn’t think much about it, until I started noticing more and more of them each time I went out there. Check out this picture.

What were the little black beads? Little POOP from little baby caterpillars (the little Devils)! How did they get there? Was the damage already done?!?

Here’s a little factoid about Caterpillars. They are moth larva. I frequently leave my garage door open when I’m out there, and I think the lights from the AeroGarden attracked the moths. From there, they laid their little nasty larva in the AeroGarden, and little while later they hatched…with the sole mission of destroying my plants! I tried to pick off all of them, but they were very tiny, and even though I thought I got them all, they seemed to keep reappearing everytime I checked. Then out of the blue, I was pulling huge monsters off my plants…and by then it was too late. The damage had been done. Check out this picture of the culprit!

So here’s the moral of this sad tale…don’t ever open your garage door! Just kidding. If you see little black “beads” on the surface of your AeroGarden, beware…you may have these little devils in your garden! I’m not quite sure what to do once you’ve found them…as I couldn’t seem to get rid of mine. So and ounce of prevention (keeping your AeroGarden away from the great outdoors) can prevent a whole heck-of-a-lot of pain in your AeroGarden.

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Whoooohooo! After several weeks of patiently waiting, the AeroGarden that I planted strawberries in has finally produced. A while back I showed you all how to plant your own strawberries in the AeroGarden…because the Strawberry seed kit was discontinued by AeroGrow. Well, here is proof that you don’t have to always use the supplied seed kits that are available for your AeroGarden. To see how to plant your own strawberries in the AeroGarden, check out my original post here.

After about 9 weeks of slaving away, sweating, and exhaustion from working in my AeroGarden (just kidding, all I did was add water and nutrients every 2 weeks ) I can finally see the “fruits” of my labor. Real, homegrown strawberries! Check out this picture for proof!

If you are finally convinced that the AeroGarden is a magical whimsical mysterious wonder you should see this article on Where to Buy the AeroGarden

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Okay, so I just wanted to let everyone know that I’ve been a little busy lately, so I haven’t really had a chance to update the site yet…but don’t worry, it’s coming very soon Among the things I will be posting updates on are:

1. My AeroGarden Strawberries Progress
2. The benefits of the AeroGarden Deluxe Upgrade Kit
3. Differences between the normal AeroGarden and the New AeroGarden Pro200 (Not Available in Stores - but available here)
4. Full sized tomatoes in the AeroGarden
5. Starting seeds in your AeroGarden

While I am working on those updates, I just thought I’d give you all a little heads up that the www.hydroponic-home-garden.com is going to start posting daily AeroGarden Tips & Tricks on their website. This will be a great resource for everyone who has an AeroGarden.

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Okay, so one of the most sought after AeroGarden Seed Kits has been the AeroGarden Strawberry kit. The only problem is, that the strawberry kits were discontinued many months ago. Why you ask? Well, the AeroGardens Strawberry kits were different from their other seed kits in the fact that they didn’t contain seeds…they contained live plants. I don’t know how many of you have shipped a live plant to your cousin’s in Muskogee Oklahoma…but you can imagine that the US Postal service isn’t very friendly with “live” things. In short, the seed kits didn’t have a very good survival rate. But, all hope is NOT LOST!

I hear so many people desperately searching for the strawberry kits…that I’ve decided to post a Step-by-Step tutorial on How to Grow Strawberries in your AeroGarden.

Step 1: Find Some Strawberry Plants to Transplant into your AeroGarden

The first step to a successful crop of AeroGarden Strawberries is to find already existing live strawberry plants. Usually you can find these at a local garden supply store or nursery. I happened to have some plants already in my outdoor garden, so I just pulled some of them up to use. Make sure that the plants you use have a good, healthy root system.

Step 2: Trim the Roots

If your strawberry plants have been growing for any length of time, the roots may be quite large. Before you transplant them into your AeroGarden, you will need to trim excess roots in order for the plant to fit into the AeroGarden Seed pods.

Step 3: Prepare the AeroGarden Seed Pods

Next you are going to want to prepare the AeroGarden Seed Pods for the strawberries. The easiest thing to do is to use the AeroGarden Master Gardener’s Kit (allows you to grow your own seeds), or you can alter an existing seed kit. I’ll show you below by altering an existing unused seed kit.

1. Take out the grow sponge and split it in half all the way down.
2. Place the strawberry plant inside the two halves, and place it back into the seed pod.
3. Place the completed seed pod back into your AeroGarden.
4. Hold the reset button down for 8-10 seconds. When the unit resets, switch the controls to “Strawberries” or “Live Plants”
5. That’s it! Enjoy fresh home grown AeroGarden Strawberries in a few weeks.

I will be posting follow-up photos and comments on growing strawberries in your AeroGarden in a week or so, so you can see the progress.

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Well, it has been a few weeks since I’ve updated things…so I’ll start by announcing the birth of my 5th AeroGarden! (that’s right…I have FIVE!) Where do I keep them all? Well, I would like to say I keep all of my AeroGarden’s in my kitchen for easy access…but alas, my wife didn’t want to feel overun by vegetation inside her kitchen So I moved them all into the garage. I actually think this will be a great setup as they are lined up next to each other, so they will likely share in the light, helping all of my AeroGarden’s to perform better. Here is a picture of what it looks like…(pardon the mess )

I’ll talk a little bit more about my setup in another post…but I’m doing some exciting things with my AeroGarden array and I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted.

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Today I planted the Snow Peas Seed Kit for the AeroGarden. I will keep everyone posted on its progress.

NOVEMBER 14th, 2007 : Today I will continue my AeroGarden Review of the Snow Peas seed kit…so far so good! Here is a photo of the sprouts. I had to split the labels, and readjust some of the sprouts like I had to for the beans…but they look good so far.

NOVEMBER 29th, 2007 : Well, here’s the latest update. So far, the peas in my AeroGarden are looking healthy and good. If they are anything like the green beens, they probably won’t produce very much, but so far they look good in my AeroGarden. Here is the latest picture of the Snow Peas AeroGarden Seed Kit.

DECEMBER 19th, 2007 :Latest update…their DEAD! I killed them…it wasn’t their fault. I have this AeroGarden in my office, and I came down with a bad case of Strepp Throat and was out for a whole week. Needless to say I neglected to have anyone check the water level in my AeroGarden, and when I came back to work…the snow peas were wilted and dying. I tried to save them, but it was too late. I will have to try this kit again.

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Ever since I bought my first AeroGarden, I wanted to grow my own seeds in it. I realize of course that stuff like corn, or full size tomatoes etc. are much to large for the unit, but I wanted to try some other seeds to see if it would work.

In this category, I will keep you posted as to what I find that works and what doesn’t.

Here is what I planted in my first planting:

• Salad Bowl Leaf Lettuce
• Romanesco Broccoli/Cauliflower
• Baby Spinach
• Lima Beans
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Yellow Crookneck Squash
• Zucchini

I just planted these today, so I will keep everyone posted as to how they do with photos etc.

Progress Made in the AeroGarden Expirimentation - October 5, 2007

So far, the only things growing of the items planted are the Romanesco Cauliflower/Broccoli and the Leaf and Salad bowl lettuce. Both are growing quite well actually. Nothing else is even showing a remote sign of growth…so I will keep everyone posted. Here are some photos…

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I recently got an email notification that there was a new seed kit for the AeroGarden…GREEN BEANS! Now I just finished harvesting a bountiful crop of delicious stringless green beans and yellow wax beans from my outside garden…and as usual, it is a sad day when I have to tear them out of my garden as it means there will be no more fresh beans until next year. So I am excited to try this new seed kit! I have decided that it would be fun to start taking pictures of the AeroGarden Seed kits that I grow…so I will try to take photos at different stages and post them, so everyone can see what the kits look like.

I just planted the Green Bean AeroGarden Seed Kit on Wed, September 26th…so I’ll be updating this post shortly as things progress.

Progress Is Being Made…Oct 3, 2007

Well…talk about major progress! Here are some photos of the AeroGarden Green Bean Seed Kit so far

A couple of things about this kit so far:

1) One pod didn’t sprout at all. I pulled it apart and the bean seeds were actually swollen and looked rotted…so I simply pulled one of the “extra” seedlings (each pod is has 2 seeds, but you’re only supposed to leave 1) and transplanted it into the pod that wasn’t growing.

2) The beans pushed the labels and lids up and off. To fit the labels back on you have to cut a slit in the label, the place it around the base of the seedling.

3) In case you are wondering what the little green spirals are, they are the plant braces that come in the seed kit. You have to form them into a spiral and place them around the seedling to give it support as it grows.

Progress on October 9th…

The beans seem to be doing pretty well. Here is the most recent photo of the AeroGarden Green Beans Seed Kit:

Update to Aero Garden Green Beans Kit: November 8th, 2007

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted an update on this kit. So here is a current photo of the kit in the AeroGarden. As you can see, it is rather bushy and takes up a lot of space. Many of the leaves on the underside have turned yellow and I’ve had to trim them off. To be honest, I thought I would see little beans growing by now…but I only see blossoms so far, and it seems like many of the blossoms are just drying up and falling off. I’ll post more hopefully next week.

November 14th, 2007 : WHOOOHOO! I’ve got beans, beans…they’re the magical fruit, the more you eat em’…the more they, er’ grow? Yep, the beans appeared out of nowhere today! I was putting water in my AeroGarden, and then all of a sudden I realized that there were actually 4 inch long green beans hiding under the leaves! They just need a couple more days to ripen, but so far they are doing really well!

December 19th, 2007 : Well. I must say that this kit was a dissappointment. So far it has only produce just a handful of beans…and a huge mess. I don’t know if I did something wrong with this AeroGarden kit or not, but it continuously shed dried up buds, flowers and leaves all over the place. I expected to see a little more production from this kit.

 Overall AeroGarden Seed Kit Rating for Green Beans: C-

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It’s not often in this world that you can firstly find a product that you love, and secondly, become a part owner in the company. The AeroGarden is an exceptional exception to that norm. The founder of the AeroGarden (Michael Bissonette) has had a lot of experience building profitable companies, and when he discovered the power of Hydroponic and Aeroponic growing technology, he could see the huge market potential should the technology become available to consumers.

Well, it has…and in more ways than one. Not only can consumers benefit from the availability of hydroponic and aeroponic technology, they can PROFIT from it too.

AeroGrow International (The manufacturer of the AeroGarden) is a publicly traded company which means that you can actually purchase the companies stock and become a part owner of the company (you may only own one-one millionth of the company, but at least is a part )

I have personally purchased a chunk of the companies stock because I believe they have created an incredible product. The stock is fairly inexpensive as last time I check it you could purchase 1 share for $7.40. It’s likely going to get more expensive as the company “grows”, so it will be interesting to see what happens. I’ll keep everyone posted.

The AeroGarden stock is traded on NASDAQ and it’s ticker symbol is AERO. Here is a link to the Google Finance Stock Quote.

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As a big fan of salsa and spice, I couldn’t wait to try the AeroGarden Chili Pepper Seed Kit. For this kit I actually purchased the new “AeroGarden Pro100 Stainless Steel” unit. At a price just $20 more than the older black and white models, it was a no brainer when choosing. Besides the upgraded look of stainless steel, it also has “adaptive intelligence” that automatically adjusts everything based upon the growth of the plant…pretty cool huh? (I don’t really know how it works

Anyways…the kit sprouted right on schedule just like the last ones and seemed to grow just as quickly. I followed the directions in the AeroGarden tending and harvesting guide and trimmed back the plants when they were about 2 weeks old. After another week I could already tell that trimming the plants made a big difference and encouraged much more leaf and stem growth. At about 4 weeks my chili pepper plants began to flower! I was excited. With the Chili Pepper Seed Kit, just as the Cherry Tomatoes and other flowering kits, you have to pollinate the flowers by hand once they bloom, otherwise no peppers will develop. I didn’t want to risk growing a pretty plant with NO fruit, so I used a trick my grandpa use to use on his tomatoes. I got an old small paintbrush and actually brushed the pollen of the flowers onto each other. This way, I could ensure that each flower would produce a pepper.

Signs of Success:

Sure enough, shortly after I pollinated the flowers I began to see small little bud (baby pepper fruits) forming which quickly grew into full blown chili peppers and lots of them. It was a blast to watch the peppers change colors. I have to admit, that even though I like salsa and spice, the chili peppers in this kit were a little to kickin’ for my taste, but none the less it was a beautiful kit to grow. It basically served its purpose as a beautiful, decorative house plant. Everbody that came to our house commented about how much they liked it.

Overall Summary:

Overall, the Chili Pepper Seed Kit for the AeroGarden was a fun kit to grow. Although the peppers didn’t really get used due to being a little too hot & spicy, they provided an attractive and unique accent to our home and were very fun to grow and look at.

Overall AeroGarden Seed Kit Rating for the Chili Pepper Seed Kit: B+

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