The AeroGarden

So far the strawberry plants seem to be thriving in the AeroGarden, whenever one flower dies or wilts away another quickly grows to replace it. The plant leaves seem healthy for the most part, a few are a tad brown on the edges however so I will have to keep an eye on that.

As you can see from the above image, the flowers are healthy and in the next few weeks we should start to make some real progress towards having actual strawberries growing here. Personally I am pleased with the progress, water consumption is still very high compared with what I’m used to with other seed kits at this point but I am excited to taste my own fresh strawberries soon!

It’s been awhile since I last posted a strawberry update, a lot has happened the last two weeks. Most notably the plants finally started to grow, the root structures are coming a long nicely in the AeroGarden watering tray and perhaps most important… The strawberry flowers are starting to form!

Very exciting..

Here’s a close up of the flower:

More to come in the next few weeks!

It’s been about a week now since I first planted the strawberry plants in the AeroGarden, I have been running on the suggested Herb/Basil setting and have yet to see any growth pushing it’s way up to the tray. However the root systems are developing nicely as you can see below.

I’ve refilled the water supply for the first time and so far everything appears healthy. I am just surprised at how much water these plants are soaking up, it’s nothing like any other AeroGarden seed kit or plant I’ve tried to grow before.

The AeroGarden Strawberry kit

The big difference between traditional seed kits and the strawberry kit is you receive real live plants as opposed to seeds. This means you’ll need to do just a little more work then normal when you first plant them.

What you Get:

• 7 Strawberry Plants - Sealed in a special bag.
• An official AeroGarden Strawberry planting, tending and harvesting guide.
• 24 nutrient tablets - These are special for the AeroGarden Strawberry kit and will last you 24 weeks.
• Finally…. The invoice.

When opening the bag for the first time I couldn’t help but notice that strawberry plants were a tad bit large for the bag, which made it difficult to cut open without damaging the leaves. So be careful as these kits are hard to come by!

The plant’s themselves are fairly easy to handle, simply take them out of the cut baggy and place them in your seed tray. It does seem a little different at first since the plants don’t use the “bio-dome” that the rest of the AeroGarden seed kits use. Also since these are live plants don’t leave them sitting idly on your desk, open and plant them in the AeroGarden as soon as possible.

Once you have all the plants nestled inside your AeroGarden, take a look at the root’s. We want to make sure that none of the roots are touching against any of the interior seams, if any are touching it’s quite easy to fix, just move them with your fingers. Once thats done you now have an AeroGarden full of (hopefully) growing strawberry plants!

One thing I should point out however is that AeroGrow has changed to a different breed of strawberries and so they are now reccomending that we DO NOT use the strawberry setting on the AeroGarden (oddly enough). Instead they recommend using the Herbs/Basil setting.

Whats the difference between the settings?

AeroGarden Strawberry Setting:
15 Hours Lights On (day)
9 Hours Lights Off (night)

AeroGarden Herbs/Basil Setting:
17 Hours Lights On (day)
7 Hours Lights Off (night)

So overall it’s an additional 2 hours of light, which should mean our plants grow faster. I will keep you all updated on my progress.