The AeroGarden

Ever since purchasing my AeroGarden I have wondered about the 6 month recommendation. You see in the instruction guide we are instructed to change our grow bulbs every 6 months. Now that is perfectly reasonable but I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe they could be used longer.

Now before I continue I should warn you that I cannot guarantee that everyone will have the same results as I did so please don’t blame me if your plants are affected.

Well I did some research into the types of bulbs and how they are affected over time. It turns out that compact fluorescent bulbs generally last upwards of 15,000 hours and after 5 years output roughly 70-80% of the light they produced when they were first used.

So I decided to test this information out for myself, since my bulbs were already near the 6 month mark I simply left them in and made a weekly record of how my plants were behaving.

I can’t say I noticed any difference in my existing plants, however once I started with a new cherry tomato seed kit it did seem to take an extra week for the plant to start blossoming. Unfortunately when I was growing my first seed kit I didn’t think to keep careful notes so these results are very subjective.

Ultimately the cherry tomato plant’s grew well though the plant never seemed quite as fast growing, but the tomato’s don’t taste any different and the plants aren’t dieing. So I do believe you could use your AeroGarden grow bulbs for about a year without causing problems for your plants.

One way you can save a lot of money is to recycle your AeroGarden grow pods. It’s a very simple and easy way to avoid having to buy any additional items such as the “Master Gardener” 1 season kit.

Inside each grow pod is a special sponge; this sponge contains the seed and the nutrients to get the seed growing and to later provide a surface for the roots to grow into. Essentially the sponge replaces the soil in outdoor gardens.

While this sponge is very different from one you would buy at your local hardware store that doesn’t mean it’s not available if you do some digging. I came across a very interesting site called FutureGarden that sells a number of products which can be used instead of the much pricier official Aerogrow products.

You can see the Perfect Start sponges here.

Now what makes these so great is you can purchase these sponges for as little as $9.95 for 100 sponges, then buy your seeds at a local store for next to nothing and now instead of having to pay $19.95 plus shipping every 6 months to grow a new garden you can have several years worth of AeroGardening for under $25

Aerogrow International, the maker of the AeroGarden, is definitely following the time honored business tradition of selling a product at or below cost and making their profit off refills and supplies. The plant’s come in special “bio-dome” pods so you can’t use your own seeds, also you must purchase the nutrient tablets or plant food from the company so the true cost of the AeroGarden is a bit higher then the initial price of the AeroGarden.

However that’s about as bad as it gets, the actual product is very well constructed and actually sells for a pretty fair price. While I would have much preferred the AeroGarden came with the ability to grow from traditional seeds I have found that the seed “bio-domes” do give a harvest of about 4-5 months. As well if you shop around you can find them fairly well priced as low as 9.95 each instead of the $29.95 when buying direct.

If your like me and don’t really care to have an outdoor garden and kill pretty much any plant besides the cactus then the AeroGarden can be a great investment. Most of the time when I buy fresh herbs at the grocery store they go bad before I use even half of them. But with the AeroGarden you can pick the herbs you want and the plant keeps the herbs fresh when you’re not using it and grows more herb to replace what you’ve used.

It’s one of those rare things I’ve bought from a television commercial and actually delivered on it’s promises!

You can grow pretty much anything with an AeroGarden that you can grow in a traditional garden. The only limitation is you have to use seed kits provided by the manufacturer, AeroGrow International.

Most of the herb and flower seed kits come with a variety of different plants as opposed to a single type of plant. This is a great idea since the AeroGarden is fairly compact and it would limit its usefulness if you could only grow one herb, flower or vegetable in it.

On average each seed kit takes three to five weeks for the plants to mature and should allow you harvest for four to five months!

Herb Seed Kits: Cost $19.95

French Herbs – Includes Chervil, Sorrel, Marseille Basil, Parsley, Sage, Savory and Chives.

Gourmet Herbs – Includes Thyme, Chives, Italian Basil, Purple Basil, Dill, Mint and Parsley.

Holiday Herbs – Includes Parsley, Oregano, Thyme and Sage.

International Basil – Includes a number of varieties of Basil from around the world.

Italian Herbs – Includes Basil, Garlic Chives, Mint, Savory, parsley, Oregano and Thyme.

Japanese Herbs – Includes Mitsuba, Red Shiso, Nira Chives, Cress and Shungiku.

Vegetable Seed Kits: Cost $19.95

Cherry Tomatos

Chili Peppers – Includes three distinct varieties of chili peppers.

Green Beans

Salsa Garden – Includes Cherry Tomatoes and Jalapeno Peppers.

Snow Peas

Salad Seed Kits: Cost $19.95

Arugula – Salad leafs that add spice to salads.

Baby Greens

Mesclun – Blend of sweet lettuces.

Romaine lettuce – Includes both red and green leafs.

Salad Greens – Includes seven different lettuce varieties.