I'm Nuts about My New AeroGarden Planter  

Sure will, as it is such a conversation piece in our home! I will take lots of photos and upload them here as well as on my blog.

Yes, these are my little green babies and just in time for Mother's Day, lol. When we plugged it in a few days ago, I had not idea we would have babies already.

Maybe their video will give you a better idea of how it works. You occasionally pour water into the base to give it moisture, but there is no dirt at all. The roots hang under the plate that supports the plants and you drop a nutrient tablet into the water every couple weeks or so when the little LED lights up to tell you it is time and the same thing with the water. If the plants need water, there is a button that lights up to let you know.

Just since I took that photo, the plants are taller and have new leaves. It is so amazing! I cannot wait to start nibbling.

that is so interesting.

is this the same idea as the hydroponics that produce some of our lettuces and tomatoes at the grocery?

I think so! It sure is working for some lettuce I planted a short while ago!

In fact it is the same but as I only got mine a few days ago, the photo is a close-up of very tiny little baby plants. Yes, there is a human tendency to want a little garden and as we cannot have one outside it is a miracle to be able to grow real food indoors.

Actually there are no settings to learn. It is all automatic! The kits are rather expensive, but they contain everything needed to make it work. All we have to do is pour a little water in when the light tells us to and drop a pill into the water when the other light tells us to. The aerator cycles on and off automatically and the lights turn themselves off and back on again at the right time. There is no programming to do, just plug it in and it powers itself up and does what it is supposed to do. Very clean.

Yes, the neatness is what appeals to me most, and presumably, no bugs.

Wow, so marvelous this invention...so idiot-proof yet fun and easy...makes one an instant gardener. Imagine sitting at your dinner table, then plucking some ripe cherry tomatoes right off the plants, washing them, throwing them into your salad and eating them fresh. You can't get any fresher salad than this!

Yes, and we did buy the cherry tomato kit, so if what you describe does happen next fall when we get back "home" then I will upload a picture here of the tomato planter and the salad, too.

Wonderful..we will certainly look forward to you sharing a picture of your garden harvest of cherry tomatoes. That may inspire us to go out and get one kit for ourselves, even if we have to import it from overseas!

They show roses on the manufacturers web page, but they would have to grow in their own dedicated garden, I think and not be mixed with other kinds of plants. Thank you!

That was the first question I had, too, when first starting to research this toy. People who have soil can and do place them there after they get a healthy and fast start, but the goal for apartment dwellers is to consume the food or in the case of flowers, harvest them for decoration. The flowering seed kit I bought to try is described as "Incredible Edibles" although I rather doubt that we will be eating the Marigolds.

It is also possible to buy seedling plants such as strawberries and retrofit them for indoor growing. The rose kits they sell are live plants and due to problems with the USPS shipping, the charges are astronomical for those, but here is a great article on the do-it-yourself strawberries:

http://www.aerogardenrevi...

We don't have a soil-friendly environment and move back and forth so frequently that anything we grow has to have a really short growing season, so this is pretty much the only kind of "gardening" available to us.

Thank you! :)

Yes, I will not be able to stop talking about this product. We have not seen the TV ad yet, but the ad here on myLot caught my eye last fall. Although we have only had ours a week now, we already realized we need more than one. My concern is whether our climate will be too hot for them, as we do not like to overuse the AC at our desert home. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area where we summer, they should do fine and we should be able to harvest a few times while we are here and then empty out the planters and clean and dry them for storage just about the time we head back.

Apparently there are some insect pests that can attach these aeroponic indoor plants, but not anything like what we would have outdoors, and the neighbor's cats and dogs cannot harm them either.

Hi again drannhh,

I just noticed that you can purchase the Aerogarden in Australia from Global Shop Direct on the Internet...

... for the sum of $249.00 plus $29.95 postage & handling!

It seems to me that one cold buy an AWFUL LOT of cherry tomatoes, strawberries and herbs for that price...

Or build a home-made version for much less...

It might be worth waiting a while to see how long it takes for the price to come down on this one. Lots of direct marketing profit being made on it for the time being.

Oh, I completely agree that it is a pricey toy, and I also agree with much of what you say about the do-it-yourself alternatives, however, we have have spent a lifetime economizing in a zillion other areas and after salivating over the idea of trying one of these for 6 months, I finally decided there are plenty of other things I'd rather do without. We do have a unique situation in that we move every 3 to 6 months, so a normal growing cycle will not work for us at all. And we have no window sills in the kitchen, either. In fact we don't have window sills anywhere in either of our condos. That just isn't an option. Without tapping into the energy grid, our kitchen is so dark that sometimes I think we ARE in a tunnel on the moon!

I disagree about the energy dependency thing a bit, though, because the planter doubles as a mood enhancing lamp and replaces our need to power up the Verilux Happy lamp that we were previously dependent upon to illuminate the kitchen. BTW, the planter cost less than the Happy Lamp, even with a few seed packets added to the price. Also, the kit that allows us to plant our own seeds and grow them successfully (we hope) in the Aerogarden came with our device. I cannot wait to get my hands on some Golden Purslane seeds and start having Omega-3 rich "English pot herbs" on demand. I plan to do a few miniature roses, too, without having to use up the whole neighborhood's allotment of water, as several of our neighbors already do.

Having grown up way out in the sticks at a time when we had no running water, no indoor toilets, no automatic washing machine, no central heating, and none of a whole lot of other things people now take for granted, I have learned to have a high regard for interdependent and technologically sophisticated societal paradigms, although when I was your age, I did think more like you. I really appreciate your input, too!

As I've only had mine for a week we haven't had a chance to try the kit that allows us to use our own seeds yet. But we got one with the planter and will try it next and let everyone know how it works. So we did start with the special seeds and they are indeed pricey, as was the flower pot itself, but not as expensive as a comparable lamp we had been using in the same spot, and this planter serves as a lamp, looks like a lamp, and conveniently doubles as a flower pot.

We haven't gotten the larger one yet, although they e-mailed today to say it has been shipped, so the only experience I have so far is with the Aerogarden 3. It was hard to find, even on the manufacturer's web pages. I had to pull it up from their search window after finding out the name on somebody else's blog:

http://www.aerogardenonli...

I am not going to pay $50 shipping for their roses. I will figure out how to propagate my own.

Oh, yes, I must do a review on AC, as I have done articles already on Squidoo, Hubpages, and my blog. Thanks for the reminder!

Pls, Send me the links.

Just saw this, and will PM you the links!

i have a aerogarden also and i have so much basil i dont know what to do with it all