the aerogarden blog
Follow along as I experiment with all kinds of Aerogardens.
Thought I'd share with you my Aerogarden peppers.
It looks like only the red peppers are blooming; the other surviving pepper plant isn't bearing any fruit, possibly because the red peppers are getting so big and sucking up all the water and nutrients. I find that the plant is sucking up water so fast that it's bone dry even before the "Add Water" light lights up, and the plant starts to wilt. Which is scary because I'm never sure if the plant has wilted beyond the point where it can come back.
I've already harvested a handful of the peppers, chopped them, and used them in some stir-fry dishes. They are really, really spicy, which I love. Let's hope this lasts!
In other news, the lavender plants are doing very, very well.
Still not quite like the purple fields of lavender I saw in Washington, but I figure there'll get there eventually. Although I still am at a loss to figure out what to do with them once I start harvesting them.
The grow-your-own-herbs are a different story.
As you can see, the basil seeds have sprouted amazingly well, not a surprise given my past experience with basil. The parsley is doing quite well too. And the thyme is slow to come up, but one little plant just came up.
On the negative side, the oregano and one of the thymes are having issues. With the oregano, I saw tiny little plants start to appear, but then they seemed to just die away, leaving behind some fuzz which I assume is mold of some kind. The other thyme did the same thing, which is weird because the seeds were exactly the same as the first thyme (let me just say a "no pun intended" for the whole post and get it over with :P). I'm not sure why these two pods just failed to grow. But luckily, I still have two "leftover" pods from the beginning, so I'll probably eventually replace these underperforming pods with those.
Now to find a recipe that uses basil, parsley, thyme, and lavender...hmm....
Posted on 21 January 2012 | 10:51 pm
So, it's been a while since I had all three of my Aerogardens going. With the first day of winter happening four days ago, I figured, what better time to plant my gardens again?
I actually took advantage of some Special Offers
that AeroGrow was offering over Christmas. I ended up ordering a few things from them: a new set of grow lights and three seed kits.
For the sale, I had to choose from their pre-packaged (non-custom) kits. I've always wanted to try growing lavender, so that was the first kit I ordered. In all honesty, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with lavender if it grows, but it's just something I've always wanted to grow ever since taking a trip to Washington.
I also wanted herb kits, of course, but I'm not a huge fan of their selection--while their Gourmet Herb Seed Kit (6/7-Pod)
used to contain herbs I use like cilantro, parsley, and sage, now it contains things I never use like dill and lemon basil. And of course, if you look back on this blog you'll see that I pretty much exhausted things you can do with mint.
It's then when I remembered that years ago I'd ordered a (non-Aerogarden) herb kit that I never used. I looked through my stuff and surely enough, I found a couple bags of seed I never used.
I ended up getting two of the
Grow Anything 1-Season Kit (6/7-Pod). Will my seeds still grow after all these years? That's the million dollar question. Supposedly, seeds will last for years and years when stored in dry and temperate conditions (I had inadvertently stored mine in the perfect conditions, as I dug them up under piles and piles of clutter). The seeds I had happened to be ones I use: basil, parsley, thyme, and oregano. I had chive seeds too, which I don't use too much.
And so I figured I'd do the experiment of the century: could the Aerogarden Grow Anything kit grow herbs seeds that I'd given up for lost? We'll see in a few weeks.
The Grow Anything kit was pretty impressive. I was wondering--why should I pay the same amount ($17.95) for a kit that has NO seeds as I would for a kit that HAS seeds? The answer wasn't clear on their Web site, but was clear as soon as I opened the package.
The kit comes with 7 empty plastic baskets. They're supposed to be split-apart baskets for easy transplanting later, but the ones I got were definitely in one piece.
They also come with grow sponges, which have the look and consistency of soil much more than I remember. They have a little indentation on the top into which you can drop your seeds. And of course, they have those plastic "grow domes" that you put over the seeds as they're germinating.
They also come with 16 5.5mL nutrient packages and 9 8mL packets. That's a lot more than comes with a standard seed kit (my lavender kit only had 8 8mL packets). So for the same price, instead of seeds, they basically make up the difference by including 8 more weeks of feeding.
My silver Aerogarden was still clean and the brass contacts weren't too corroded on the pump or the arm yet, so the pump still worked.
I took a seed bag and generously poured seeds into the grow pods.
I figured I'd load up the seeds--this way there's a better chance of one sprouting, and if all of them sprout, I'll just prune them down to one or two plants.
I put all seven seed pods in (one parsley, two thyme, two oregano, and two basils). I turned on the unit and most of the pods were soaking up the water.
I saw most because I noticed the two pods on the extremely left and right of the unit weren't.
The problem seems to be with the design of the pods. While they're supposedly compatible with all Aerogarden units, my old 7-pod classic clearly didn't like the longer length of the newer seed pods (which work find in newer Aerogardens).
So, I decided to take out the seed pods on the edges (a basil and an oregano) and save them for some other time. I found some old Plant Spacers to put in their place.
The package also comes with labels you put on top of the baskets. The instructions actually said that to affix the labels to the plastic baskets, you should use a hot iron! I had no inclination to burn myself or some hot plastic with an iron, so I decided to just place the label on top and put the grow dome over it (it is important to use the label to regulate the light that gets to the grow dome).
So, we'll see if I have herb plants in a few weeks, or just some moist grow sponges (in which case I'll plan on reusing them and buying some seeds from my local gardening store.
In other news, I planted the lavender plants too.
This was a lot easier and more straightforward than the Grow Anything kit. I just had to pop it into one of my old black Aerogardens, which thankfully was also clean and working.
Posted on 26 December 2011 | 7:46 pm
For those of who who follow this blog, no, I haven't forgotten about you (or my indoor garden). It's just that my chili plants seemed to be taking forever to grow chilis. Of course, it didn't help that I constantly forgot to water them :P
Happily, my Aerogarden Extra (formerly known as my VeggiePro) is raised all the way to the top with the two remaining chili plants.
In fact, the two plants had grown so much that I had to chop off the entire top, which was growing into the grow lights. The result was this lovely bouquet, suitable for a blushing bride.
Lo and behold, after what seems like an eternity, there are some beautiful peppers on the tree like Christmas lights. Here's a bunch of them.
Here's an especially pretty one:
Now...off to look for some chili recipes. Anyone have any suggestions?
Posted on 21 December 2011 | 6:19 pm
So, my pepper plants had been doing very, very well. The early pruning turned out great, as my four pepper plants grew stronger than ever, avoiding the "top heaviness" that doomed my last batch.
When I checked the plants the other day, though, I was horrified to see that the leaves were wilting.
I realized what had happened. The plants had grown so fast that they sucked the water all up, until it was bone dry. And it all happened so fast the "Water Low" indicator didn't even have time to light up.
I quickly filled the basin with water, but it seems the damage had been done. On two of the plants, the leaves had already wilted past the point of being salvagable. Strangely, the other two plants were doing just fine. My guess is that these two plants had sucked all the water for themselves, leaving their brethren parched.
I plucked all the dead leaves off, but I noticed that there were still tiny little leaf growths on a few of the joints of the branches trying their best to pop up. So I gave the plants a huge pruning, cutting off the branches with the dead and dying leaves. This left me with a couple sticks:
I poured all the water out and refreshed it with clean, warm water and fresh nutrients. The lesson learned, of course, is not to rely on the low water indicator, and to remember the check the water daily when the plants start getting big. I also noticed that the airstone wasn't really aerating the water very well, so I replaced that too.
We'll see if the little guys have some resilience after almost dying of thirst!
Posted on 8 November 2011 | 11:05 am
I'm happy to report the indoor chilis are doing pretty well.
Having said that, a lesson I learned quite clearly from last time is to do it "by the book"...literally. Last time, I let the pepper plants grow and neglected to prune them, which resulted in a bunch of top-heavy plants that ended up collapsing.
This time, I took the instructions to heart. First, I thinned out the plants so that each pod only had one plant. Of course, this meant chopping off one and in some cases two very healthy plants to allow their stronger sibling to take over the whole pod.
As hard as it was to do that, the harder part came in the next step, where for each of the four remaining plants, I had to chop off all the growth over the third "stem".
This was especially hard, since the plants looked so healthy and one even started to have little flowers on them! But again, learning from the last time it's important to make sure the base of the plant is strong. In some ways, pruning the plant like this is a lot like bonsai--on an outdoor plant you'd let it grow and grow, but indoors you need to shape it so that it grows to proportions that work indoors.
Here are how my trimmed plants look now:
In other news, I am on the cusp of officially retiring my other Aerogarden, which was still hanging on with one parsley plant and one basil plant. In an odd turn of events, I noticed that the plants were dying and that strangely there was a ton of dried gunk caked-on the front of the Aerogarden unit. I realized that the pump had failed and somehow the minerals in the nutrients were evaporating and forming on the outside and by the pod openings. When I examined the unit, the contacts on the arm that connect to the pump had completely oxidized.
I transplanted the parsley into a pot. As for the basil, it's not in great shape so I figure I'll let it ride in the Aerogarden (which I got the pump working for again) a few more weeks and see what happens.
Posted on 15 October 2011 | 9:59 pm
Actually, two little chilis :)
So we're off to a good start, although I see nothing yet from the two Red Fire chili pods, which is the one I'm most interested in (I do a lot of Asian cooking). Hope I won't have to get a replacement for the replacement :P
Posted on 15 September 2011 | 12:13 pm
I recently went to the fabulous
Brooklyn Botanical Garden. Being an indoor garden nut, every time I go to a botanical garden, I always try to seek out the herb garden.
Brooklyn's herb garden is phenomenal. One of the highlights is a huge patch of chili peppers. The variety of pepper seemed exactly the same as my erstwhile Aerogarden peppers, down the the shapes of the leaves. Difference, of course, is that there were a LOT of peppers.
This inspired me to get off my keister and replant those four Aerogarden pods once and for all. Again, taking the lessons learned from the last batch, I'm hoping that my indoor gardening experience this time goes a little better.
The first step was doing another thorough cleaning of the unit. One of the tricky things about Aerogardens is that cleaning is a royal pain in the tuckus. Still, a good scouring pad and dishwater soap does the trick pretty well.
The next step was refilling my Aerogarden with water. I plugged it in to make sure the Airstone was still working (I'd purchased a
5 Pack of Airstones
earlier, so I had four left, but happily, this one seemed to still be bubbly).
Next step was opening the box of replacement pods that Aerogrow had sent me.
You all know the rest. Learning from my last experience, I put the pods as far apart from each other as possible, and I used some plant spacers from my old Aerogarden tomatoes to protect the empty holes from dirt and critters (you can also purchase a
Plant Spacer Kit from Aerogarden).
And so we'll start attempt two, remembering the lessons of pruning, pollinating, and cleaning this time!
Posted on 7 September 2011 | 9:58 am
Well, after my salsa post of May, I harvested another batch of cherry tomatoes. This is the tomato plant that won't give up--it's already on the fourth or fifth generation, having had one or two generations of tomatoes from when it was in the Aerogarden, and another two or three when I transplanted it to a flower pot on my kitchen windowsill. The tomato flowers are already out for the sixth generation of harvest.
But lately I noticed a bit of a revolting development in the houseplant soil.
Thanks to the Internet (where would I be without you?) I found out what this was. It's a fungus called Leucocoprinus birnbaumii. It tends to invade houseplants in the summer months when the air is warm, moist, and humid (we've had a LOT of rain in the New York area lately). The spores will travel through the air or hitchhike a ride on clothing. I'm guessing these guys got started through a crack I had in my kitchen window.
The good news is, the mushrooms are not particularly dangerous (unless you eat them, which I have no intention of doing). There are a couple ways to get rid of them. The first and more important thing is to cut off the caps as quickly as possible. Without doing this, the spores can get into your air and get into other houseplants.
Other remedies range from replacing the soil to applying fungicide to the soil, all of which have varying degrees of effectiveness.
One thing I definitely need to do is change the conditions to be less humid and wet. Luckily for me, the only other plants that were near this one were cacti and succulents, which will be fine without water and humidity for a long time. My main houseplants are in the other room, and I think I caught these just in time before the spores went all over the place.
Anyway, I decided that it's not worth it to try to salvage the tomato plant, so it's time to say good bye. Amazingly, I'd started this plant
almost exactly a year ago, and it easily has been the most successful of all my Aerogarden tomato experiments.
Posted on 1 September 2011 | 11:15 am
How time flies. Seems that it was only yesterday I was noshing on my indoor garden salsa.
I realized I never gave an update on my Aerogarden chili peppers since they were but seedlings. Well, the story is not great. Of seven plants, only two ended up surviving. Ironically, the reason that two of the plants didn't make it is because the overachieving plant ended up sucking up all the nutrients and blocking the smaller plants from getting light.
The big plant did bloom a ton of flowers, but it seems that they were all falling off without bearing fruit. Finally, the big plant produced one chili, which I was very proud of.
Alas, despite a ginormous plant that ended up being the size of Cleveland, only two chilis ended up growing in total. Worse, the bigger plant ended up growing so big that it even choked the light out from the slightly smaller plant, before eventually falling from its own weight (despite my holding it up with all my trellises). It was like some strange plant murder-suicide plot. In any case, it had gotten to the point that when I went on two West Coast trips, leaving the plants to fend for themselves with no water or nutrients. When I came back the plants were no more.
Still, if you've been following this blog at all you'll know I'm not a quitter! I tossed the underperforming plants and wrote to Aerogarden, asking if they could send replacements pods for the ones that didn't grow. I've always been incredibly impressed with them, because they sent over three new pods, a mini jalapeno and two red fires. I still have an extra purple super hot from the original package.
And so I'll be starting all over, taking in mind the lessons I learned from this go around. Among other things:
1) Prune, prune, prune at 3-4 weeks. One thing I didn't do last time was to prune the plants at 3-4 weeks. This is what caused the one big plant to grow out of control and eventually finish off all its siblings. In retrospect, while it seems like its a waste to chop off healthy leaves, what you're doing is strengthening the main stem so that it can be stronger and support more branches. Plus, the top leaves you chop off would just grow into the light and be burned anyway.
2) Prune leaves. Some of the leaves grew so big they ended up overwhelming the entire garden. In retrospect, all they do is suck out more water and nutrients. The next go around, any leaf that gets too big is going to be plucked off.
3) Pollinate the flowers. I've had experience with this with tomato plants, where you shake the plants to pollinate them (actually, my preferred method is to tap them with my fingernails until I see a little cloud of dust coming from the flower). With the last go-around of the chili plants, I must have started this too late, as every time I shook the plants the flowers flew right off. I think the right thing to do is to start even when the flowers are at bud form, and do it every other day when the lights are on.
4) Remove dead leaves. As the plants grew and grew and had nothing to show for them, I got a little lazy about cleaning the area on the garden surface and pruning wilting leaves on the plant. This can cause all kinds of icky stuff to form, making it an eyesore and making cleanup rather unpleasant.
5) Read the manual. All of the tips above are in the handy manual that Aerogrow gives with the seed kits. Admittedly, I had grown a little lazy, and didn't bother to read them. Even if you know what you're doing, it never hurts to give yourself a refresher.
So, having said all that, I've already washed and sanitized my Aerogarden VeggiePro (or Aerogarden Extra as it's called now), and I'll be planting my 4 chili seed pods this week.
Posted on 29 August 2011 | 11:15 am
T. Poole left a comment on my May 9 post recommending making salsa out of my Aerogarden harvest. I decided to take this advice and looked up a great salsa recipe on Allrecipes. To my delight, it used lots of tomatoes and lots of cilantro.
So, today was the day I finally harvested my crop of cherry tomatoes, which started in my Aerogarden VeggiePro (now the AeroGarden Extra
), and then was transplanted into a big flower pot by the kitchen window. Here's what they looked like:
Next step was harvesting the cilantro. If you recall, I have cilantro growing in two places: the Aerogarden unit...
...and the extra seeds, I planted in the flower pot next to the cherry tomatoes
For those of you keeping score at home, the cilantro in the Aerogarden unit grew at least 2-3x faster than the one in soil.
I took my cherry tomatoes and chopped them.
Next, I chopped up the cilantro:
I added salt, garlic, onions, lime juice, and chili peppers to the tomatoes and the cilantro into a bowl (I couldn't find cerrano chiles, so I used long red hot chilis I found in my local supermarket). Then, I put it into the refrigerator for an hour.
When it came out, here's what it looked like.
I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting much. But I kid you not, this was the most amazing tasting salsa I've ever had. It was light, fresh, and with a nice kick from the chilis, not at all like the thick gooey salsa you get in a jar, nor even like the over-done salsa you get at those fast food Mexican restaurants.
I almost polished off a whole bag of whole grain nachos in one sitting with this. And it was satisfying to know that half of it was made with things I had grown in my own kitchen.
This was the first, but will not be the last time I make this. Thanks to T. Poole for the suggestion!
Posted on 23 May 2011 | 12:41 pm
If you've been reading this blog, you'll know that I'm always on the lookout for recipes which will use up the herbs that keep growing out of the Aerogarden (which looked like this as of last week)
As you can see, it's a jungle out there, and worse, the more aggressive plants like the basil were choking the light from the smaller plants (believe it or not, all the basil you see in the picture is coming out of just one plant!)
Going to good ol' AllRecipes.Com, I found a recipe for
Cajun Seafood Pasta. It used 1 cup of chopped parsley (the parsley in the Aerogarden is still quite anemic, but I still have the potted parsley which grew back from last time), as well as a tablespoon of basil and a tablespoon of chopped thyme.
So, I started chopping. I was pretty liberal with the basil:
As for the thyme, even after giving a major haircut to both thyme plants, I was able to get a whole tablespoon together.
The recipe called for making a cream sauce, using two cups of real cream. I'm always a little amused by dieters who will eschew ice cream, only to eat bowl after bowl of pasta which probably contains more cream!
Toss with some fettucine, fresh shrimps and scallops, this was a recipe that was really worthy of the 4 1/2 stars it got from 657 AllRecipes users. I didn't really see where the "Cajun" came in, as even with three kinds of pepper I didn't really taste much of a kick. Still, it tasted really, really good.
Posted on 17 May 2011 | 6:47 pm
I've been writing this blog so long I realize I probably used that line before. But the herb garden is looking very much like a jungle. The basil is growing out of control, and the thyme and the cilantro and sage are all growing so fast they're getting tangled with one another. I've already trimmed the basil twice, as it kept growing into the light. I need to try to find some good herb recipes soon.
Here's something very cool--the chili is growing flowers now! One of the varieties has these little white flowers:
While the other variety has beautiful little purple flowers.
One thing that's a little worrisome is that a LOT of the flowers are just dropping off the plant. I'm not worried yet because there are a whole lot of flowers right now.
The plants are growing incredibly fast, so much so that one of the plants bent over due to the weight of the leaves.
You can see it at the left-most plant. The stem didn't snap, but it did bend a lot. I'm leaving it as-is to see if it'll straighten out on its own.
Remember the cherry tomato plant? Here's how big it's gotten:
It's funny, the original plant (to the left) is really not doing anything, but the one branch to the right has extended and is responsible for over 20 cherry tomatoes now. It's all still being held up in the air by the Aerogarden Trellis Coils.
I figure in the coming weeks, I will start cooking again. I'm checking to see if I can find a recipe that uses tomatoes, sage, basil, cilantro, and thyme!
Posted on 5 May 2011 | 9:50 pm
So, remember the question I asked last week about what chilis look like when they're brand new? Here's the answer.
There are tiny little flowers growing among the chili plant leaves (which are gigantic now). I'm going to assume that this is what's going to grow into a beautiful hot chili in a few weeks.
Both the herbs and the chilis are sucking up water like crazy. The tub was almost empty in both today, so I spent a few minutes filling them up again.
The cilantro is doing something interesting. Remember how I said that the early plants grew and then flopped down? Turns out out of one "flopped down" part spawned a bunch of cilantro leaves which are finally looking like cilantro. In other words, in the picture below it looks like there are a whole bunch of stems coming out of the seed pod, but in actuality there are only one or two stems which branch off into others.
In the meantime, all the herbs are still doing well except the parsley, which is still looking the most anemic of all of them. Come on parsley, you can do it!
Posted on 22 April 2011 | 9:01 pm
I think after all these years of indoor gardening I'm getting pretty good at this Aerogarden thing. Here's what the herbs are looking like.
The basil, of course, is showing off as usual. It's already grown into the lights twice. Unlike the early days of this blog when I would feel compelled to make pesto every time I pruned basil, now I just chop it, take a nice whiff of it, and throw it away. I know there'll be more.
I was really worried about the cilantro for a while. It had grown and then it just flopped to the ground. But over time something interesting has happened--the bottom of the stem is still bent over, but the tops are growing fast and strong back towards the light. I like your spirit, cilantro...you're down but you're not out.
The parsley, on the other hand, is really growing very slowly. But there are two tiny stalks up, and I have confidence in now time they'll be as resilient as the cilantro.
What surprised me most was the thyme. In previous Aerogardens, I hardly got a little sprig. Today, they're growing through the roof. So much so that I had to scramble to find a recipe (which I found, see below).
The chili is growing like gangbusters. Here's what they look like now.
They grow up so fast, don't they? To be honest, I'm not sure what to expect next...will there be flowers that turn into chilis? Or will the chilis just grow? Tune in in the coming weeks and you'll find out.
Not wanting to waste any thyme, I used good thyme management skills to make a recipe I found for carrots. It was a ridiculously simple recipe: just toss carrots, fresh thyme sprigs, and garlic together with olive oil and throw it covered into the oven.
The roast carrots came out pretty good, but...where did the thyme go? . Overall, it was a yummy dish, but if I had to do over again I would have put more thyme into it. (okay, rest assured I'm running out of these puns, so you won't have to put up with them for much longer)
Here's something I am VERY excited about. Remember that tomato plant I pulled from my AeroGrow so many weeks ago and repotted? Just a few weeks ago I said that it wasn't growing flowers and that I was pretty much going to toss it. Turns out it got the hint. It has been growing...and growing...and growing, with lots and lots of flowers. I put it on my kitchen windowsill. Wonder how I am defying gravity? You probably can't see it in the picture, but I actually used the
Trellis Coil
from my Aerogarden and hooked them onto the window blinds. They are doing a super job of holding up all the branches.
As I did when they were under the grow lights, I'm pruning dead leaves as I see them and "pollenating" the plan by tapping on the branches underneath the flowers until I see a tiny poof of pollen.
How's this for cool--the plant and the tomatoes are actually bigger than they ever were under the Aerogarden.
This is where I think the good Lord is pretty cool. With anything that man creates, once it's broken, you basically toss it out because it's useless. Here, I had a tomato plant which I'd all but given up on and was about to toss in the trash. But now, it's got a whole new life and it looks like I'll be harvesting yet another batch of tomatoes. In my younger days I'd be philosophical and come up with a metaphor about how you should never give up and how everything you need to overcome life's present difficulties is within you...but in my old age I'm not as insightful as I used to be :P
Remember those cilantro seeds (coriander seeds) I planted? They're growing too, although at about 1/2 of the rate the Aerogarden cilantro is growing. It should be interesting to compare their tastes later on.
Posted on 18 April 2011 | 2:43 pm
So, happily all the herbs came up a few days ago. As usual, the basil is showing off. The thyme in my last garden wilted and had a quick demise, but happily this go-around the thymes they are a-changing. Sages (another crop I haven't have much luck with lately) look good.
And the one I was worrying about most, the cilantro, not only grew, if you look at the picture clearly you'll see that the smooth edges of the first leaf are already starting to get their "cilantro" characteristics!
The one holdout this whole time has been the parsley. I was about to call Aerogarden to ask for a replacement. But lo and behold, this little guy just sprang up yesterday.
So we're looking good. All present and accounted for!
Speaking of parsley, remember that I replanted my parsley plant from the last Aerogarden and made it into a houseplant? Well, happily, that's been growing like crazy too. So much so that I had to scramble to find some good parsley recipes. Here's just one half of the harvest from the plant:
So, Lisa and I decided to have two cooking nights. We searched AllRecipes.com for recipes that used lots and lots of parsley. The first one was
baked Dijon Salmon. First step was mixing the dry ingredients and the four teaspoons of chopped parsley. Lisa bought panko bread crumbs, which I wasn't sure would work. Turns out it was the best decision ever.
Second step was slathering the salmon with a honey mustard coating and then sprinking on the coating.
Now for the cruel part--I forgot to take a picture of the finished product! The fish looked and smelled so good that I just devoured it (by the time I remembered I was supposed to take a picture, there were about two bites left). But fear not, I'll be taking a trip to Seattle sometime in the next few months, and I promise I'll make this same recipe with some salmon I'm bringing home from there :P
Then mixing it together with a delightful mixture that included, among other things, freshly grated parmesian cheese and panko bread crumbs.
Dip the chicken in a garlic butter mixture, and coat with the dry ingredients and bake.
This time I did manage to take a picture of the finished product. Once again, it tasted just phenomenal. The chicken was juicy and not heavy like deep-fried chicken, and the taste and crunch were amazing. I even helped myself to some of the salty greasy bits on the bottom of the pan (admit it, you do that too).
The parsley plant was decimated, of course, after two days of cooking with so much parsley. But I'm still putting it under the single grow light of my third Aerogarden, and after only a few days a few stalks have popped up again. It's really cool not to have to buy those little plastic package of herbs at the supermarket. I just wish I could have endless supplies of other things, like milk (wouldn't it be cool if they were working on the AeroCow next?)
Posted on 2 April 2011 | 7:46 am
Funny, only one or two days have passed, and suddenly just about ALL the seed pods have sprouted, both in the chili Aerogarden and the herb Aerogarden.
Sprouted and doing well: Basil, Sage #1, Thyme #1, Thyme #2, Mini Jalapeno #1, Red Fire #1, Red Fire #2
Sprouted and looking a little anemic: Cilantro, Purple Super Hot #1, Mini Jalapeno #2
Not cooperating so far: Parsley, Sage #2, Purple Super Hot #2
In fact, the Red Fire is doing so well I already took the plastic dome off. As for the others, I'll keep the dome on for a little while (in a previous garden, I took the dome off too early and the fragile leaves ended up burning under the lights).
I'm a little worried about the cilantro. The seed has sprouted, but the leaves look a little yellow. Whether they will survive depends not just on whether the leaves are growing, but whether the roots are taking hold of the grow sponge. Hopefully a few more days and we'll see the plant strong and tall.
In a nutshell, I'm pleasantly surprised at how well the seeds are growing this time around. I can almost smell my
chicken pot pie already! :)
Posted on 24 March 2011 | 10:09 am
So, in record time, the thyme has sprouted:
Not to be undone, the basil has sprouted as well. Isn't it just adorable?
The thyme seed pod said 7-12 days, but this came up much before that. That goes back to the importance of getting
fresh seeds directly from the Aerogarden store. If you recall, the last few times I ordered seeds from clearance sales at retail stores or Amazon, and didn't really have much luck.
Posted on 23 March 2011 | 10:31 am
So, after a few days I decided to check on my VeggiePro with the chili peppers. When I looked inside the tub of water, I realized that the water was completely stagnant. You know what that means. Stagnant water means that there's no oxygen going through the nutrient water, which means that plants (like you and me) can suffocate. Worse, stagnant water can promote growth of bacteria, which aside from being icky can further take oxygen away from the growing plants.
Now, I have become somewhat of an expert at replacing the Aerogarden pump in my old Aerogarden 7. But with the 6-unit Aerogarden, it didn't use a pump--it blows air through a small white plastic hole in the bottom of the unit into a plastic tube, and then out through a rock hard green bubble-making thing.
Turns out the hard green bubble-making thing is called an "Airstone". And it turns out mine was completely blocked. Not sure exactly what was blocking it--it could have been nutrients from when I grew the tomatoes, it could have been plant roots, and it could have been gunk. I took the plastic tubing out and sanitized it, and then for kicks, I tried blowing into the clean end and seeing what would happen. After blowing and blowing, I saw little bubbles come out of the airstone. Obviously the best days of this airstone were behind it, but at least I could get a few more bubbles out of this.
I then went to the Aerogarden store and ordered
the 5 Pack of new Airstones. I actually wanted to get the free shipping (by spending $50) by stocking up with the multi-packs of new grow lights, a new black replacement arm, and the big bottle of liquid nutrients, but to my dismay most of them were out of stock (and have been for months). So I ended up paying $7.95 for the airstones and $5.95 for shipping (grrr). Come on Aerogarden!
Anyway, I should get my new airstones in a few days, during which time I'll flush the water out and refresh the chili with clear water and good oxygen. Hopefully this period of time when they're not as well aerated will not stunt their growth too much.
Note: since writing this post, I found that Aerogarden provides instructions on how to clean the airstone. Wish I'd found that before forking over the $14. Oh well, the procedure looks pretty painstaking, so I guess I'm better off anyway just paying for new clean ones.
Posted on 22 March 2011 | 10:26 pm
Now that the herbs are planted and out of the way, it's time for the fun stuff. I took out the
Chili Pepper Seed Kit I'd ordered from the Aerogarden Store.
On the box, they do a good job of describing not just what kind of hot chili peppers to expect, but also how spicy they are using the Scoville unit:
- Mini Jalapeno (2500-8000, green-ripe)
- Red Fire (40,000-50,000, red-ripe)
- Purple Super Hot (140,000-160,000 purpose-ripe)
The Scobille unit is the unit of measure for capsaicin (the stuff that makes peppers hot). On the Scoville scale, sweep peppers are 0-100 and habaneros are 200,000-300,000.
So if all goes well, by this time a few weeks from now, I will have green, red, and purple chilis to use in my cooking.
I was a little nervous because on the outside of the box it read "New for 2007".
The last time I got a box like this, I got old seed which never sprouted. But my concerns were abated when I opened the box:
This was a good sign. The box included liquid nutrients and the newest style of seed pods, neither of which was available in 2007. My guess is that they printed way too many of these boxes in 2007, and just reused them rather than reprinting them. Hopefully in new boxes they know now to make things date-specific.
The box came with seven seed pods (two mini jalapenos, two red fires, and three purple super hots). I decided to plant them in my old VeggiePro, in hopes that I can raise super-tall chili plants. The VeggiePro is only a six-pod garden, so I had to leave off one of the purple super hots.
You know the drill--fill Aerogarden with water, plop the seed pods in, and cover them with the plastic domes. Here's what the garden looked like with all the pods planted:
And so now I have all three Aerogarden units going again. The bottom shelf contains my herb garden, I'm using the middle shelf to provide grow light for the parsley plant I planted from the last Aerogarden, and the top shelf is for my peppers.
Posted on 19 March 2011 | 9:47 am
The weather was beautiful today in the New York area. After a winter of three-feet snowstorms, it's nice to see the sun and 65-degree temperatures again.
Well, since Spring is in the air, I figured it'd be a nice day to satisfy my gardening urges by planting another batch of Aerogarden herbs. I figure, let's go back to the basics...I had fun experimenting with the likes of heirloom tomatoes and cherry tomatoes and lettuce, but at the end of the day, nothing beats the Aerogarden for herbs.
I went online and ordered a custom Custom Herb Seed Kit from the Aerogarden Store.
I opened the box and saw this packed in very neatly:
The box included plastic domes, liquid nutrients, instructions, and the following seed pods I ordered online:
1 Parsley
1 Cilantro
2 Thyme
1 Sweet Basil
2 Sage
Here's what the thyme looks like
Before I go on, I'll let you choose your own bad pun:
- Two-thymer
- Double thyme
- Thyme after thyme
Now that that's out of the way, I'll say once again that my goal is to get a harvest of herbs I can use to make my own herbed rotisserie chicken, which i'll cook in my Ronco Rotisseries (still unopened in its original box months after buying it, of course).
Interestingly, they changed the way the seed pod looks.
While in the old days they had a shorter, stubbier pod for the shorter Aerogardens and a larger, longer one for the tall ones, they just have one design now they use for everything. That's smart, because I imagine aside from savings on manufacturing costs, it'll save them from throwing away a lot of old seeds in inventory.
Although admittedly it's a little weird--to fit the new longer pod in my old Aerogarden Classic 7 pod garden, the instructions tell me to bend the plastic and wedge it in until it fits, which means the pods on the side need to be pushed against the plastic walls. Not very elegant, but if it works, I have no complaints.
All pods came with seeds already in them except for the the cilantro seed pod:
Interestingly, this one came wrapped in plastic. When I unwrapped the plastic I found that a seed packet came separately.
Again, a sign that Aerogrow is learning. My sister told me that her cilantro didn't grow, so she had to ask them for a replacement, and I suspect that happened to many others as well (I noticed that while cilantro was promised on some of the boxes of herbs, they sometimes substituted it with thyme). My guess is that cilantro seeds don't have a very good shelf life when exposed to air.
Anyway, I opened the package which contained 20 seeds and poured a couple out on my hand.
"Funny", I thought. "These look a lot like coriander seeds". You know, the kind you use in cooking. After searching online, I learned something I never knew before. Coriander seeds ARE the seeds used to grow cilantro! When the word "coriander" or "coriander seed" is used, it refers to the seed (fruit) and when "cilantro" is used, it refers to the plant. Funny, I've known about both my whole life but never put two and two together. File that under the "learn something new every day" department.
Anyway, I followed instructions by unwrapping the seed pod and dropping 5-7 seeds in the empty pod. As for the other 15 or so seeds, I figured I'd drop them into the big pot where my tomato plant is still growing (but not growing flowers, so if the cilantro does manage to sprout, bye-bye unproductive tomato plant)
Anyway, I won't take you step-by-step through the process of planting the Aerogarden--like me, you should be pretty familiar with it now (and if not, look back to the gazillion older posts!) By the point in my indoor gardening career, growing herbs is pretty easy for me. Position the seed pods so the taller plants are in the back (I put the parsley, basil, sage #2 and cilantro in the back, and put sage #1, and the thymes in the front).
Posted on 17 March 2011 | 7:40 pm
In my last post and also back in 2009, I posted some information on how to purchase a replacement arm for the Aerogarden 7 or Aerogarden Classic (newer versions of the Aerogarden have an improved design where this is not required). I'm still waiting for the shipment from my last post, but in the meantime I still have the second arm I ordered two years ago, which I'll use to refurbish one of my black Aerogarden Classics. To buy a replacement arm, just go to The AeroGarden Store
. You can get the arm in the color of your Aerogarden unit, whether Black
, Silver, or White.
Just a recap: if you have an Aerogarden where you see white gunk forming on the copper contacts between the basin and the arm, you may need a replacement arm. This gunk is called copper oxide, and while it looks like the white residue you may see elsewhere on your Aerogarden from the nutrient tablets, it's actually a chemical reaction between the contacts and oxygen.
The first step is to remove the lamp and hood from the unit. This is as simple as raising the arm and popping it out of the arm attached to the base. A part of the arm will come with it.
The new replacement arm comes wrapped in plastic.
...and comes with both the inner and outer parts. Separate the parts. We'll actually be using only the fat outer arm and not the thin inner arm (unless your existing inner arm has some damage, it'll save a lot of time just to keep using it).
Next, remove the old, chubby arm from the base by pressing the plastic tab on the bottom in and popping the arm out. Unless you're sentimental about such things, you can toss it out (I harvested the screws, as they can be useful for when you replace other parts on the Aerogarden like the pump.
Pop the new arm in until you hear a snap.
One last optional thing you can do is to cover the contacts with vaseline. This will help prevent copper oxide forming the next time around.
Use a moist cloth to clean the hood and the base, which probably has some white gunk (the residue from the nutrient tablets).
Voila! You have a brand new Aerogarden again.
When I replaced the basin on the unit, the pump still wasn't running. It's then that I realized that I had a lot of copper oxide on the pump contacts as well.
There was always the option of buying a
replacement pump, but I figured I'd try to see if the pump was still working and just blocked by the contacts. I used the trick of making a paste out of baking soda and warm water, slathering it on the contacts, and waiting for a while. Then, I wiped it off, and then used a metal tool to scrape off what I could until I could see the contacts shiny again.Make sure every part of the metal that will come in contact with the arm is shiny to prevent spotty operation of the pump.
Surely enough, when I tested it now, the pump motor ran strong and smooth.
Now, all I have to do is wait for my new seeds and we'll start the next generation of indoor gardens!
Posted on 22 February 2011 | 5:29 am
Being the proud owner of four Aerogardens (three old-style 7-pod Aerogardens, as well as a 6-pod VeggiePro...a.k.a. Tall Aerogarden...a.k.a. Aerogarden Deluxe....a.k.a. Aerogarden Elite 6 Plus) for many years now, they're all starting to show their age. The cool thing is, Aerogrow designed their units to be modular, in that if any part breaks, you don't have to buy a whole new unit. Instead, you can buy parts.
Since I need to buy a bunch of parts myself, I thought I'd help everyone out there in the same situation by listing out the right parts you'll need to buy to refresh your Aerogarden Unit.
The following parts are ones I'll be buying to refresh my Aerogarden Classic. Here's a diagram of the parts:
1)
Black Replacement Arm: This is the part that I've found needs replacing most often, because the brass contacts that connect the unit to the pump get green with corrosion (the green is copper oxide, which is not harmful, although I would still wash my hands after touching it). I explained this in an earlier post talking about
replacement Aerogarden arms. There are ways to stave off corrosion (I've heard that putting Vaseline on it may extend its life a little), but you can't really stop it. It's available at Aerogarden Store for $9.95. Replacing it is a snap (literally)--you pop off the old arm and discard it, and pop in the new arm.
2)
Replacement Pump: This is the second-most part that needs replacing for the same reason--the contacts get corroded, and in some cases the pump gets clogged. It's available at the Aerogarden store for $9.95 as well. Replacement is a little more complicated than replacing the arm, but just as straightforward--you pop off the black cover holding the pump in, carefully pop the tubing out from the unit, and unplug the tubing from the base. Then, you do everything in reverse to install the brand new pump.
3)
Replacement Filter Pack. These are the little sponges that protect too much gunk from getting into the pump. It's a little outrageous that they charge $7.95 for 10 of them (I wish they'd just give them out with every new pump), but I guess that's how they make money. If you can't buy new ones, in most cases you can just wash the old ones in warm soapy water.
4)
6-Pack Grow Lights For All 1 and 2 Light Gardens. With my Aerogarden Classic units, I always used glow lights that were more or less shaped like a typical florescent light bulbs. It looks like Aerogarden has successfully re-engineered the light bulbs for all its gardens to be the wider grow lights, yet still fit into 2-lamp units like the old Aerogarden 7. I am definitely buying a pack of six, as the last thing you want is for a grow light to go out while your garden is in full swing. For when the lights in my VeggiePro go out (they're still going strong), I would get this
6-Pack Grow Lights For All 3 Light Gardens
instead (Tall Aerogardens like the VeggiePro, Aerogarden Extra, Deluxe, and Pro 200 have different light socket connectors and use three bulbs).
There you have it. Those are the most common parts you'll need when breathing new life into your Aerogardens. So instead of paying $100 or more for a new unit, you're looking at under $20.
Posted on 18 February 2011 | 10:22 pm
So, the 2010 Aerogarden "reboot" is officially over. Recently, I retired the Aerogarden plants which I'd started on August 9, 2010.
My verdict for this round? It was a moderate success. Some of my takeaways:
- While the idea of "Aerogarden Vegetables" was a valiant attempt by Aerogrow to extend their brand, having grown three batches of Aerogarden tomatoes now, I can say that it's really not worth the effort to try to grow tomatoes. While I had far more success with the tomatoes this time around than I did the last two times, bottom line is the number of cherry tomatoes you'll produce is far less than what you can get in just one or two $5.00 crates at your local supermarket. Considering the time, electricity, and energy you spend to get that, not to mention the cost of the seed pods, I'd say Aerogarden Tomatoes are not really worth it. You really can't replace things like full sunshine and having real bees pollinate your flowers.
- Do not be tempted to purchase seed pods on clearance. In fact, I wouldn't necessarily even recommend purchasing them from retailers like Amazon, as you don't know how long they've been sitting in a warehouse. Get them from AeroGrow directly
. And don't be tempted (like I was) to order them on sale and then let your seed pods sit around for a long time before planting them. I found this out the hard way this go-around when most of my seed pods wouldn't sprout, or like my sage sprouted and then quickly died.
- Having said that, I was once again astounded by the success of the herbs that did grow. This again shows the Aerogarden at its finest. As you saw, the mint and the basil grew like a weed. The parsley was slow in getting started, but it hung on.
I cleaned and washed out the Tall Aerogarden. I took out the one remaining tomato plant, which looked like this:
I transplanted it into a pot.
I put the pot by a sunny windowsill, and even though it's a few weeks later now, and the plant is actually still growing and still producing red tomatoes (which, interestingly, are sweeter in the soil than they ever were in the Aerogarden, which leads me to suspect that the "natural" nutrients in the soil are preferable to the liquid nutrients. I don't expect this to last forever (some of the leaves are browning already), but it's fun to give the plant a little more life even after the Aerogarden.
I attempted to transplant my mint using the
same Aerogarden transplanting technique I told you about before. The mint didn't last too long, so I then tried the same with the parsley. What I did differently was that I kept the parsley under the grow lights (basically removing the bowl and putting the plant right on the base of the unit). It's been a few weeks, so I've concluded that this is the "correct" way to help the roots used to water get acclimated to soil.
One very, very cool innovation from the folks at Aerogrow is this
Grow Light Adapter. It basically lets you take your grow light out of the Aerogarden unit and to plug it into any lamp, turning it instantly into a grow light. What'll they think of next?
I'm eager to start another batch of Aerogardens. I'm thinking of going with the
Chili Pepper Seed Kit (6/7-Pod) (which hopefully grows more like an "herb" than a "vegetable", the
Lots of Lavender (6/7-Pod) kit (what can I say, I love the smell of lavender), and maybe a
Custom Herb Seed Kit (my goal this time is to get the right herbs that I could use in preparing a real rotisserie chicken to cook in my brand new
Ronco Showtime Rotisserie
, which I finally caved and bought after watching the infomercial ten thousand times).
Posted on 14 February 2011 | 10:22 am
One thing that's been on my mind for a very, very long time to try is real mint ice cream. I'm not talking about that bright green alien life form you see in the supermarket freeze shelves, I'm talking about real ice cream that's made from real mint leaves. While most of my Aerogarden herbs this go-around have died prematurely (thanks, I believe, to my letting the seeds sit around for way too long), the mint has proven to be resilient to the point of being weed-like.
I chopped every last bit of mint until my Aerogarden looked like me after my dad gave me one of his buzz haircuts as a kid (which would make my brother and me run out of the room in tears every time).
Taking a bunches of mint...
...I tore the leaves until I had two packed cups. I threw them into a cream-milk mixture.
...and then I heated. What happens here is that the essential oils of the mint leaves go into the milk and cream, infusing it with a minty taste and color.
After simmering, you then press the mixture through a strainer so that you're just left with the mint-infused cream and milk.
The color was supposed to be more green, I think. But it did smell minty. Here's what was left of the mint leaves after I squeeze it all through.
The next step was to churn in my ice cream maker. I personally use a
KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker Attachment
.It's a snap to use--you freeze the metal bowl, you chill the milk and cream mixture, and you let it churn for about 20 minutes. It's just as easy and takes up a lot less space than buying a standalone ice cream maker. The result was this creamy frozen delight.
As for the taste, it was very interesting. The mint was not quite like the mint ice cream you buy in the store which was both good and not so good. On the positive side, it struck me how "natural" and "fresh" this ice cream tasted.On the not-so-positive side, I found that I have gotten used to "unnatural" tasting mint ice cream with heaping helpings of infused flavors to make it a bit more "minty" than this preparation technique could probably muster. Still, I found it an overall success. Next time, I'd probably break up some chocolate and throw it into the mix.
Posted on 17 January 2011 | 9:30 pm
I remember back in the days when I had a beautiful large yard, I would plant tomatoes every year. I'd buy what were called "Seed N Start" kits from Burpee, which were like cute mini greenhouses, start the seeds indoors, get them accustomed to the climate by moving the seedlings outdoors, and then transplant the seedlings outdoors. This method let me harvest bushels and bushels of beautiful Jersey tomatoes every year. Burpee doesn't seem to sell these anymore, but they've since started selling what looks to be an improved version in their "Burpee Ultimate Growing System"
.
But admittedly, the system wasn't perfect. It was kind of messy to deal with the dirt. There were times the seeds just didn't sprout, perhaps because of the lighting. And it seemed that the seedlings were always a little too fragile for my liking when it came time to plant them in the cruel outside world with wind and frost and critters.
If only I had my Aerogarden back then. One of the cool features of the Aerogarden is that they have a Seed Starting system specially designed for you to start your seeds' life in the Aerogarden, and then transplant them to your garden outside when they're good and strong.
First, you'll need to purchase the
Garden Starter System (For 6-Pod & 7-Pod AeroGardens) or if you have a Space Saver model, you'll need to get the
Garden Starter System (Space Saver 6). This is basically a special tray that you put in your Aerogarden that where you can plant up to 66 seedlings. They come complete with grow sponges and nutrients, as well as a "how to" guide. (If you don't have an Aerogarden yet, I believe if you go to their site
, they're actually bundling Seed Starter Kits for free with new units.
What I would recommend is to buy the seeds at Burpee. (In fact, for a limited time, you can receive 2 FREE 135th Anniversary Seed Packets when you spend $30 or more!
) I have always been very impressed by the seeds at Burpee--they are always fresh and sure to sprout.
With the combination of Burpee seeds and Aerogarden starter kit, you'll have the foundation for an incredible victory garden! And you'll be the envy of all of us who are stuck in apartments :P
Posted on 8 January 2011 | 5:24 am
See the Full Aerogarden Blog.
. 
