we have salad!

At 5 weeks 1 day into my aero journey, I have an official salad!

It was the freshest lettuce ever.  I might just become a salad snob if I keep this up.

a quick update

The plants in my AeroGarden 7 seem to be very happy with teir new lights or pump. Or both.  Everything is growing so well! Even the purple basil seems way more purple.

I thinned the weaker of the two mighty minis today, which was almost painful.  And the cherry tomato will need a trim or for the lights to be raised within the next couple of days.

In other news, it looks like a salad is in my very near future. Maybe tomorrow.

Changing the pump in an AeroGarden 7

T'was the day before Christmas and all through the house everyone was stirring, mixing, cleaning, and baking. I didn't have time to install an AG pump, but I figured I wouldn't have time for 2 days straight so I went for it.

The UPS guy delivers on Christmas Eve, in case you were wondering.  

 

My pump arrived in a box without instructions or anything.  Just a box.

 

 

Not one to be intimidated by things like lack of instructions, I dug right in.  I took the top off my Aerogarden and admired the root systems on my plants

 

It appeared that the first step was to pop off a little plastic door on the bottom, which was actually really difficult.  Once that was off, the old pump slid right out.

It was attached to the AeroGarden with a little screw, which wasn't easy to see at first.

 

 

The new pump did not come with that tube, so I removed the old tube it and cleaned it with a paper towel and the end of a paint brush. Seriously gross.

My old pump had a sponge-y filter on it, but the new one did not.  All the numbers matched up though, so I went ahead with installation.  The old one was dated 2008.  I suppose it's not a surprise that it quit.

I thought it was kind of hilarious that they told me to read the instructions before using it.  There are instructions on AeroGarden's site, which I ignored.

Installing the new pump was pretty simple.  Attach the tube and slide the whole thing in the slot.  Make sure the cord is coming out the top or it won't reach, then screw it in.

Instructions? We don't need no stinking instructions!

A quick Google search told me to turn the dial to a 2.  I put it all together and popped it back on the AG.  This new pump is so quiet I can't even tell if it's on!  Probably a pretty strong warning sign that the old pump wasn't very good all along.

After cleaning up I found I forgot to install that little bottom door.  Oops.  I can't tell what purpose it serves, so I'm not putting it back on.  And of course I left the filter off too, since the new pump doesn't have a place for a filter.

A job well done includes leftover pieces. True fact.

I got the whole thing done and cleaned up while my bread was baking in the oven.  It seriously took about 5 minutes. 

X-mas Eve update

Lettuce is doing well.  I think I'll make an after Christmas salad for myself.  I'm sure I'll need it :)

I've also been growing some creeping thyme that I plan to transplant in my yard this spring.  It's borrowing light from my lettuce, and growing faster and taller than my previous attempt:

My big Aerogarden hasn't changed much in the last few days.  I got the new bulbs yesterday, which is a huge difference in color - these look almost blue.  They were sold as grow bulbs, so I hope it works out.  My new pump is scheduled to arrive today.  I will update with how easy (or horrible!) it is to change it after Christmas.

Panic!

I woke up today to no sound coming from my AG 7.  The pump must have quit.

Two days ago, I noticed it was a little louder than normal, so I was looking on ebay for pumps.  I decided not to purchase at that time, but now I wish I would have.  Luckily, I found some on Amazon and can have it free 2 day shipped to my house since I have Amazon Prime.  Are there any words more beautiful than "free 2 day shipping"?

Hopefully my plants make it.  I made a point of it to stir the water up a little today so it doesn't get stale.

Also, you can check out Amazon's selection of AeroGardens and supplies here.

Time flies!

Tomorrow is the 4 week mark for my lettuce.  I can't believe it's time to add nutrients again already!  It's really bushing out, but with only five days til Christmas I don't think I'll get my wish of an AeroGarden salad for Christmas dinner.

My bigger AeroGarden is doing ok, but the longer it goes the more I feel like it should be growing faster.  So this morning I did some research, and still feel unsure, but I ordered some different bulbs anyway.  We'll see if that helps.

Macro photography

Nothing groundbreaking to report today, I just thought I'd share a cool pic

2 weeks

It's officially been two weeks for my AeroGarden 7, but not quite two weeks for the mighty mini cherry tomatoes.
It looks as though all the plants have their second set of leaves.

This is the green basil and a cherry tomato.  There are three basil in there, but I think the tall one is hogging the light so the others can't grow as quickly.

Here we have the purple basil and mighty minis.  The purple basil seems to be growing more slowly than the green.

The oregano is still alive and kicking as well, but has not made it up to the paper yet.  The leaves are tiny, but I can see a second set of leaves.  Hopefully someday soon it will be big enough to photograph.


And of course we can't forget the lettuce, which looks like it's in need of yet another trim:

My little salad

I decided today was a good day to prune my lettuce again since some of the leaves were touching the black surface.  I made sure to leave each plant with at least two leaves, and I chopped the longer ones.  Here's how it looks now:

Looks like a whole new garden, right? 

Here's the tiny salad I harvested:

I'm not sure what to do with a few small lettuce leaves, but I can't throw them out.
Maybe I need to find a really small cheeseburger to put them on....


In other AG news, my first cherry tomato is starting to get its first set of real leaves:

My mighty mini tomatoes have shot up literally overnight:

And my basil is almost up to the paper:

An odd thing that I noticed about my purple basil is that it's turning more green the bigger it gets.  It was exactly the opposite for lettuce - the bigger lettuce gets the more colors it turns.
There are 2 or 3 basil plants per pod.  I actually expected them to grow a little faster.  Maybe I'm just impatient, but I'm a little worried it's because I'm not using real AG lights.
I guess only time will tell.

Monday update

This past weekend was the official 2 week mark of my first Aerogarden!  The nutrient light came on right on time, and I added nutrients and pruned.  Here it is after its haircut:

It looks like it could use another pruning, but I'm afraid to cut off too much.  They look like they are a little weighted down though.

I'm amazed at the growth rate of the roots.  It's hard to tell, but they are actually touching the bottom of the bowl.

I have to confess I lost track of time on the AeroGarden 7, but it seems to be doing well.  Of my two tomatoes that sprouted, one made it.  The other had a really twisted stem and had not rooted very well, so I yanked it.  Here's the surviving tomato, about an inch above the paper:

You can see the basil almost ready to poke its head out too!  The purple looks pretty similar to the green, but is harder to photograph because of its color.  I can see a tiny little oregano leaf too!

In the newly empty pod, I planted a couple of the Mighty Mini cherry tomatoes I got from AeroGarden.  When I first got the Mighty Minis, I was surprised to see five seeds in the one cone I looked at.  According to the instructions, you are supposed to prune the plants down to one plant per cone.  I couldn't bring myself to cut down 4 healthy plants, especially when the whole kit costs $18!  So I dug two seeds out and put them in the newly empty cone.  Anyway, you can see  the beginning of the radicle in this picture, just a little white line right now:

OK, it's really hard to see.  But that's probably right around the 24 hour mark.

That's it for today.  Hopefully by next time I will have taken all the domes off my newest plants!

How's my garden today? It's RADICLE!

The AG 7 has been doing great!  It has been hard to photograph it, but today I finally managed to get a few pics.  Ever since the 48 hour mark, I felt like I could see a little worm poking out of the seed, which will eventually become the root.  The name for that, which I accidentally came across the other day, is a radicle.  See, there's a reason for my misspelled post title.

Here is one of the cherry tomatoes:

And here are the basil:

 It's hard to see, but there are actual leaves!
I can't tell on the oregano, but there may be a little something happening.  Those seeds are too small to tell.


My first Aerogarden is growing faster than I had imagined it could.

 I would be thrilled to be able to serve an Aerogarden salad for Christmas dinner!

 An interesting thing I noticed is that some of the lettuce leaves are turning purple.  I just assumed that if lettuce was going to be purple, it would sprout that way like the basil did.  But these are getting more purple-y by the day.

Day 10

It's officially been 10 days for my little salad!  This morning it almost looked like it was in need of pruning:

But I couldn't bring myself to cut them, so I rotated them instead.  Here's what I found when I lifted one of the pods out to rotate:

A tiny little root system!  My plan right now is to hold off on pruning until day 14 when I have to add nutrients.  Why, you ask?  No particular reason, other than I don't want to chop up some baby plants just yet.


My AG7 seems to be doing ok as well.  It's so different from my little ladybug that I'm not sure if it's doing what it's supposed to do.  The ladybug uses an air stone, like in a fish tank, while the big AeroGarden has a pump that sprays a small stream of water on each of the 7 pods.
It seems that the basil seeds may have started to germinate.  I think I can just start to see a little white spot emerging from them.  It's hard to tell, and impossible to photograph with my phone, but it's only been about a day and a half so any growth is impressive.  The other seeds don't seem to be doing much yet, but I am using this as a learning experience so that when I plant my real AG seed pods I don't accidentally kill them :)

AeroGarden 7: hacked!

I got my AG 7 today.  It's a beast compared to the AG 3!

I used my CFL adapters and bought a couple of 26 watt CFL bulbs.  All I could find were the warm white ones, and you can tell a big difference between my two gardens, but hopefully it's not a big deal.  I cannot recommend this to any other fellow AeroGardeners because I'm sure it voids whatever warranty you may have.  But since this was a used one, I figured I'd experiment.

I got some baskets and sponges off eBay, and I made my own papers by taking some freezer paper and tracing around the top of the basket.  Then I just cut a hole in the middle, labeled what seeds I used, and taped them on. 

Right now I have two cherry tomatoes, basil seeds from a "mix" of seeds, a purple leaf basil, and some oregano.  I'm not sure how the oregano will do since it will have to compete for light with taller plants, but all of this is a learning experience.  I got all my seeds last spring at SeedsNow because it's important to me to know I'm not growing GMO crops.

Here are some pics of the new Aerogarden.  I had to take them with the lights off because they are blindingly bright!

My other AeroGarden is still going strong.  The leaves are a little bigger, but not by much, so I didn't take a picture today.

What a difference a holiday makes!

Today is the official one week mark for my little salad!

I left town for Thanksgiving vacation on Wednesday, and I returned Saturday night to this:

I had taken the domes off just before I left, but I probably wouldn't have needed to.

AeroGarden was having a Black Friday sale, so I ordered some of their mighty mini cherry tomatoes as well as a 1 qt bottle of nutrients.  I got my set of CFL adapters in the mail, which I'm excited to try out but I still need to buy a couple of the right kind of bulbs.  I'm just waiting for my new AeroGarden that I bought off eBay.

It's a shame these little leaves aren't bigger by now, because after a turkey day like that, I could use a salad!

Day 4

No question about it, today my little plants are green!  It looks like there are about five plants growing out of each hole.  I hope I won't need to thin them. 

I took the plastic domes off only for this photo:

It begins

I got an AeroGarden for my birthday. I realize right now is only day 3 of me owning it, but I'm already having enough fun that I've bought a second, bigger model used from eBay. Anyway, I figured I would start a blog to help me (and anyone else interested) keep track of the progress :) Day 1: I assembled the AeroGarden, which was very easy. It came with a salad greens kit. Total assembly time was about 5 minutes.

By Day 2, I could see some hints of something poking out of the seeds and trying to take root. I'm sure there's a word for that.

  Here's what I saw on the morning of day 3:

But by the time I got home from work and checked on them I could definitely see green, and one of them has grown taller than the paper!

I know it's hard to tell from the picture, but trust me, it happened. Anyway, today was the day that I ordered a second one. I ordered a larger model because from what I've seen, this one is too small for tomatoes. And I'd really like to try some basil too, especially since I love fresh basil and I am notoriously bad at growing it. And not only are basil and tomato companion plants, but they both grow to be kinda tall so that one won't steal light from the other. I believe with my new AeroGarden I will try the CFL converter thingies since the AG bulbs are so expensive. So, off to eBay I go again to find some adapters, nutrients, and something to grow!