Aerogrow Aerogarden System - Fresh Vegetables and Herbs Year Round in Your Kitchen
Growing vegetables and herbs indoors can be quite rewarding. Most parts of the country have some limitation on when you can grow things in your outdoor vegetable garden. In the south, it’s too hot and dry in the summertime and in the north the cold winter months drag on forever. To keep home grown crops available you need to invest in some type of indoor garden system.
A simple greenhouse is often used, but it’s hard to keep traditional soil or potting mix working indoors, and if it’s kept moist enough often often there are problems with mold and fungus. Moisture control is not the only problems, as lighting is always an issue with indoor gardening systems. Many vegetables needs at least 8 hours a day of light, so simply putting the plants near a window seldom works for vegetables and herbs. So a popular alternative is a soilless or hydroponic system.
A very popular home hydroponic system that has come to the market in the last couple of years is the Aerogrow Aerogarden hydroponic system. It was even featured in Time magazine several months ago, so it’s generated a lot of buzz. It’s reasonably priced, and simple enough to use that almost anyone can try one.
Some features that make the Aerogarden so popular include the fact that it’s totally self contained. The stand has a built in grow light, which is adjustable. The base of the unit includes the pumps for the hydroponics system, and the whole unit is controlled by a microcomputer, which controls not only the pumps but the grow lighting as well. Grow lights work best when they are close to the plants being grown, so one of the few things that needs to be done is to adjust the height of the lights as the plants grow in height. Otherwise it is fairly low maintenance. One of the advantages of hydroponics systems is that the liquid fertilizer is readily available to the plants, so the rate of growth of your little crops is astounding.
A small hydroponics system like the Areogarden does have its limitations on what can be grown in it. Its physical size obviously puts a limit on the physical size of your indoor crops, but you also will have better luck with plants that aren’t extremely heavy feeders. Some of the Aerogarden seeds that are available include cherry tomatoes, salad fixings, several varieties of herb collections, and even small flowers like petunias.
If you want to learn more, take a look at one of the Aerogarden reviews. We suggest you give the Aerogarden system a try. The chef in your family will be pleased you did, not to mentions anyone who enjoys eating in your house. In fact, once you try one, you may find that one is not enough.
Tags: container gardening | container gardening | indoor gardening | hydroponics
April 26th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Good review of the Aerogarden system. I find that the best use of this system is for herbs and spice, just due to the size of the unit. We use this in order to have the freshest spices year round. You’d be amazed at how much better dishes can taste just be using fresh spices instead of the store bought dried variety!
July 18th, 2008 at 11:21 am
agloflash liquid fertilizer boasts a no root burning solution. Has anyone tried it in the aerogrow garden? The gritty fertilizer tabs provided get into the pump system. rg