 "Excellent Product so far!" | 2009-11-04 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1GHNQ7TAD084E |
| I purchased these and was replacing ones that I previous had in there, because I was moving several hours away from my current house and didn't want to try and travel with a full Aerogarden. Every single seed has germinated and the plants look really healthy, they are starting to get flowers on them now, the only negative that we see is that we also use Cilantro in our salsa mix and if this had a Cilantro section that we could use would make it 10X better. |
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 "The Good and Not So Good seeds" | 2009-10-26 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1Y9045QGPGI9R |
| The AeroGarden is an excellent product. The Romaine lettuce seeds I am reviewing are doing very well so far. Not so for the Cherry tomato seeds. The several batches of Cherry Tomato seeds I have gotten will only grow so far and then seem to grow extremely slowly. None have produced any fruit. I am doing much better with Micro Tom tomato seeds I have purchased from a seed company. I do highly recommend the Romaine lettuce seeds however. |
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| "A Must Have!!" | 2009-10-08 |
| - Reviewed By neumannphoto |
Aerogardens are amazing. With very little effort you can grow fresh herbs and produce right in your own kitchen, or anywhere else in your house for that matter. Overall Aerogarden offers a great line of seed pods however with that being said, most Aerogarden owners are at some point going to be tempted to plant something that isn't available and that is where the Master Gardener Kit come into play. It really opens up the world of indoor gardening by allowing you to plant your own seeds. We wanted to plant catnip as not only do we have multiple cats, so does everyone else in my family. I also am a big Bonsai tree aficionado and this kit allows me to use my Aerogarden to start my Bonsai seedlings. This kit gives you a year's worth of seed pods and nutrients.
The bottom line - Aerogardens are great but they would be severely limited if it wasn't for the Master Gardener Kit. This kit really opens up the world of indoor gardening. A must have for every Aerogarden owner!! |
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| "Common sense" | 2009-08-24 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2OM3P8QA5FL0U |
I have owned my Aerogarden since last Christmas. The first thing I planted were the herbs. The dill grew the best. The others did very well except the chives, which only sprouted about a dozen. Next, I planted the romaine, I had one that didn't sprout, but it grew for well over four months, and every time I pruned it, I extended the life a little longer. Now, I have the chili peppers, and they are huge!
I have a very brown thumb, and was dubious as to whether I could make this work. It has far exceeded my expectations. A few things to note from the other reviews...... A good dose of common sense serves well here. Some seeds don't sprout. This is true in EVERY type of garden no matter what you do. While annoying, the yield is still so bountiful, that it is well worth the money. Growing the chili peppers, I now understand why you only get three tomato plants. This probably should have been the case for the peppers as well. The large plants are overshadowing the super hots, and the root systems are incredible. I have found that I need to add water every few days now since the plants have gotten so big they are drinking a lot more.
Finally, one of the biggest keys I have found is diligent pruning. Every time I pruned my herbs, they got even fuller. The same is true of the romaine, and one of the most important things to remember with the peppers is shake the plants daily to pollenate them.
For those who expect this product to "work perfectly" and require no effort whatsoever, you may be a bit disappointed. With a little effort, and some good old fashioned TLC this system works beyond my greatest expectations. When I think of how much money I have spent on fresh herbs through the years, even a plant that doesn't sprout now and then is tolerable when the yield of all the others is so good.
I would recommend this system to anyone. I am very very pleased! |
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| "Salsa Garden Seed Kit... More Work than the Herb Kit" | 2009-07-03 |
| - Reviewed By xfilebuffyfan |
I purchased the Aerogarden system and a few kits last year. On Jan 1st 2009 I took out the remnants of the herb kit and planted the Salsa Garden kit. This particular kit has several extra steps - plant selection, pruning, growth stabilization, and pollinating. I will mention each in detail here to help others. The herb gardens are the easiest - just cut off what you need as you go, once mastered you might find yourself wanting to try something else. Salsa Garden and other kits like this - i.e. Chili Pepper, Cherry Tomato, Snow Peas, Green Beans, etc. - will require a few more steps. These steps are the main changes for Salsa kit vs Herb kit.
1. Plant Selection - With the Salsa Garden, you must first make a selection of the plants themselves. After several days of growth you will see the small sprouts. There will most likely be more than one sprout in each pod - you must cut back to just one plant per pod. There will be only 3 pods total in this kit - 1 pepper, 2 tomato. There will be spacers to fill in the other pod slots, this will allow growth of these plants. Plant selection is important, so make sure not to let those extra sprouts keep growing - doing so will eventually overrun your pod space.
2. Pruning - This kit's instruction uses the 5th branch system. Read that section carefully before your first pruning. Then afterwards you will continue to prune throughout the life of the plant - to prevent growth to close to the lightbulbs and to trim wandering branches that are unable to reach the light. Eventually those branches will die and you can cut them afterwards if you accidently forget to prune them earlier. You will continually get dead leaves, especially near the base of the plant - do not fret, this will happen a lot as the outer edge of the plant gets more of the light.
3. Growth Stabilization - This kit will eventually require a string or twine, etc. After your plant grows big enough, the weight of the plant will eventually cause it to begin leaning over, especially after fruit / vegetables begin to appear. Each plant will need a string to stabilize it to the light post at the back of the Aerogarden. I personally used 3 nylon strings that I removed from a shopping mall bag's handle, similar to that of an athletic short's draw string. You can also get twine or other thick strings, like yarn, from almost any hardware store, crafts store or supermarket. Some other sets like Green Bean kits have their own support devices, but for the Salsa kit you must provide your own - so be prepared.
4. Pollinating - This might be the easiest step... or possibly not. As each plant begins to flower, pollination by bees or insects will not be likely. As per the instructions, you must gently shake the plants to cause the pollen to move about and eventually end up on one of the other flowers. Read this section carefully about how vigorously you should or should not shake the plants - in my oppinion, not very much if at all. I tried this step and it worked fine for the tomatoes, but not the peppers. After several waves of blooms appeared on the mini jalapeno plant still no amount of shaking worked. Eventually I tried to shake a little harder, which didn't work and also caused many of the under leaves to fall off. My advice - use a feather. This isn't the most practical method, but it works. When you see several blooms open at once, lightly brush the interior of the first flower - then the second, third, etc. Do not forget to come back and brush the first flower again at the end of the cycle. The pollen will stick to the feather then stick back onto a different flower - similar to the hairs on an insect's legs and body. You may have trouble finding a feather - which I recommend using a very clean one at that. DO NOT grab a feather from a your yard that came from a wild bird or from a farm animal. You sure don't want lice or other problems in your house. Try a crafts store or you can pull the feather out of a cheap household duster.
My final opinion, the tomatoes grow easily and without much trouble except for the stabilization. The peppers on the other hand stabilize well enough and keep themselves fairly self pruned at the base, but pollinating these bad boys can be a little bit of a trick at first. Overall this was a fun kit and it produced all the way until the end, eventually I ran out of nutrients and decided to remove the plants. If I hadn't, they'd be still going. I got about 5 months of produce - which over time was a lot, but I only got 2 or 3 tomatoes at a time or 1 pepper at a time for lots of those weeks in between. This was fun, but may not be for everyone. If you mastered the herb kit, then this would be an interesting next step. On the other hand if you had trouble with the herb kit, then you might want to pass on the Salsa Kit. |
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 "As described" | 2009-06-29 |
| - Reviewed By User: A39T0L7SX0BQ8R |
| Greens grew fast and well. No problems. Bit pricey as is all the Aero refills. |
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