Aerogardeners

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

It’s been a while since we had a little thread about these cool little gizmos, but there are many folks around here who use them

My first batch was the little herb kit that came with it, worked marvelously(although I am almost out of my gallon freezer bag of basil).
My second batch was an attempt to grow bell peppers and tomatoes. I used web ordered seeds rather than the official kits, but with the master gardener kit fertilizer. It was partly a success and partly a failure. The tomatoes grew first and well. Lots of flowers, but only one fertilized.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=531075&highlight=aerogarden :frowning:

The peppers then grew up well. Lots of flowers, but again no fertilization. Eventually one huge plant took over, and stopped flowering. It then out grew my gerry-rigged supports fell over and broke it’s trunk.

So take two was a failure all in all.

I cleaned it up, and just started crop three, the same bell pepper seeds again. My plan is to grow it as far as I can in the AG while the roots are still basically free. Then I am going to transfer then to a dirt planter, that I will keep under the spill light and window sun until it flowers(hopefully). Then when it does, I will move it outside and hopefully nature can take care of the plant sex, cause I am a failure. Meanwhile once I have moved it to a planter, I am going to start an official AG hot pepper kit, because i figure those are designed for in house pollinating.
And the tomatoes will have to wait, but rest assured glorious little juicy nuggets, I will return to you later.
So how does your [sub]aero[/sub]Garden grow?

2

I received the six plant Aerogarden for Christmas. My first basil plant didn’t grow, so I replaced it with another and it’s been growing like crazy since then. I’m also growing mint, oregano, thyme, and dill. My chives have pretty much petered out, thanks to the mint just steamrolling everything in its path.

My basil has been growing so fast that it keeps burning on the lights, I think I forgot the first pruning and now it’s one extra tall stalk, and some smaller ones at the base.

I’m really loving having this in the kitchen, although it’s putting out much more than I can use - I like your idea of a freezer bag!

3

I am growing a tomato. It did not occur to me to fertilize the flowers, but it has a bunch of green maters all over it. Also, I grow basil, which grows like crazy. I tried catnip, but cats hoover it directly out of the aerogarden as soon as it sprouts.

4

After noticing my basil shortage I pulled the weakest of the Peppers(I don’t really need 7 to try outside) and planted some cinnamon basil.

5

Lettuce did great. Then tried tomatoes. No luck. Oh, I have a bunch of marble or smaller tomatoes, but they are all green. Been that way for weeks. I picked one hoping it would rippen off the vine, but that did not help.

I’m bummed. It was for the tomatoes that I really bought it for.

6

Here’s what I found works the best;

Some plants prefer distilled water, especially if you have hard water or chlorinated water, chlorine is death to plants, we have our own well, and even though our water can best be described as “liquid rock”, plants seem to grow quite well in my AG’s

For tomatoes, grow dwarf determinates if you have a standard height garden (15" max. lamp height_, if you have a tall garden (2 foot max height), you can grow determinate or indeterminate, but you will have to prune indeterminates

Here’s what I posted on aerogardengrowers.com

1: Tomato plants are remarkably resilient, you can prune them pretty heavily and not only do they bounce back, but they come back stronger, stockier, and more vigorous

2: you don’t have to use an electric toothbrush, just flicking the flowers works too, but using an electric toothbrush pretty much guarantees every flower you touch with it will develop into a tomato
2a;if you have too many tomatoes ripening, overall ripening speed drops off precipitously

3: it’s normal for tomato plants to drop their lower branches and/or get wilty when they shift into full-bore tomato production, the plants are not dying, they’re just shifting gears

4: the AG tomato plants are rather unpredictable in terms of extended/multiple harvests, the Golden never recovered from it’s first major harvest, it did recover foliage-wise, but every flower it tried to produce after the first harvest withered and fell off, it became a foliage plant, the rightmost Red Heirloom never really got off the ground, harvest-wise, and the leftmost plant is doing strong even now, it’s on it’s third harvest it’s even thriving under the shade from the Cour Di Bue Beefsteak plant in the rightmost hole (note to self, save as many seeds from this cherry tomato plant as possible)

5: once heavy flowering/tomato production begins, the AG nutes will not be able to support all three plants, and they will show signs of Phosphorous deficiencies (reddish-purple splotches on leaves, edges getting brown and crispy) it’s reccomended to suppliment Phosphorous to strengthen the plants and increase blooming/fruiting, you can either use bonemeal (liquid or powder) or a bloom-booster fert like Schultz Bloom Plus, I’ve had great results with SBP, on not just my tomato plants, but it even works great on growing seedlings, as Phosphorous also benefits root growth

6; some form of trellising is vital once the plants reach full production, otherwise the plants will flop over due to the weight of the fruit

So, to sum up, when I start my next run of tomatoes, I’ll;
Agressively prune the plants to keep them stocky
Use my Sonicare for maximum pollination effectiveness
Suppliment the AG ferts with SBP once budding starts
And this one will be tough for me, but I won’t pollinate every flower, in fact, I’ll prune off the smaller ones so the plant puts more effort into the existing large tomatoes

7

If you want a dead-easy-to-grow edible plant that’s also amazingly fast growing, why not try Salba (more commonly known as Chia), yes, the same plant grown on those silly “Chia Pets”, it’s a relative of the mint family, the entire plant is edible, extremely nutritious, and actually pretty tasty

the seeds themselves are edible, and a great source of protein, fiber, Vitamin C, Omega 3 fatty acids, and other nutrients

the pics below are of a mere two weeks, 14 days of growth, and for at least four of that, the plants were in the dark, as we were in the middle of the New England Windstorm caused power outage, we were out for four days, the two outermost front pods were planted on day four, after the power came back, the other plants are four days ahead of these pods

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http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/.Pictures/IMG_3430.JPG

http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/.Pictures/IMG_3431.JPG

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