Hi Gardeners,
I am just giving you a quick update to my Aerogarden experiment. I found, after reading all of the instructions, that it is best not to combine different plant types in one unit. Since I still have plenty of herbs from my summer garden, I thought I would try the cherry tomato plants. I have two red and one yellow variety started. I didn't get the garden started until after the first of the year, therefore they are just getting started, but I can see them just starting to pop up under the domes.
A couple of thoughts so far: I love the way it creates its own perfect environment for growing tomatoes - which are not the easiest plants to grow, particularly in containers. You just add water and plop in the starter pellots and it does its thing.
One thing I did not think of was the lighting. The grow lights with this unit are quite bright and illuminate my entire kitchen in the evening. I set the unit to turn off at 8pm so I could enjoy the evening without the bright light from my garden. Tomotoes require constant light except for 8 hours of darkness, which the Aerogarden knows from its program and shuts itself off for 8 hours each night. I This is all good except my bedroom is just down a short hall from the kitchen and I keep the door open just a crack so that my cats can come and go at night, otherwise the little darlings will cry and scratch at the door to get in. My aerogarden turned itself back on at 4am and the bright lights were strong enough to glow into my bedroom.
If you are thinking about getting was of these, take some time to plan where you can put it to avoid waking up in the morning - especially in the winter when the days are short. Since my house is pretty small, I don't have another room to put it in unless I lock it in the bathroom at night. Otherwise I am looking at covering it until morning which seems to work but the light unit up top does get pretty warm.
Except for this little delema, I am quite please with the unit so far and looking forward to fresh tomatos in my salad!
