AeroGarden

For Christmas, I received a science experiment, so to speak. Have you seen these AeroGarden things? The maker of this product refers to it as a "Kitchen Garden Appliance" and I think it's for people whose thumbs aren't green. My thumb isn't exactly GREEN but it's not the kiss of death either. I mean, I've grown tomatoes and lettuce in my yard before. I've had herbs in pots growing on the deck in the summer.

Well, that's just the thing, isn't it? Summer. It's not summer (although here in the Washington, D.C. area right now, you certainly wouldn't know it's January by the weather lately). The reason I call the AeroGarden a "science experiment" is that the person who ... what's the right verb... owns this thing doesn't have to plant a seed or once get their hands dirty, not once has to get down on their hands and knees to dig or cover a hole, so coming from a gardening family it's hard to say the right verb is "to grow" or "to raise." Basically, you get these little containers that you place into designated holes in the "machine", I'll call it, and you cap the containers with a little plastic top. You fill the tank with water and some nutrient tablets, plug in the grow light and in a few days, the seeds will germinate. The machine seems to vibrate a little and the water trickles from the base somehow up to the seed containers and then back down into the tank underneath, so you can sometimes hear a very faint trickle. The grow lights, which are super-duper powerful, turn themselves on and off in a 16hr on/8hr off cycle, which you can set yourself and it doesn't have to be according to your sleep schedule if you don't want it to (but it's so bright you might need it to!)

As the plants grow, you raise up the grow lights so they don't burn the foliage and prune from time to time, using your clippings all the while. And in a few weeks you have, in my case, a veritable plethora of herbs. Apparently the company offers different combinations of things such as Italian, Indian, or French packages of seed containers, or you can get the all Basil package or the salsa garden package, etc. You get the idea. Check out the AeroGarden website for more info, and check this space for how my "garden" grows. I'll eventually have some photos on this site I guess.