Most of us in the northern hemisphere are well into winter, so our gardens are only blooming in our imagination! But, it doesn't have to be thay way! We have been using Aerogardens for the last three years to extend our growing season to all 12 months of the year. It all started when my wife wanted a bounty sized Aerogarden to grow kitchen and medicinal herbs in. We soon outgrew the bounty and added a Farm 24Xl to the herd. Last year we were able to add another Farm24 to the stable. This allows us to plant up to 57 plants at any one time, although we have learned that we get better results planting half to one-third of what the capacity is.
Last night I started 3 of our 4 large aerogarden trays up, one was already started with salad greens a couple of weeks ago. We will be growing several varieties of salad greens, two varieties of spinach as well as two varieties of tomatoes this winter.
We try and time this so we are just finishing up harvesting the winter vegetables about the same time we are ready to start our seeds. Come late March into early April, we will be starting all of our garden seeds in the Aerogardens. The Farms have a seed starting capacity of 160 plants and the Bounty has a capacity of 50. The Farms are used for the garden plants and I have been starting trees in the Bounty the last year.
The upside to these hydroponic gardens is they are very very simple to use and are as automatic as they can be. The only user inputs are to make sure the water reservoirs are full, add plant food and move the lights up as the plants grow. The lights automatically turn on and off and the food/water mix is pumped through the system on a timed basis. The downside to them is they can be quite expensive, but we have had really good luck purchasing them directly from Aerogarden when they have sales and specials on them.
Last night I started 3 of our 4 large aerogarden trays up, one was already started with salad greens a couple of weeks ago. We will be growing several varieties of salad greens, two varieties of spinach as well as two varieties of tomatoes this winter.
We try and time this so we are just finishing up harvesting the winter vegetables about the same time we are ready to start our seeds. Come late March into early April, we will be starting all of our garden seeds in the Aerogardens. The Farms have a seed starting capacity of 160 plants and the Bounty has a capacity of 50. The Farms are used for the garden plants and I have been starting trees in the Bounty the last year.
The upside to these hydroponic gardens is they are very very simple to use and are as automatic as they can be. The only user inputs are to make sure the water reservoirs are full, add plant food and move the lights up as the plants grow. The lights automatically turn on and off and the food/water mix is pumped through the system on a timed basis. The downside to them is they can be quite expensive, but we have had really good luck purchasing them directly from Aerogarden when they have sales and specials on them.