LED Day 15

So loving my AeroGarden! Look what I have today!

This is my cucamelon plant. For those of you new to my blog it is a mini cucumber. Looking good! So I decided this plant needed a little support! It is a vine plant so eventually I will need a lot of climbing room...I have big plans for that!

 This is the plant support that AeroGarden sells. I hate it. In theory it is nice but what I received is this flexible wire covered in foam. I think the foam is great; and will protect the plant. But the support should have been solid not flexible. I had to build it myself. So it is a lot shorter than in should be and doesn't look very nice. My strawberries, as expected, are slow growing. They will need a lot more time. Some have not yet sprouted.

Here are my two lettuce plants. Looking yummy!

One of them is much bigger than the other plant. Looks like it just had more seeds. The second one is getting very big so I pulled the biggest leaf since it was blocking the lights from the smaller leafs. And it was yummy :)

LED Day 10

I lost power last night so my garden reset. I am not sure why it reset since I was told that it saves information whenever power is lost. It did ask me if I had a power loss or if I started a new garden. I selected that I had lost power but it still reset my days and nutrient cycle. I also had to change the time; it was about 5 hours behind which is how long I lost power. It was a cold 5 hours... it was a blizzard and around 20 degrees before windchill.
Resetting the time was easy. Thankfully I had already talked to AeroGarden before and knew how to reset a few things. So I reset the days planted. I planted the garden on the 11th and so today is day 10. My garden does not allow me to reset the days left on nutrient cycle so its at 14.... so what I decided to do was add half a dose of food and then it would be fine for the next 14 day.
Wednesday I talked to AeroGarden about changing my pump cycle... well Thursday morning I found my leaves on the cucamelons were drying out. So I changed it back in case that was the problem. Once my plants are established I will change it back to 2 minutes on 58 off because I like that more than on one hour off 11.
Here are today's photos. Enjoy

Frustrated with AeroGarden customer service

I have always heard great things about the AeroGarden customer service. But I really have not had good service. I called today for 3 things and the call including wait time was about 10 minutes long. I spent longer waiting for them to answer than the call itself. That is not a big deal. What I was disappointed with was that the lady was rushing to get me off the phone.
My first question was about my Mom's garden. I didn't know how to get rid of the add nutrients light. Its a simple answer. Push and hold the light/reset button and when the nutrient light starts to blink let go then push it again. The light stops blinking. Easy
Then I wanted to know about the half hour I am gaining every day in my AeroGarden LED. I had to go into custom settings and set my pump to turn on 2 minutes every hour. This setting is way better than the factory one I got of turning on one hour every 12. My plants will get way better water flow this way.
My third question was about maintenance supplies. I just wanted to get an idea of what maintenance costs would be so I could budget properly.  There are filters to replace and an air stone which the book tells me to replace with every planting. She said no; that I can wash them and don't have to replace them until the filter becomes damaged or the air stone no longer pumps air through it. Which is good for me financially. I just have to replace the light on my Mom's garden every six months.
It just would have been nice to not have been rushed through the call.

LED Garden Day 8

First of all here is a photo of my salad greens. Then I pulled them out to look at the root system  Wow!

Now look at my cucamelons. Remember these are non GMO! I can see the first true leaf appear! I am so exited!

 Now here is a photo of my garden over the summer. This is a mini cucumber starting to grow!. The leafs get about 3 to 4 inches big. They are a vine plant so I am going to have to get some support going for this one soon.

Now finally my white strawberries are getting big enough to take a photo.  You might have to zoom in on this one. But right there in the middle of the sponge is a bit of green.

Bee Garden Day 18

I went to my Mom's house and saw her garden and took off a leaf and ate it right in front of her. She said no you have to wash it first. Not these Mom! There is no dirt or pesticides to wash off. Its ready to eat!

Something you will notice is that I will always take a photo with my hand for comparison. Its not like I think my hand are anything special (although my nail-polish is sometimes) but I rather have a photo of my hands than a ruler!

LED garden day 6

Really enjoying my AeroGarden. Remember you can get your here aerogarden.com and they are running a BOGO sale right now. Its amazing that just a week ago I planted my garden. Technically right now we have switched over to day 7 because I planted my garden exactly 7 days ago. But I am still calling it day six because. Here are my fun fun plants coming up. My white strawberry seeds have just started to sprout so I will be posting a photo soon.

This is my cucamelon plant. See other posts for photo of what this will be.

This is my salad greens coming up. Just 6 days and look at the size of both of these seedlings!

LED Day 3

Here are 3 photos of my baby lettuce plants. Taken about 12 hours apart... they sure are growing fast!

Planting the AeroGarden LED

Here is the seed kit I got with my aerogarden. Its not a big box but everything fits in there.

When I did this for my Mom's garden the kids took the seeds out and were throwing them around. The seeds are in there well that all grew even with all the tossing from being shipped and two boys having a little too much fun with them.

 Here the print was off on the label. It just says seed kit. Look at the difference from the one in my Mom's garden.

The font is way nicer and darker and it has more information. Salad Greens sprouts in 1 to 7 days and it is of medium height. Wonder what the deal is with the ones I received.

So I added water; it took a little more than a gallon. Maverick decided it needed to be plugged in and look at the pump working.

So I put the lid on and took me a little bit to get my seeds ready. I noticed that there is water flowing though. Nice! The pump doesn't work all the time... just every once in a while to get some air flow and move the nutrients around.
Here is a photo of the fancy display.

The finished aerogarden sit in a cabinet. The light is bright and the plants need protecting from the cats. See you soon!

It's Here!!! (Set Up)

Finally get to plant my aerogarden I am so exited! Finally!
SO to break up this long blog I am splitting it up into two.
Here is how set up when for me.

 Again I asked my 6year old for some help. He kept asking where the rest of it was. This one has a lot less pieces than the aerogarden 3.

 The base came already assembled. All you do is 'click' the pole in... That didn't work for us... We couldn't get it to work.

 Finally we figured there was no click and just gave up. Then you hook up the light to the top of the pole and plug it one of the cords to the wall and the other to the light. Done. This aerogarden doesn't seem as steady for the overhead lights. I keep thinking the lights are going to come crashing down. I picked it up and moved it a few times; both empty and full of water. I think its fine and strong but I think they need to improve it.

 This is a photo of the lights. They are LED and I though they would be bigger. I hadn't seen what this would look like without the lights on. Then I was blinded trying to check that all the lights were working. I didn't want one to be out and never know about it.

 Here is the hood. The hole there is where the pole slides in...never heard it click. Then the other is the plug in for the electricity to go in. It really is simple.

I took the lid off the base. Really its a big bowl with a pump and filter.

Bee Garden Day 9

First of all an update on my AeroGarden. It will be delivered tomorrow. Finally! Been waiting way too long for it...
Here is my Mom's garden greens
Looking good

Day 6

Day 6

This is the lid that gets kind of jammed when you open it to add water in. I did figure out how to make this lid not spin anymore. I had it in there wrong way... I just spun it a little more and it landed in the ridge it was supposed to be in. It isn't in there solid but it doesn't move around anymore.

Day 9 - Look at those gorgeous leafs! According to the peeps at AeroGarden these little guys will be ready to be harvested in just a couple more weeks. Wow!

Disapointed with Aerogarden

I ordered my AeroGarden Ultra Led when it was out of stock. The website said "The AeroGarden ULTRA LED is temporarily out of stock. It is expected to be back in stock late January. We will ship orders immediately upon arrival."
It still says that right now. In those same red letters I posted. So I am disappointed that they can't even update that. They keep updating their website with the special orders. Going in to change one sentence is not time consuming at all. Just plain old laziness.

So I have been calling about the status of my order; and to see when it will arrive. Every time; it will probably ship today. I was told they received their Ultra LED's on Friday. So how come it hasn't shipped yet? Its Wednesday! I give them Friday to unload and get settled. Fine if they don't work weekends. Sure a whole day for people that ordered before me. Then my patience stops there. It should have been shipped by now!

The customer service people that I have heard such good things about? Yes most of them are polite and helpful. I talked to one guy yesterday (no not posting names) and he was annoyed with me. He was not rude, he was just frustrated on the phone about what I had asked. I work customer service too and that is not acceptable! Its your job; if you need a breather then don't pick up the phone! I can't do that at my job; the customer is right in front of me and I still manage to be pleasant. So when I call; every time I get oh it will probably ship today. Thanks 
Although I did get something different today. The lady today said my order had been sent to the processing center. Awesome! Then she said it would probably be shipped tonight. Sigh  Thanks

Bee Garden Day 1

Aerogarden 3 Bumble Bee

It sure is a cute little garden. The best part is that it is so easy to build my six year old did it himself! He is in Kindergarten right now learning to read. He asked a couple questions and I had to push a couple things until they 'clicked' and done!!!

 I opened the box. Unwrapped everything. Put the instructions on the floor and put him to work. Hey Maverick! You are doing great!

everything just snaps in place

This is one of the things I don't like. That bowl that he is holding; its a bowl with a lid basically. The problem though. Is that the lid doesn't do anything but lay on top. So when you set the pants you could easily spin the whole top around. Nothing to keep it in place. There were some groves on the bowl that I though would be to hold the lid in place but it just lightly rests on the bowl. Then the lid has a little opening; like a mini door. Just open and close kind of a thing. Opens fine but doesn't like to close very well. I will post photos of that next time.

It was fun and easy and I can't wait to see what comes up! Planted salad greens and it said I could see sprouts as soon as tomorrow. So make sure you come back and see if we have some tomorrow.