Amazon.com
By: Chanda Torrey
Let me preface this with the fact that I can’t cook at all and I have killed every plant that I have touched, including many Chia-pets and cacti. I had no interest in having an herb garden or being forced to grow anything, but we received this as a gift. But this all changed with this one product. The AeroGarden Indoor Herb Garden.
Setting it up took less than five minutes and was pretty simple; plug it in, add water and two caps of food, and insert the herb pods. It has a light that is on a timer and stays on for 15 hours a day and is similar to the strength of the sun so it lights up a whole room. Our condo is dark, so we found this to be a bonus.
Now we wait….
A few days later, they started to sprout. Is it possible I am actually growing something from scratch??
A week goes by and they are really sprouting now. Week two and three, I am pretty sure I can visually see it grow. It seems to grow an inch a day and we have to keep raising the height on the light (It is adjustable). At this point, it is drinking water at an alarming rate. How does it drink that much? Is there really vodka in there and it is having a party without me?
You can prune off herbs every day starting at weeks three and four. Ours are so bushy, that I find a way to put herbs in every meal now. Chef Boyardee out of a can?… Add basil! Water out of the tap?… Add mint! Everything gets a handful of herbs.
The strange part is that now I search for recipes to use with our fresh herbs. Let me repeat that… RECIPES. I have never in my life used recipes, so this is huge news. I actually feel like a chef and have become a slight food snob.
The only con is that we travel a lot, so if we go out of town for over a week, we have to find a babysitter for our herbs so they can be watered. It was super easy because all of our friends wanted to babysit so they could use the herbs, but it is something to consider.
We received the original AeroGarden Indoor Herb Garden and absolutely loved it. But now we feel we are professional farmers and are now ordering the larger size. Apparently, you can even grow vegetables!
Note: There is a button that lights up when it needs water or food, so even someone with a brown-thumb can succeed with this.
Here is the one we currently have:
And this is the one we will be buying now that we are hooked on herbs:
UPDATE: We ended up buying more and a couple of them didn’t sprout. I let them know and they sent me replacements at no cost and no questions asked. So if you have that problem, don’t worry. They also sent us tips to ensure they grow.
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