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20 things you can grow in an AeroGarden
If you live in a cold climate, often around this time of year (February), you might start to think that the outdoor growing season will never return. There’s snow on the ground, the ground itself is frozen, and it’s practically sub-arctic, temperature-wise, outside. In short, it’s February. And, all of this makes a small indoor hydroponic growing system like the AeroGarden Sprout seem like a really good idea. Plus, it’s really beautiful – check it out below!
Okay but wait. What IS an AeroGarden Sprout?
AeroGardens are indoor hydroponic garden systems — from the AeroGarden website, they’re “self-watering gardens anyone can enjoy”. The AeroGarden Sprout is the most diminutive of their garden options, but even so, it allows you to grow three plants at a time, while only taking up a tiny amount of space. It’s almost magical, frankly.
How does the AeroGarden work?
Developed in California, AeroGardens are designed to make it easy for anyone — green thumbed or…not — to grow herbs, vegetables, salad greens or flowers hydroponically at home.
The AeroGarden Sprout is their smallest model, a tidy little number that fits nicely on even the smallest swath of countertop. It’s designed to hold three of their “seed pods” — pre-seeded pods of vegetables, herbs or flowers.
The process for growing with an AeroGarden couldn’t be easier: insert the pre-seeded pods into the garden (in this case the AeroGarden Sprout), add (tap) water, plus a pre-set amount of their “patented, specially formulated Liquid Nutrients” and you’re good to go!
Features among the AeroGarden offering vary, but, the AeroGarden Sprout comes with a low water reminder, a nutrient reminder and automated 10 watt LED grow lights. The lights themselves are height-adjustable up to 10.5 inches. If you’ve ever grown with grow lights, a light that’s easily adjusted is a pretty darned welcome feature — don’t you think?
Plants germinate within 7 to 14 days in any of the AeroGarden models (including the Sprout) and are ready for harvesting in 4 to 6 weeks. And the plants will keep producing continuous harvests for up to 6 months and more.
What can you grow in an AeroGarden?
Perhaps the better question here is: what can’t you grow in an AeroGarden? The AeroGarden Sprout comes pre-loaded with one free seed pod kit (three individual seed pods in the kit), which is nice. You can choose from Gourmet Herbs, Mighty Mini Cherry Tomatoes, Heirloom Salad Greens or Cascading Petunias — the choice is yours. But you can also shop around in their pretty impressive range of seed pod kits to see what catches your fancy.
AeroGarden Seed Pod Kits
While we were pretty excited to give the Heirloom Salad Greens Seed Pod Kit a try — the price of lettuce these days! — we also had a poke around at the other possibilities available. And the range is quite impressive. Here’s a roundup of what caught our eye:
- vegetable seed pod kits: sweet bell pepper, eggplant, jalapeño pepper, golden harvest cherry tomatoes are a few of our faves
- salad greens: there are mixed kale, mixed romaine, Japanese greens and bok choi seed pod kits available
- herbs: we’re pretty tempted by the Italian Herbs Seed Pod Kit (includes basil, oregano and thyme, imagine those mouth-watering herb scents in your kitchen). But, there’s also a pesto basil seed pod kit, a pizza herbs seed pod kit, and an excitingly-named Cocktail & Mocktail Herb Blend seed pod kit. Whoa.
- microgreens: AeroGarden offers a ton of possibilities in this category — you can grow broccoli, kale, arugula, red cabbage, daikon, purple radish, or mustard microgreens in an AeroGarden, but you’ll need to size up to their Harvest model and get yourself a Microgreens Kit
- wheatgrass: The Winter Wheatgrass Seed Packet provides seeds sufficient for several harvests and promises that your crop will be ready for harvest in 7 days (!).
Grow anything with an AeroGarden
We wondered if we would be constrained by just the seed pod kits we saw available on the site or if we could grow whatever we wanted (we hoped for the latter, of course).
Happily, AeroGarden also offers what they call their “Grow Anything Seed Pod Kit”. You can buy kits ranging from from 3 to 50 pods, and include grow baskets, grow sponges (peat moss), labels, plant food and grow domes. The kits don’t include seeds. We can hear you from here, “Don’t worry. I’ve got seeds. Oh yes, I’ve got seeds.” Same.
3 great reasons to choose the AeroGarden Sprout
One: They’re great for small spaces
If you’re tight on space but still want an indoor garden, the minimal design of the AeroGarden Sprout is perfect for a small kitchen countertop or kitchen island, say. And, because they supply their own light, you don’t need to worry about placing them near a window, so you won’t be constrained about where to put your Sprout, either.
Two: They’re great looking
The AeroGarden Sprout sports a clean, modern aesthetic in a streamlined design. It comes in a variety of finishes and colors, so you’re bound to find one that fits with your decorating style. We like the sleek white one, but it also comes in a black and a gray finish, too.
Three: They grow great food (also petunias)
It’s hard to overstate the joy of growing one’s own food, on one’s own countertop, at any time of the year, let alone February in Canada. Do we really need to elaborate? (Also, if growing flowers is more your thing, we get that, too — countertop flowers in winter = sublime.)
Some final thoughts on the AeroGarden Sprout
We have to admit, we are thrilled at the notion of growing herbs and vegetables all year round. But particularly in these late months of winter, when the urge to get out into the garden grows ever stronger, even as the snow continues to fall and the temperatures stay steadfastly in our thermometer’s basement. Sigh.
We’re quite sold on the convenience and utility of the AeroGarden, and the AeroGarden Sprout is the right size and shape for a first try at hydroponic growing.
Ready, set, Aerogrow? Sounds good to us.
