Sunday, June 1, 2008

Day 51: Next Feeding

The "check water" and "add nutrients" lights started blinking a few days ago, so it was time to add nutrients again.

Now, you might recall me saying that the Basil version of the Aerogarden needs one to alternate between "Basic", which means adding nutrient pellets, and "Rinse & Refill", which means emptying all the water in the basin and refilling it. I'm not sure exactly why this is, but I think it has to do with not letting too many nutrients accululate in the water.

Of course, I'd missed the last rinse & refill, so it was time to do it. Admittedly, this part of the process is a bit of a hassle, but then again, I've already harvested a ton of basil without lifting a finger, so I can't really complain.

Just like before, I took the grow surface from the bowl. Compare the root growth to what it was a few weeks ago!


I rinsed out the basin. The water had a lot of little white specks, which were the remnants of the nutrient tablets. There were one or two tiny little flies that had snuck their way in too, so out they went too.

I like to use filtered water for my Aerogarden, so I took my big pitcher of Brita water and poured it in. I put it all together again and put it back.

As you can see, the plants are still doing very well, as well as the little potted red basil plant to the right (although you can see what a difference the aeroponics makes versus the soil).

Anyway, I pressed the reset button and the lights went off, I don't expect to see them for two weeks.

1 comment:

Lorraine said...

Hi. My name is Lorraine and I work at AeroGrow. Just wanted to pipe in and let you know that in our experience, plants in the AeroGarden do not seem to like Britta water, and we're not even sure why. You can go to our website at www.aerogrow.com,click on customer care, then Seed Kits, then on Types of Water Good for AeroGardening, and see what types of water are best. Happy gardening!