Replacing the Arm on an Aerogarden 7 or Aerogarden Classic

In my last post and also back in 2009, I posted some information on how to purchase a replacement arm for the Aerogarden 7 or Aerogarden Classic (newer versions of the Aerogarden have an improved design where this is not required). I'm still waiting for the shipment from my last post, but in the meantime I still have the second arm I ordered two years ago, which I'll use to refurbish one of my black Aerogarden Classics. To buy a replacement arm, just go to The AeroGarden Store. You can get the arm in the color of your Aerogarden unit, whether Black, Silver, or White (unfortunately, since writing this post original they seem to have taken these parts off their catalog, but it's still worth trying to contact customer service and see if they can sell this to you for your out-of-warranty Aerogarden).

Just a recap: if you have an Aerogarden where you see white gunk forming on the copper contacts between the basin and the arm, you may need a replacement arm. This gunk is called copper oxide, and while it looks like the white residue you may see elsewhere on your Aerogarden from the nutrient tablets, it's actually a chemical reaction between the contacts and oxygen.

The first step is to remove the lamp and hood from the unit. This is as simple as raising the arm and popping it out of the arm attached to the base. A part of the arm will come with it. 

The new replacement arm comes wrapped in plastic.

...and comes with both the inner and outer parts. Separate the parts. We'll actually be using only the fat outer arm and not the thin inner arm (unless your existing inner arm has some damage, it'll save a lot of time just to keep using it). 

Next, remove the old, chubby arm from the base by pressing the plastic tab on the bottom in and popping the arm out. Unless you're sentimental about such things, you can toss it out (I harvested the screws, as they can be useful for when you replace other parts on the Aerogarden like the pump. 

Pop the new arm in until you hear a snap. 

One last optional thing you can do is to cover the contacts with vaseline. This will help prevent copper oxide forming the next time around. 

Use a moist cloth to clean the hood and the base, which probably has some white gunk (the residue from the nutrient tablets).

Voila! You have a brand new Aerogarden again. 

When I replaced the basin on the unit, the pump still wasn't running. It's then that I realized that I had a lot of copper oxide on the pump contacts as well.

There was always the option of buying a replacement pump, but I figured I'd try to see if the pump was still working and just blocked by the contacts. I used the trick of making a paste out of baking soda and warm water, slathering it on the contacts, and waiting for a while. Then, I wiped it off, and then used a metal tool to scrape off what I could until I could see the contacts shiny again.Make sure every part of the metal that will come in contact with the arm is shiny to prevent spotty operation of the pump.

Surely enough, when I tested it now, the pump motor ran strong and smooth.

Now, all I have to do is wait for my new seeds and we'll start the next generation of indoor gardens!

Aerogarden Parts: Bringing an old Aerogarden 7 (a.k.a. Aerogarden Classic) back to life

Being the proud owner of four Aerogardens (three old-style 7-pod Aerogardens, as well as a 6-pod VeggiePro...a.k.a. Tall Aerogarden...a.k.a. Aerogarden Deluxe....a.k.a. Aerogarden Elite 6 Plus) for many years now, they're all starting to show their age. The cool thing is, Aerogrow designed their units to be modular, in that if any part breaks, you don't have to buy a whole new unit. Instead, you can buy parts.

Since I need to buy a bunch of parts myself, I thought I'd help everyone out there in the same situation by listing out the right parts you'll need to buy to refresh your Aerogarden Unit.

The following parts are ones I'll be buying to refresh my Aerogarden Classic. Here's a diagram of the parts:

1) Black Replacement Arm (no longer directly available from the Aerogarden Store, unfortunately): This is the part that I've found needs replacing most often, because the brass contacts that connect the unit to the pump get green with corrosion (the green is copper oxide, which is not harmful, although I would still wash my hands after touching it). I explained this in an earlier post talking about replacement Aerogarden arms. There are ways to stave off corrosion (I've heard that putting Vaseline on it may extend its life a little), but you can't really stop it. It's available at Aerogarden Store for $9.95. Replacing it is a snap (literally)--you pop off the old arm and discard it, and pop in the new arm.

2) Replacement Pump:This is the second-most part that needs replacing for the same reason--the contacts get corroded, and in some cases the pump gets clogged. It's available at the Aerogarden store for $9.95 as well. Replacement is a little more complicated than replacing the arm, but just as straightforward--you pop off the black cover holding the pump in, carefully pop the tubing out from the unit, and unplug the tubing from the base. Then, you do everything in reverse to install the brand new pump.

3) Replacement Filter Pack:These are the little sponges that protect too much gunk from getting into the pump. It's a little outrageous that they charge $7.95 for 10 of them (I wish they'd just give them out with every new pump), but I guess that's how they make money. If you can't buy new ones, in most cases you can just wash the old ones in warm soapy water.

4) Replacement Grow Lights:. With my Aerogarden Classic units, I always used glow lights that were more or less shaped like a typical florescent light bulbs. It looks like Aerogarden has successfully re-engineered the light bulbs for all its gardens to be the wider grow lights, yet still fit into 2-lamp units like the old Aerogarden 7. I am definitely buying a pack of six, as the last thing you want is for a grow light to go out while your garden is in full swing. Note that there are even cheaper alternatives to Aerogarden grow lights if you're feeling a little adventurous.

There you have it. Those are the most common parts you'll need when breathing new life into your Aerogardens. So instead of paying $100 or more for a new unit, you're looking at under $20.

Ending the 2010 Gardens and Transplanting Aerogarden Plants Again

So, the 2010 Aerogarden "reboot" is officially over. Recently, I retired the Aerogarden plants which I'd started on August 9, 2010.

My verdict for this round? It was a moderate success. Some of my takeaways:

• While the idea of "Aerogarden Vegetables" was a valiant attempt by Aerogrow to extend their brand, having grown three batches of Aerogarden tomatoes now, I can say that it's really not worth the effort to try to grow tomatoes. While I had far more success with the tomatoes this time around than I did the last two times, bottom line is the number of cherry tomatoes you'll produce is far less than what you can get in just one or two $5.00 crates at your local supermarket. Considering the time, electricity, and energy you spend to get that, not to mention the cost of the seed pods, I'd say Aerogarden Tomatoes are not really worth it. You really can't replace things like full sunshine and having real bees pollinate your flowers.
  
  
• Do not be tempted to purchase seed pods on clearance. In fact, I wouldn't necessarily even recommend purchasing them from retailers like Amazon, as you don't know how long they've been sitting in a warehouse. Get them from AeroGrow directly. And don't be tempted (like I was) to order them on sale and then let your seed pods sit around for a long time before planting them. I found this out the hard way this go-around when most of my seed pods wouldn't sprout, or like my sage sprouted and then quickly died.
   
• Having said that, I was once again astounded by the success of the herbs that did grow. This again shows the Aerogarden at its finest. As you saw, the mint and the basil grew like a weed. The parsley was slow in getting started, but it hung on.

I cleaned and washed out the Tall Aerogarden. I took out the one remaining tomato plant, which looked like this:

I transplanted it into a pot.

I put the pot by a sunny windowsill, and even though it's a few weeks later now, and the plant is actually still growing and still producing red tomatoes (which, interestingly, are sweeter in the soil than they ever were in the Aerogarden, which leads me to suspect that the "natural" nutrients in the soil are preferable to the liquid nutrients.  I don't expect this to last forever (some of the leaves are browning already), but it's fun to give the plant a little more life even after the Aerogarden.

I attempted to transplant my mint using the same Aerogarden transplanting technique I told you about before. The mint didn't last too long, so I then tried the same with the parsley. What I did differently was that I kept the parsley under the grow lights (basically removing the bowl and putting the plant right on the base of the unit). It's been a few weeks, so I've concluded that this is the "correct" way to help the roots used to water get acclimated to soil.

One very, very cool innovation from the folks at Aerogrow is this
Grow Light Adapter. It basically lets you take your grow light out of the Aerogarden unit and to plug it into any lamp, turning it instantly into a grow light. What'll they think of next?

I'm eager to start another batch of Aerogardens. I'm thinking of going with the Chili Pepper Seed Kit (6/7-Pod) (which hopefully grows more like an "herb" than a "vegetable", the Lots of Lavender (6/7-Pod) kit (what can I say, I love the smell of lavender), and maybe a Custom Herb Seed Kit (my goal this time is to get the right herbs that I could use in preparing a real rotisserie chicken to cook in my brand new Ronco Showtime Rotisserie, which I finally caved and bought after watching the infomercial ten thousand times). 

Fresh Mint Ice Cream Recipe using fresh Aerogarden mint!

One thing that's been on my mind for a very, very long time to try is real mint ice cream. I'm not talking about that bright green alien life form you see in the supermarket freeze shelves, I'm talking about real ice cream that's made from real mint leaves. While most of my Aerogarden herbs this go-around have died prematurely (thanks, I believe, to my letting the seeds sit around for way too long), the mint has proven to be resilient to the point of being weed-like.

I chopped every last bit of mint until my Aerogarden looked like me after my dad gave me one of his buzz haircuts as a kid (which would make my brother and me run out of the room in tears every time).

Taking a bunches of mint...

...I tore the leaves until I had two packed cups. I threw them into a cream-milk mixture.

...and then I heated. What happens here is that the essential oils of the mint leaves go into the milk and cream, infusing it with a minty taste and color.

After simmering, you then press the mixture through a strainer so that you're just left with the mint-infused cream and milk.

The color was supposed to be more green, I think. But it did smell minty. Here's what was left of the mint leaves after I squeeze it all through.

The next step was to churn in my ice cream maker. I personally use a KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker Attachment.It's a snap to use--you freeze the metal bowl, you chill the milk and cream mixture, and you let it churn for about 20 minutes. It's just as easy and takes up a lot less space than buying a standalone ice cream maker. The result was this creamy frozen delight.

As for the taste, it was very interesting. The mint was not quite like the mint ice cream you buy in the store which was both good and not so good. On the positive side, it struck me how "natural" and "fresh" this ice cream tasted.On the not-so-positive side, I found that I have gotten used to "unnatural" tasting mint ice cream with heaping helpings of infused flavors to make it a bit more "minty" than this preparation technique could probably muster. Still, I found it an overall success. Next time, I'd probably break up some chocolate and throw it into the mix.

By the way, if you're curious, I got the recipe from book that's widely considered THE authority on ice cream, The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments.

Seed Starting with the Aerogarden: starting your outdoor garden indoors

I remember back in the days when I had a beautiful large yard, I would plant tomatoes every year. I'd buy what were called "Seed N Start" kits from Burpee, which were like cute mini greenhouses, start the seeds indoors, get them accustomed to the climate by moving the seedlings outdoors, and then transplant the seedlings outdoors. This method let me harvest bushels and bushels of beautiful Jersey tomatoes every year. Burpee doesn't seem to sell these anymore, but they've since started selling what looks to be an improved version in their "Burpee Ultimate Growing System".

But admittedly, the system wasn't perfect. It was kind of messy to deal with the dirt. There were times the seeds just didn't sprout, perhaps because of the lighting. And it seemed that the seedlings were always a little too fragile for my liking when it came time to plant them in the cruel outside world with wind and frost and critters.

If only I had my Aerogarden back then. One of the cool features of the Aerogarden is that they have a Seed Starting system specially designed for you to start your seeds' life in the Aerogarden, and then transplant them to your garden outside when they're good and strong.


First, you'll need to purchase the
Garden Starter System (For 6-Pod & 7-Pod AeroGardens) or if you have a Space Saver model, you'll need to get the
Garden Starter System (Space Saver 6). This is basically a special tray that you put in your Aerogarden that where you can plant up to 66 seedlings. They come complete with grow sponges and nutrients, as well as a "how to" guide. (If you don't have an Aerogarden yet, I believe if you go to their site, they're actually bundling Seed Starter Kits for free with new units.

What I would recommend is to buy the seeds at Burpee. (In fact, for a limited time, you can receive 2 FREE 135th Anniversary Seed Packets when you spend $30 or more!) I have always been very impressed by the seeds at Burpee--they are always fresh and sure to sprout.

With the combination of Burpee seeds and Aerogarden starter kit, you'll have the foundation for an incredible victory garden! And you'll be the envy of all of us who are stuck in apartments :P

The best way to save herbs for use later

So, as loyal readers of this blog know, I'm often caught in a situation where I need to use up a lot of herbs at once or throw them out. This usually means I end up making dishes that use tons and tons of herbs, like basil pesto or the basil Thai stir fry of the last post. And wait'll you see what happened with the mint leaves I chop chop chopped from the herb Aerogarden!

So, I get an email today from Aerogrow announcing their new Herb Mill. This is a dream come true for me. It looks a lot like their
Herb 'n Serve, which allows you to mix up herbs with olive oil to make dressing (works well, but there's only so much dressing you can make). I've also tried their Herb 'n Ice Silicone Freezer Trays, but wasn't too impressed with the results--the frozen ice cubes eventually dried out to the point where the herbs weren't very useful. The Herb 'n Save was a good idea, but only keeps herbs fresh for a few days--I'd rather just keep them growing on the Aerogarden if that's the case. So I tried them all. It feels like the only product I didn't try was the "Herb 'N' Cowboy" (sorry, I had to say it).

But like I said, this product seems promising. You put your extra herbs in the chamber, chop them, and freeze them on the spot. Then, when you're ready to use them, you just sprinkle on what you need. Seems that they'd be a nice alternative to dry herbs (face it--that bottle of oregano that's been sitting in the cupboard for 10 years has had it).

Good job by Aerogarden to continue to innovate in ways to "pres-herb" your hard work (okay, no more bad puns, I promise).