Buying a Replacement Aerogarden Arm

My two black Aerogarden units are now a few years old. One of the things I noticed about them is that on the arm, crud is forming on the metal contacts that connect them to the pump on the base.

Crud, of course is the technical term for oxidation. Copper oxide is formed when oxygen molecules and copper interact. I tried scraping it off, and using all kinds of abrasive tools, which just resulted in me ruining the arm by bending the metal contacts.

After a little research on the Web, I learned (a bit too late of course) that there are proper ways to clean oxidation when it happens and to prevent oxidation from happening in the first place.

To clean oxidation, you just need a solution of baking soda and warm water to make a paste. Cover the oxidized contacts, wipe it off after a while, and then polish with a wire brush.

To prevent it, you just need to coat the terminals with Vaseline.

Of course, it's too late for me, but luckily, on Aerogrow's site, they have replacement arms for a reasonable price. A less well-engineered system would have had you throwing away the whole thing, but with Aerogardens, you can replace any of these pieces:



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 Aerogarden seems to have removed these from their catalog, but it's still worth contacting their customer service if you need one.

Aerogarden Snowpeas: Epic Fail!

Well, we gave it the ol' college try, but at the end, the snowpeas gave in. This is what the replacement snowpea pod I got last month looked like on July 28:

As you can see, it was doing okay, but its neighbors were not looking too happy. I wrote to Aerogarden again, and again, the customer service could not have been nicer. She sent me five new replacement pods, and they came within days.

I planted all the new pods on August 4. Alas, here's what they looked like on August 15.

The first replacement pod is all but completely wilted, and none of the new snowpeas came in, except for one which is struggling. The rest look kind of icky and moldy like this:

The customer service rep explained to me that they were discontinuing the snowpeas because of a high failure rate. I'm not sure what it was, maybe the ambient temperature in the room, maybe just less-than-stellar product design and testing on the part of Aerogarden, but it seems that I was destined never to have more snowpeas than the one or two wimpy snowpeas I got.

So, it was a valiant effort and I'm glad I tried it, but at the end of the day it seems that the Aerogarden is still best at what it was originally designed for: herbs. I placed a new custom order for herbs and I'll be planting an all new garden with an all-new set of herbs shortly.

Amazing Aerogarden Basil

Yes, I can't grow snowpeas in the Aerogarden to save my life, my cherry tomato adventure was a disappointment, and the other herbs pale in comparison, but the Aerogarden has been nothing short of spectacular with basil. I would say over the year, at least one unit has already paid for itself when I compare the amount of fresh basil I harvested alone versus what it'd cost me to buy individual packets in a supermarket.

While I've been on the Nutrisystem diet for a while, today on date night with the lovely Lisa, we decided to cook a feast. It started by harvesting a big bunch of basil, which of course once again had grown and towered over its neighbors.

I had a fresh bottle of Spanish olive oil, courtesy of my cousin Shauna.

The first step was to make an insalata caprese appetizer. The tomato is a fresh Jersey tomato that Lisa got from someone at work. We bought the mozzarella at the local H-Mart. Put a couple basil leaves on, drizzle on some olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper, and we had a delightful, super-duper fresh and very yummy treat.

For the main course, we decided to make Spicy Basil Chicken from a highly rated recipe on AllRecipes.Com. We followed the recipe precisely, using portabello mushrooms not not being stingy with the peppers. Here was the crowning moment when we mixed the fresh basil in.

The taste was out of this world, heavenly over white rice. It was even better when we were storing away the leftovers a few hours later and the flavors had a chance to sit and mix.

The amazing Aerogarden Herb and Serve for salad dressings and marinade

I admit, I'm kind of an Aerogarden junkie. You can see in the blog that I bought three Aerogarden units, I bought the shelves, I bought the soft ties, I bought the replacement pumps, the replacement bulbs, half a dozen different seed kits, and even the AeroGarden Master Chef Herb Cookbook !

Herb 'n Serve from Aerogarden is something new I decided to try. Now, I have every kitchen gadget known to man, from a George Foreman grill to a rotisserie hot dog cooker to a Keurig coffee maker. But this one is one of my new favorites. If you are looking to make vinigrette or marinade, you'll love it too.

The Herb 'n Serve looks a lot like a salad dressing bottle with a cap. The difference is, there's a powerful, battery-run blender on the bottom, as well as convenient lines on the carafe that lets you measure perfect proportions of oil and vinegar.

I decided to make a herb vinigrette. It started with a "handful" of fresh herbs from my Aerogarden (the parsley is from the parsley plants I transplanted into pots, which are thriving)

I opened the box of the Herb and Serve. It consisted of four parts: a carafe and a bottom (already assembled), a plastic twisting cap...

...and six AA batteries to power the thing.

I followed the instructions step-by-step. Step one was adding Balsamic Vinegar to the vinegar line.

I threw in my bunch of herbs...

Then, I flicked the switch to "on". The whole thing started blending.

Once the whole thing was blended, I just added some salt, pepper, mustard...

...and olive oil.
The result was a perfectly delicious vinigrette which would go well with any salad. So the next step was to find a salad. I went to my top Aerogarden unit and started harvesting mesclun leaves. This is what I got.

I poured the vinigrette on just like it came in a bottle.

And voila--there's a delicious salad prepared 100% using the amazing Aerogarden. The mesclun tasted like mesclun, and the vinigrette added a great burst of flavor.

I am looking forward to trying the marinade maker capabilities of this thing. Stay tuned!

Aerogarden Snowpeas are falling like dominoes

Bad news about the Aerogarden snowpeas. For no reason, they seem to be dying.

Here's a plant that was thriving less than a week ago. Now it's shriveled up. Two pods have completed died, and I see that three more have dead leaves which are starting at the bottom and moving to the top.

The odd thing is--there has always been plenty of water, the lights have been working just fine, and I've been putting the nutrients in right on schedule. The temperature in the kitchen has always been just fine (in fact, the other Aerogardens are thriving).

So, I have to conclude that it's the seed pods that were at fault. I wrote back to Aerogarden, and I'll let you know what they say.

There's one pea pod that seems to be getting big. Let's see if it can reach full size before the rest of the plant goes.

In the meantime, the Aerogarden Herbs are doing splendidly, and yes, the basil is full grown again. What else is new?

The mesclun is doing well too. And unlike my short-lived romaine lettuce it's still 100% bug free! In the next post, I'll talk about how I made my own salad AND salad dressing with the amazing Aerogarden!

What a revolting development...

So, in an unpleasant development a few days ago, I was examining the sponges on my snowpea plant and looking at the roots. Then, one of the roots started moving!

You guessed it. Some critter had decided to lay its eggs in the sponge, and suddenly there were dozens of little creepy crawlies in the sponge material. Sadly, I thought that starting an indoor garden would mean freedom from critters, but because of the light and water I've had to deal with whiteflies, fruit flies, and now these mysterious little wormies.

I tried picking them out, but there were just too many (plus, I can getting a bit sick to my stomach). In a moment of desperation, I took some drops of boiling water, and dropped it in the sponge. Surely enough, this killed the worms, but it looks like it also killed the snowpea. So long story short,that's two snowpeas down, five left.

Anyway, a moment of silence for the one pea pod that was taken before its time :(

In better news, I got home to a cute little box delivered by the mailman.

I opened it up, and there, wonderfully packed, was my replacement Aerogarden pods, one peapod and one mesclun.

I took out the offending snow pea seed pod out and replaced it with this one. We'll see in 6-12 days if it sprouts, and if it can catch up to its siblings.

The basil has...well, you know.

So, the basil is showing off again. Check out the growth after just a few days. In some ways I wonder if the basil is hogging all the nutrients from the others. The mint is holding its own, but the parsley and the thyme is anemic, and the purple basil is barely hanging on. I would contact Aerogarden for a replacement, but no big loss if I don't get purple basil growing, as I prefer using regular basil anyway.

So, you know the trend by now. I chopped a healthy piece of basil off.

I decided to do something special to my Nutrisystem Pizza by converting it to a Margherita Pizza. Now, the way the "Nutrisystem Pizza" works is, it's a slab of flatbread the size of a Pop Tart. You slather on the tomato sauce that comes in a little packet, and then you put on grated cheese. I decided to add my fresh basil before sticking it in the oven.

I gotta say, it turned out incredible. The added taste of the basil transformed it from a ho-hum pizza slightly under the quality of a frozen pizza to, I kid you not, a gourmet meal. The smell of the cheese and the tomato sauce and the basil was nothing short of heavenly, and the taste was great. It didn't look too shabby either.


In other news, check this out. Could that be a tiny snowpea peeking out?

I admit, I am a little worried about the snowpeas, because I think I made the wire "trellises" too late. I was supposed to do it when the plants were 1-2 inches tall, but I waited until they got long. So they're not being supported too well now--they're not wrapping around the trellisses, but rather drooping back to the Aerogarden itself. I tried shoring up a couple plants by adding more wire to serve as support, so we'll see if this helps. Still, I do see a couple flowers, and this looks a lot like a pea pod, so we'll see.