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Aerogarden Harvest Elite – While we were all in quarantine, we all found things to do. Many of us turned to gardening, which is a broad term that can fit your life, whether you live in a landless city apartment or a suburban home with an acre or more of outdoor space.

There are a lot of hydroponic garden systems, from fancy to simple, that work well enough on your kitchen counter to grow basil, cilantro, and even lettuce, but I wanted to see how well one could grow flowers. So, I turned to the AeroGarden, which is becoming more and more popular. It uses water, air, and LED grow lights to make a better-than-perfect environment for growing plants indoors.

When I ordered our AeroGarden, the Harvest Elite Slim, which is the model I wanted, was not available. I went with the Harvest Elite, which is shorter but looks pretty much the same. Also, as of the time of this writing, nine of the sixteen different AeroGarden gardens are sold out. This can be read in a couple of ways: 1) Yay! People love them, and I’ll do the same. 2) I’m annoyed because I want one and don’t want to wait for it.

In the end, there is still a lot of choice, so you should be able to find one that works for you.

AeroGarden sells seed kits and gardens starting at $70.

Aerogarden Harvest Elite

I bought the 6-pod AeroGarden Harvest Elite garden system, which came with a 6-pod gourmet herbs seed pod kit, as well as three other kits.

Even though the AeroGarden was carried on a ship through bad weather in New England, like a snowstorm, nothing was broken.

I opened the box and found exactly what I had ordered: a 6-pod AeroGarden Harvest Elite garden system, a 6-pod gourmet herbs seed pod kit, and three other kits that I had chosen, including a 6-pod Incredible Edibles flowers kit, a 6-pod lavender kit, and a 3-pod Lots of Dots polka dot plant kit.

Plant Growth

After only three days, the Durango marigolds poked their heads out of the tops of the seed pods.

AeroGarden says on its website, “Most plants germinate in 7 to 14 days, are ready to harvest in 4 to 6 weeks, and will continue to produce harvests for up to 6 months or longer.”

After only three days, the Durango marigolds poked their heads out of the tops of the seed pods. After a week, only the marigolds had come up, but they were tall enough that I could take off their little mini-greenhouses.

The rest of the snapdragons, dianthus, and calendula started to grow between weeks one and two, but I wasn’t sure if my garden would be ready to pick at the one-month mark.

In Week 3, my daughter told her remote third-grade class that I was growing a jungle in our living room. She pointed the camera on her Chromebook at the AeroGarden. My little babies had, in fact, grown a lot, and it did look a bit like a jungle.

At this point, I hadn’t done much for these plants except water them once a week. There’s a little window you can look through to see when the water is full.

But once we turned the corner into Week 4, they grew like weeds and drank about a quart of water a day faster than I could water them.

Good Features

The way it grows is easy and clean.

It’s easy to set up the AeroGarden garden system: Once you take it out of the box, plug it in, fill it with water, and put the seed pods in.

The AeroGarden garden system is easy to set up. As soon as you take it out of the box, you just plug it in, add water, and put the seed pods in. On the Harvest Elite device itself, there is a digital clock that you are asked to set and a daily counter that shows you how long your plants have been growing.

But when I was actually setting up the AeroGarden for the first time, I had to make a few assumptions to keep the process going. I had to sort through partial instructions for setting up the unit that came with the unit, partial instructions for setting up the unit that came with the seed kits, and partial set-up indicators on the unit itself. This didn’t throw me off too much because, for better or worse, I don’t usually follow set-up instructions, but I wanted to make sure I was doing it right, especially for testing.

I set the clock and told the Harvest Elite what kind of plants I wanted to grow. I chose the “incredible edibles,” which include snapdragon, calendula, Durango marigold, and dianthus. I put in the right amount of MiracleGro plant food, pushed the six seed pods into place, and covered them with clear, dome-shaped grow caps that act like mini greenhouses.

Downsides

Its futuristic look doesn’t go with the way I decorate my house.

The eclectic style of the rest of my house doesn’t go with the sleek look of AeroGarden.

AeroGarden’s Harvest Elite is a sleek machine with simple controls and few extra features. I can understand that. The problem is that it doesn’t go with the eclectic style of the rest of my house. My Christmas cactus loves growing in a white ceramic planter with squirrels on it.

Also, the fancy LED light diodes on the hood of the Harvest Elite make it look like a panel from a spaceship, or at least that’s what I think it looks like, with bright pops of red, blue, and pale yellow-white.

There is a place for this very modern style of design, but it’s not for me.

It’s hard to water with a pitcher because the hood is so low.

When I was watering, the Harvest Elite’s light hood kept my pitcher from going all the way up.

This made me think of trying to water my Christmas tree… You can’t pour in all the water because the stiff lower branches of the tree don’t let you get the right angle. Well, those branches are the hood of the Harvest Elite. When I was watering, I could only pour in a certain amount of water at a time because the handle of my pitcher and my knuckles hit the hood. This made it hard to get a good angle, so I had to make two half-full trips to water it all.

I will say that by Week 5, the plants were so tall that they were pushing against the hood. That’s when I finally realized that you can raise the height of the hood with a little muscle.

At night, the bright lights on the hood can be hard to see.

The LED grow lights from AeroGarden are so bright that they look like the sun. I think it’s too bright.

While the Harvest Elite was plugged in, I didn’t go out for midnight snacks. The lights on the Harvest Elite’s hood are so bright that they make blue light stimulation look bad. Really, it’s hard to see at night, and it reflected on my LED TV screen, which was annoying while I was watching something else.

As for other operational distractions, the unit itself is quiet, except for the occasional sound of water dripping, which could be a relaxing challenger for my Calm app and is very soothing.

The AeroGarden Harvest is an indoor herb and vegetable planter that is easy to use.

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Since I’ve had the $150 AeroGarden Harvest for more than a year, I’ve grown dill that’s 3 feet tall, basil that’s the size of my palm, and tiny but tasty tomatoes.

With patience and water, AeroGarden’s hydroponic and self-watering countertop gardens make it easy to grow your own herbs, flowers, greens, and vegetables.

Even though the AeroGarden did most of the “planting,” it’s still fun to watch your seeds sprout and grow, and the fresh plants are delicious.

The best herb gardens to grow indoors

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I’m the kind of home cook who feels pretty good about herself after making instant ramen with eggs, herbs, and vegetables. That’s mostly because my AeroGarden Harvest grows a jungle of fresh herbs and vegetables that I can “pick” whenever I need them.

I got the Aerogarden as a holiday gift, and even though it’s been more than a year, it’s still a great gift. I mean, look at these basil leaves that we were able to grow three or four months after we set up the planter.

We’ve also compared Aerogarden to find the best AeroGarden model, check out our blog to know more about it!

What is the AeroGarden Harvest?

The Harvest is an indoor hydroponic garden that grows herbs, vegetables, and even flowers using only water. Most Aerogardens, like the one we bought, come with a starter pack of seed pods and a bottle of nutrients. Our starter pack came with seeds for herbs, and we’ve also bought packs with seeds for tomatoes and other vegetables.

It can take a few months for the seeds to grow into herbs and vegetables you can use in cooking, but it’s oddly satisfying to know they came from your kitchen counter. We’ve had the Aerogarden for more than a year and have grown herbs and tomatoes in it twice. I wouldn’t say it saved so much money that the unit paid for itself, but it is a fun and useful thing to have in the kitchen.

Set up

The main unit is a big water tank with holes for seed pods and a grow light hood that can be extended. This base comes with six pods that have already been planted, six plastic lids, and a bottle of plant food that smells like vinegar but works very well. On the base, there is a simple, programmable LCD screen that shows the time and reminds you to add water and nutrient solution. This has been very helpful, since herbs drink a lot of water.

At its tallest point, the whole thing is 7.5 by 10.75 by 17 inches. When the light hood is fully extended, the Harvest might not fit in low kitchen cabinets. Ours didn’t, so we put it on the corner of our kitchen table by a window.

The reservoir lid has six holes for the seed pods and a small hole for water. I thought the water hole was too small because when I had to water the garden, our table would turn into a kiddie pool. The mint, dill, thyme, curly parsley, and two kinds of basil seeds are already in the seed pods (Genovese and Thai).

The pods are labeled with the name of the herb, how long it takes to germinate, and where to put them in the base unit’s grow area (front, middle, or back) based on how tall they can get.

You almost don’t need to read the instructions because it’s so obvious, and skipping steps didn’t make much of a difference when I was in a hurry to start growing our herb garden.

The right way to do it is to put the reservoir on the base, plug the unit into an outlet, fill the reservoir with water, put the pods and lids on in the right places, and then add the nutrient solution. After that, set the time so the system will start watering itself every five minutes, and keep track of how long it has been since you planted the pods and how long it will be until the next nutrient feeding.

A review of the AeroGarden Harvest

The first few days after I set up our Aerogarden, I kept staring at it as if the herbs would grow before my eyes (they didn’t) and picking up the pods to see if roots had started growing (they hadn’t). Patience is a good trait, but I don’t have it.

I never thought I’d say this, but I think it’s pretty cool that you can grow your own food, even if it’s just herbs. I like that the unit is self-contained and doesn’t need soil. It’s great for small spaces and people who don’t want to deal with bugs and soil.

I also don’t know what was in that nutrient water, but it made the herbs, especially basil and dill, grow like they were on steroids. I put a bottle of wine next to the picture of the Harvest above to show how ridiculously tall the dill was. For more information, the dill is 35 inches tall from the top of the water reservoir to the top of the plant, which is where flowers have started to grow.

We’ve also grown tomatoes in it over the past few months. They are on the smaller side—each is just a little bit wider than a quarter—but they are still big and tasty.

Cons to consider

The free pod kit that came with the Harvest was the thing I didn’t like most about it. You can only pick from a mixed pack of herbs, flowers, salad greens, or vegetables. You can’t just pick the herbs or flowers you want unless you buy a separate pod kit.

There were six different kinds of herbs in the starter pod pack that came with our unit, but we only liked the two kinds of basil. Even though the dill looked cool, it was a waste of space for us.

One of the pods also didn’t sprout and instead grew white mold. We found out later that this was normal, but we had already thrown it away.

The hole for watering is also pretty small. Because the opening is so small, I can only fill the reservoir without making a mess on the table with a wine bottle.

In conclusion

The AeroGarden Harvest is a fun and easy-to-use indoor garden that anyone can enjoy. It’s cool to be able to say that you grew the herbs you’re eating. Even though the unit isn’t cheap, it’s worth it because you can grow things that you would have bought otherwise. Unless you use the same herbs every day, it won’t save you enough to cover the cost of the AeroGarden itself, but I can see how it could be useful.

I also like that it’s small and self-contained, so even a small kitchenette won’t be too big for it. I might have had a little beginner’s luck with my herbs and tomatoes, but I’m super excited to see if I can ride this wave and grow even more with the AeroGarden Harvest.

It’s easy to set up and use, and the results are edible.

Cons: The basic unit can feel cheap, it’s expensive for a novelty item, and you can’t change the free starter pod kit.