Unboxing the AeroGarden Harvest - Ready To Grow

Finally! You finished setting up your AeroGarden Harvest and you’re ready to grow your food. Arrange your seeded pods in the Harvest tray.

You can decide how to arrange the pods. You can put the tall plants in the back or the two edges. Fast-growing plants could go to the back to avoid blocking the slow-growing plants. Until the roots become long, you can rearrange the pods.

AeroGarden Harvest

6-Pod Hydroponic Growing System

It’s the amazing all-in-one indoor garden. It works. It’s easy. It’s fun. You’ll want a dozen of them! Get one right now.

Fill the tub to the line with water. The water you add to the tub of your AeroGarden Harvest should be clear of contaminants that could harm your plants. Unless the water is especially hard, the AeroGarden Harvest probably won’t be affected by the water you use.

The AeroGarden Harvest includes a water fill line at the top of the water level sensor. You can see the fill line in the picture below.

Add nutrients to the water according to the included instructions. Your AeroGarden came with a 3 ounce bottle of nutrients that will last quite a while.

Completing Set-Up

Now, plug in your AeroGarden Harvest.

The LED grow light will come on and the pump will run. The control panel will light up.

You are almost done. Two steps remain.

Just to be sure the schedule is started, gently press and hold the green leaf button until it blinks. That sets the start of your feeding schedule for this Harvest. In two weeks, the button you pressed will turn red to remind you to feed your plants.

Set the light schedule to complete the second remaining step. Answer these two questions.

The AeroGarden Harvest powers the light for fifteen (15) hours per day. You may care more about when it turns on than off, or off than on. Your response to the questions may be, “I don’t care what time it comes on but I want it to turn off at 6 PM.”

To have the AeroGarden Harvest turn off at 6 PM, subtract 15 hours to determine the time it turns on. Fifteen hours before 6 PM is 3 AM. To have your AeroGarden Harvest turn off at 6 PM, you must press and hold the white Light On/Off button until it blinks at 3 AM. Thankfully, you only have to do this once. From then on, the AeroGarden Harvest turns on at 3 AM.

The simple controls of the Harvest necessitate manually setting the light timer. If you find having to set the timer in the middle of the night too annoying, consider the AeroGarden Bounty series instead. The Bounty series offers a control panel that allows you to set the light schedule. Another benefit of the Bounty series is that it grows 9 plants compared to the 6 grown by the Harvest. The Bounty series includes several more conveniences, too.

AeroGarden Bounty Elite

Indoor Gardening at its Best

Grow up to 9 plants at a time with the AeroGarden Bounty Elite. This top-of-the-line self-contained garden has all the cool conveniences. Even Wi-Fi!

Growing Large Plants

The AeroGarden Harvest can grow a wide variety of plants, even plants you’d think of as being too large for such a compact garden. A tomato plant, for example, is a plant most people consider to be outdoor only. But AeroGarden offers tomato pods with a variety of tomato that fits quite well in a Harvest. The tomatoes in the picture above are growing in an AeroGarden Harvest.

While we’re on the subject of growing tomatoes in the AeroGarden Harvest, part of planning your garden is knowing what combinations of plants you can fit on the tray. You don’t always use all 6 holes in the tray.

The tomato plant in the picture above is the only plant growing in that AeroGarden Harvest. I capped the other 5 holes. The tomato plant leaves no room for other plants. The picture below, showing the AeroGarden Harvest torn down, illustrates the small size of the Harvest tray. Each square in the picture is twelve inches by twelve inches.

Longevity

And while we’re still on the topic of tomato plants growing in an AeroGarden Harvest, remember that a tomato plant lives for months. You’ll (hopefully) not experience frost events in your home. Your home should be free of nasty fluorescent green caterpillars that can eat an entire tomato plant in one night. So your tomato plant produces tomatoes for a very long time.

And that is why many people own several AeroGarden devices. One AeroGarden Harvest for tomatoes. One AeroGarden Harvest for lettuce. One AeroGarden Harvest for herbs. Once you see how easily AeroGarden devices grow food, you’ll want more of them!

Germination

Seeds in pods manufactured by AeroGarden may take 1 to 21 days to germinate. The AeroGarden Salad Greens pods I’ve used showed growth activity in less than 48 hours. That’s probably about as close to instant gratification you’ll get from a garden!

Seeds I supplied have taken longer to germinate. The Arugula pod shown in the picture at the top of the page germinated in a few days. Seeds in the other pods have not yet germinated after almost a week.

How the AeroGarden Harvest System Works

The articles in the Unboxing the AeroGarden Harvest series went into depth on what you’ll get when you buy an AeroGarden Harvest. You know all the parts and pieces. But how does it work? How do you get such healthy plants so quickly and with so little effort?

Read the companion article, How a Self-Watering Hydroponic System Works, to find answers to these questions.

Once you’ve seen how good the AeroGarden Harvest is at its job, you’ll wonder how you ever lasted this long without one.

Pair Your AeroGarden with an Indoor EarthBox System

Your AeroGarden Harvest can grow many things, but carrots, onions, beets, and squash are not on that list. But you can still grow those plants and more indoors. How? With an EarthBox growing system, which pairs an EarthBox with a LED grow light and a capture system for overflow water, you can grow plants that really do grow better in soil. Read the companion article, A Raised Bed Garden Indoors? Bring It On! to get the details.

Key Takeaways

In this article, you learned how to complete set-up of an AeroGarden Harvest. You also learned what to expect and how to improve your chances of success with your garden.

If you were unsure whether these hydroponic growing systems like the AeroGarden Harvest really live up to the hype, rest assured, they do. You can grow a bountiful indoor garden with surprisingly little effort.

This article completes the Unboxing The AeroGarden Harvest series. You can continue reading about growing your garden indoors by clicking on the links below.