Unboxing the AeroGarden Harvest - Teardown

The AeroGarden Harvest breaks down into a base, a tub, and a tray. The engineers designed this assembly well.

The base holds the tub. The tub rests in a cavity in the base so it won’t slide off. The tray is the lid for the tray. AeroGarden offers two other (optional) trays, one for starting seedlings and the other for growing microgreens.

In this article, we’ll go over the AeroGarden Harvest growing system.

It’s A Gardening System

The AeroGarden Harvest is a system for gardening. A system. However, the topic of how the AeroGarden Harvest works goes beyond the scope of this article. Read the post, How a Self-Watering Hydroponic System Works, to get the inside scoop on how a well-designed hydroponic growing system works.

In the picture above, you’ll see the AeroGarden base and light assembly, a tub, and a tray with six circular holes. The tray acts as the lid for the tub, which seats comfortably in the cavity in the base. The light shines down on the tray, where the plants grow.

The Base

The base consists of a platform for the tub and a permanently attached post supporting a LED light assembly.

A computer embedded within the base controls the system. The control panel on the front of the base is your interface with the computer. You touch buttons to communicate your intentions to the computer and the computer changes the colors of the button lights or flashes the lights on the buttons to communicate the status of your garden to you.

The computer manages a timer for the lights, a timer for the water pump, and a timer for a reminder to feed the plants.

In the picture above, the tile is one square foot. The light assembly extended to its maximum height above the tray leaves nearly twelve inches of space for plants to grow.

Also visible in the picture is the power socket for the device, visible on the far right of the image.

The close-up of the light assembly shows the LED grow lights and the column.

The light assembly can be set to one of five heights. Four height points are visible on the extended post and one is not visible, in use by the latch holding the post up.

A latch on the column locks the post in place at the desired height. The latch is shown in an inset in the picture.

The light assembly does not detach from the column. To adjust the post height, you push the latch in and lift or push down on the light assembly.

On the top of the platform where the tub rests is an informational sticker. The tub rests atop this sticker, so you’ll only see it before you start your garden, when you are cleaning the tub, or as you read this article on the Bountiful Indoor Garden website.

The information on this sticker can be found in the instruction manual included in the AeroGarden Harvest box.

Finally, on the base of the AeroGarden Harvest is the control panel. The control panel consists of two buttons and an indicator light for water level. These are the buttons referenced in the sticker shown in the above picture.

Gently press the buttons on the control panel. They are so sensitive you can almost just rest your fingertip over the icon and the pressure will register with the computer.

All Harvest models share this control panel. The Bounty models have a digital display. The Farm models have a touchscreen for the controller.

The biggest downside to the AeroGarden Harvest series is the need to manually set the time the light turns on for 15 hours per day. You must set the light at the time you want the light to come on daily. That means that if you want the light to turn off at 6 PM, you must press that button at 3 AM one time. If this is deal-breaker for you, look at the Bounty models, which have a digital display.

AeroGarden Bounty Elite

Indoor Gardening at its Best

The AeroGarden Bounty Elite is a self-contained garden with all the cool conveniences. It’s so amazingly easy to grow your own food with these rigs. Try it for yourself.

The Tub

The tub contains a water pump and a sensor for detecting the water level. The tub holds about a gallon of water.

The water pump pushes water up to the tray. It gets its power from a power outlet on the base. A cord runs from the pump, up and over the edge of the tub, and down to the power socket on the base.

The water sensor is a magnet attached to a bobber. As the water level goes down, the magnet sinks. A sensor in the base notifies you of a low water level when it senses the magnet has dropped below a certain point. Rather ingenious, if you think about it! The base knows the water is low without having to run a wire into the tub.

The tub is a thin plastic not designed to take much abuse. The tub can be carried full of water.

The next article in this Unboxing the AeroGarden Harvest series focuses on the tub.

The Tray

The tray holds six seed pods. The seed pods are discussed in a later article in the series. You seat a seed pod in each hole in the tray. The seed in the pod grows in a grow sponge.

The tray has a cap you lift up to add water to the tub when your plants are growing.

A tube comes down from below the tray and this tube pairs with the tube coming up from the pump in the tub. The pump pushes water into the hollow tray, and the tray distributes water to each pod seat. You’ll get a close-up of the tray in the article on the tray later in this series.

Key Takeaways

In this article you learned how the components of the AeroGarden Harvest come together. You had the opportunity to view the AeroGarden Harvest base and light assembly from several angles. And you were introduced to the tub and tray, both of which are discussed in more detail in articles later in this series.

The AeroGarden Harvest is a gardening system, unlike a potted plant set on a windowsill, which is just a potted plant set on a windowsill. The AeroGarden Harvest is an all-in-one garden for up to six plants.

Continue to the next article in this series to learn more about the tub, the pump, and the water level sensor.