Unboxing the AeroGarden Harvest - The Controls

You’ll find the AeroGarden Harvest control panel positioned on the front of the base below the tub. The control panel consists of three parts.

You interact with the computer in the Harvest exclusively through this panel. The Harvest communicates with you exclusively through this panel.

Add Plant Food

The left-most icon on the AeroGarden Harvest control panel is labeled “Add Plant Food”. It has a green light.

When you set up a new garden, press the green button (gently) for 5 seconds to reset the plant feeding schedule and the light schedule. The light will blink 3 times to indicate acceptance of the command.

The AeroGarden Harvest communicates to you the need to feed the plants by changing the color from green to red. To clear the reminder, press the button once.

The “Add Plant Food” button has one extra function. Press this button once to run the pump momentarily. Sometimes the pump runs so quietly you wonder if it’s working at all! So, for your own peace of mind, just pull up a pod and press the button to see the water flowing.

AeroGarden Salad Greens Pod Kit

Tasty lettuce for your salad is just days away

It seems as if hydroponics and lettuce were made for each other. Try these pods in any of your AeroGarden hydroponic growing systems.

Add Water

The blue light, labeled “Add Water”, is not a button.

When the AeroGarden Harvest detects the water is getting low, it changes the color of this indicator from blue to red. You reset this indicator by filling the tub with water. The water level sensor in the tub lets the computer know when the water level is above an acceptable level, and the computer turns the indicator light from red back to blue.

Light On/Off

You set the AeroGarden Harvest light schedule by pressing and holding the “Light On/Off” button for 3 seconds. Until you change the schedule, the light will come on at this exact time every day, and the light will remain lit for 15 hours.

The timer stays very accurate.

Setting the light timer is the biggest hassle with the AeroGarden Harvest. If you want it to turn off at 6 PM each day so the light doesn’t reflect off the television screen, you’ll need to press the “Light On/Off” button at 3 AM. Luckily, you only need to do that once when you start the garden. This is true of all models in the Harvest garden series.

Note that the AeroGarden Bounty and Farm series have more advanced control panels that allow you to just set a time.

You can press the “Light On/Off” button once to turn the light on or off independently of the timer. The light timer continues to operate and will put the light back on the schedule.

Key Takeaways

In this article, you learned how to use the control panel to set the AeroGarden Harvest timers and how the Harvest uses the control panel to communicate with you.

The control panel is quite efficient, allowing you to manage the entire garden with two buttons.

In the next article in the Unboxing the AeroGarden Harvest series, you’ll read about the seed pods.