( 16 reviews )
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Posted: 07-03-2009
I purchased the Aerogarden system and a few kits last year. On Jan 1st 2009 I took out the remnants of the herb kit and planted the Salsa Garden kit. This particular kit has several extra steps - plant selection, pruning, growth stabilization, and pollinating. I will mention each in detail here to help others. The herb gardens are the easiest - just cut off what you need as you go, once mastered you might find yourself wanting to try something else. Salsa Garden and other kits like this - i.e. Chili Pepper, Cherry Tomato, Snow Peas, Green Beans, etc. - will require a few more steps. These steps are the main changes for Salsa kit vs Herb kit. 1. Plant Selection - With the Salsa Garden, you must first make a selection of the plants themselves. After several days of growth you will see the small sprouts. There will most likely be more than one sprout in each pod - you must cut back to just one plant per pod. There will be only 3 pods total in this kit - 1 pepper, 2 tomato. There will be spacers to fill in the other pod slots, this will allow growth of these plants. Plant selection is important, so make sure not to let those extra sprouts keep growing - doing so will eventually overrun your pod space. 2. Pruning - This kit's instruction uses the 5th branch system. Read that section carefully before your first pruning. Then afterwards you will continue to prune throughout the life of the plant - to prevent growth to close to the lightbulbs and to trim wandering branches that are unable to reach the light. Eventually those branches will die and you can cut them afterwards if you accidently forget to prune them earlier. You will continually get dead leaves, especially near the base of the plant - do not fret, this will happen a lot as the outer edge of the plant gets more of the light. 3. Growth Stabilization - This kit will eventually require a string or twine, etc. After your plant grows big enough, the weight of the plant will eventually cause it to begin leaning over, especially after fruit / vegetables begin to appear. Each plant will need a string to stabilize it to the light post at the back of the Aerogarden. I personally used 3 nylon strings that I removed from a shopping mall bag's handle, similar to that of an athletic short's draw string. You can also get twine or other thick strings, like yarn, from almost any hardware store, crafts store or supermarket. Some other sets like Green Bean kits have their own support devices, but for the Salsa kit you must provide your own - so be prepared. 4. Pollinating - This might be the easiest step... or possibly not. As each plant begins to flower, pollination by bees or insects will not be likely. As per the instructions, you must gently shake the plants to cause the pollen to move about and eventually end up on one of the other flowers. Read this section carefully about how vigorously you should or should not shake the plants - in my oppinion, not very much if at all. I tried this step and it worked fine for the tomatoes, but not the peppers. After several waves of blooms appeared on the mini jalapeno plant still no amount of shaking worked. Eventually I tried to shake a little harder, which didn't work and also caused many of the under leaves to fall off. My advice - use a feather. This isn't the most practical method, but it works. When you see several blooms open at once, lightly brush the interior of the first flower - then the second, third, etc. Do not forget to come back and brush the first flower again at the end of the cycle. The pollen will stick to the feather then stick back onto a different flower - similar to the hairs on an insect's legs and body. You may have trouble finding a feather - which I recommend using a very clean one at that. DO NOT grab a feather from a your yard that came from a wild bird or from a farm animal. You sure don't want lice or other problems in your house. Try a crafts store or you can pull the feather out of a cheap household duster. My final opinion, the tomatoes grow easily and without much trouble except for the stabilization. The peppers on the other hand stabilize well enough and keep themselves fairly self pruned at the base, but pollinating these bad boys can be a little bit of a trick at first. Overall this was a fun kit and it produced all the way until the end, eventually I ran out of nutrients and decided to remove the plants. If I hadn't, they'd be still going. I got about 5 months of produce - which over time was a lot, but I only got 2 or 3 tomatoes at a time or 1 pepper at a time for lots of those weeks in between. This was fun, but may not be for everyone. If you mastered the herb kit, then this would be an interesting next step. On the other hand if you had trouble with the herb kit, then you might want to pass on the Salsa Kit.
