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Post by tatmia on Oct 28, 2023 8:43:19 GMT -5
The interesting thing is that I lifted the spacers in the 2-plant Tatsoi garden in the 6E+ ... not one speck of algae! Zip, nada, none. So the algae in the Harvest Slim Elite must be a combo of less than ideal fit, stronger light, and possibly also reflection off the light-colored grow deck. To wrap it up, the NEW plant spacers DO NOT securely seat in the old AGs! The OLD plant spacers DON'T seat particularly well in the new AGs and may let light through to form algae. So I will keep both sets of spacers. No huge surprise. Now I need to go order a fan before the lettuce starts sprouting! My slims are the only ones that form algae too. I think it's an issue with gaps around the bed caused by the long/slim length. All 4 of my slims have the gaps whereas my 360s and bountys do not have them.
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pfunnyjoy
AGA Bounty
Made more grow room in my office!
Posts: 621
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Post by pfunnyjoy on Oct 28, 2023 12:14:49 GMT -5
pfunnyjoy , I got one of those salad greens kits that had nothing but Heirloom Salad Greens in it--it surprised me. It was okay, because I like those best, and often never plant Black Seeded Simpson, Parris Island, or Deer Tongue. But when you buy a new Aerogarden, it helps to hook you when you get pods with these "exotic" varieties. I hope they have gone back to variety in the intro kits by now. I suppose it saves them money to just print one label for everything heirloom salad. But annoying to the consumer. And my thinking is that in retail, one should generally avoid annoying the customer if possible. This darn thing alone makes me never want to buy an AG seed pod kit again. So they essentially took someone who might've bought a seed pod kit occasionally (I did in the past, if on sale), and turned them into someone who probably won't now.
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pfunnyjoy
AGA Bounty
Made more grow room in my office!
Posts: 621
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Post by pfunnyjoy on Oct 28, 2023 12:18:08 GMT -5
The interesting thing is that I lifted the spacers in the 2-plant Tatsoi garden in the 6E+ ... not one speck of algae! Zip, nada, none. So the algae in the Harvest Slim Elite must be a combo of less than ideal fit, stronger light, and possibly also reflection off the light-colored grow deck. To wrap it up, the NEW plant spacers DO NOT securely seat in the old AGs! The OLD plant spacers DON'T seat particularly well in the new AGs and may let light through to form algae. So I will keep both sets of spacers. No huge surprise. Now I need to go order a fan before the lettuce starts sprouting! My slims are the only ones that form algae too. I think it's an issue with gaps around the bed caused by the long/slim length. All 4 of my slims have the gaps whereas my 360s and bountys do not have them. Hmmm. I don't know if there is algae elsewhere. It was a just a trace on the spacers, but maybe next time I plant the Slim, I will put some foil or painters tape along the seams. Good to know! I rather like the Slim form factor and wouldn't mind having another. Thanks for the heads up!
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pfunnyjoy
AGA Bounty
Made more grow room in my office!
Posts: 621
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Post by pfunnyjoy on Oct 28, 2023 13:12:17 GMT -5
I went to go see if my lights had turned on in the new Bounty this morning, and they had ... revealing that although I thought I'd "filled to here," in fact, I had not. Which explains why the garden showed a Medium water level after I planted it. It now shows Full. Guess who's going to be adding a mini flashlight to the "South 40" gardens? And a towel, so that I don't have to strip off my T-shirt to protect the electronics when I fill the reservoir!
While the Bounty will see my WiFi, it won't connect. So I guess I'll do without an app. I was curious about the AG app, but c'est la vie. No idea why it can't connect, we have both 2.4 and 5Ghz bands.
One thing I was wondering, is the Bounty color screen always ON? Or does it shut off after a while? It won't "burn in" will it?
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Post by swimmom500 on Oct 28, 2023 15:49:05 GMT -5
Bounty (40W) arrived yesterday! Looks good. I took it out of the box and put it together last night down in the "south 40", i.e. basement room. I'd have liked to have it upstairs for easier watching, but the lettuce will probably prefer the cool. My office room is small and gets warm easy. Planted it this morning. I like that I could put an entire gallon in the reservoir! When the salad kit is done, maybe it can come upstairs. However, it is pretty bright and might bother me if in my office. Some irks along the way ... discovered my old trusty power strip had finally had it, naturally AFTER I'd taken the time to dust and clean it. But I had another that is working, I just had to do some painful crawling under the garden tables to get it disconnected from the outlet so I could move it to the table I cleared. The Salad kit pod covers had fallen off about half the pods. They don't seem anywhere near as securely attached as the ones that were on my Harvest Slim Elite salad kit. I did my best to stick them back on. Also irksome is that not one of the pods actually has the lettuce variety on it, just "Heirloom Salad Greens". Gee, that's informative! The Harvest had the lettuce names on each pod (old stock maybe?). What is AG thinking? It makes no sense. Probably they are trying to lock people in to buying expensive pod kits, but realistically, a lot of folks are perfectly happy with pod ease and convenience and would buy the pods anyway! But those who want to do their own thing just become annoyed! Half the fun is learning and how can you learn much if YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT VARIETY YOU ARE GROWING? Mini rant over! Anyway, I filled Bounty with filtered tap water, tested the pump, turned on the lights, all seemed well. So I planted the 9 pods of mystery lettuce. I have not yet added nutrients, I think I'll wait until I see some germination action. The new plant spacers came in with the garden. They work and look great on the Harvest Slim Elite! When I lifted the old style spacers from the Harvest, I did see some signs of algae, so as I suspected, they were letting a little light through the sides. The interesting thing is that I lifted the spacers in the 2-plant Tatsoi garden in the 6E+ ... not one speck of algae! Zip, nada, none. So the algae in the Harvest Slim Elite must be a combo of less than ideal fit, stronger light, and possibly also reflection off the light-colored grow deck. To wrap it up, the NEW plant spacers DO NOT securely seat in the old AGs! The OLD plant spacers DON'T seat particularly well in the new AGs and may let light through to form algae. So I will keep both sets of spacers. No huge surprise. Now I need to go order a fan before the lettuce starts sprouting! Have you had any issues with the water being too warm in the 6 Elite+? I just restarted mine but the last round I was adding several scoops of ice cubes a day to bring the water temperature down. I had 1 pepper plant in it and I got 4 peppers then the whole plant just dried up from the heat I guess. I had another pepper garden that’s too crowded so I moved one to the 6 elite+. Hopefully it does better than the last pepper I had in there.
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Post by swimmom500 on Oct 28, 2023 15:50:56 GMT -5
pfunnyjoy, I got one of those salad greens kits that had nothing but Heirloom Salad Greens in it--it surprised me. It was okay, because I like those best, and often never plant Black Seeded Simpson, Parris Island, or Deer Tongue. But when you buy a new Aerogarden, it helps to hook you when you get pods with these "exotic" varieties. I hope they have gone back to variety in the intro kits by now. I hate that they aren’t marking the pods anymore. I didn’t always plant all the pods so it was nice to pick and choose which varieties I wanted to plant. I am probably better off using my own seeds so I can get the varieties I want.
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pfunnyjoy
AGA Bounty
Made more grow room in my office!
Posts: 621
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Post by pfunnyjoy on Oct 28, 2023 16:07:14 GMT -5
Have you had any issues with the water being too warm in the 6 Elite+? I just restarted mine but the last round I was adding several scoops of ice cubes a day to bring the water temperature down. I had 1 pepper plant in it and I got 4 peppers then the whole plant just dried up from the heat I guess. I had another pepper garden that’s too crowded so I moved one to the 6 elite+. Hopefully it does better than the last pepper I had in there. To date, no. However, all the 6E+ and Veggie Pro units have previously been in a basement garden room. I did grow peppers, green beans and tomatoes in them, with no particular issue, though it was years ago. The basement is glacial in summer, because of all the AC cool air sinking down, and doesn't get particularly warm in winter. This is the first time I've had a 6E+ running upstairs. Plants look happy so far. I just now dipped a finger in, water felt cool to touch. I'm in the Pacific NW, we were quite cool outside this AM, 26F! It's probably around 40F now. It's possible that in summer, water temp might be an issue upstairs, especially in my small office, which gets a lot of afternoon sun. I will hope I don't have to use ice cubes, because our fridge/freezer is not large and there's no room to make ice cubes usually.
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Post by lynnee on Oct 28, 2023 17:53:40 GMT -5
Aerogarden still offers custom seed pod kits for salad greens, and you can choose all the old favorites (Red Sails, Deer Tongue, etc.) unless they're sold out of a particular variety. That's the way to go now, I think. (Unless you want to buy your own seeds, of course.) My AG plants in Bounties survived a summer of room temps in the 80s and 90s in the afternoons. The water got very warm, but I never used ice cubes because my fridge doesn't have a working icemaker. The plants in that room grow better when it's cooler, but it takes quite a while for the roots to get cooked to mush.
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slw
AGA Bounty
Posts: 775
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Post by slw on Oct 28, 2023 17:56:58 GMT -5
pfunnyjoy--you'll find that AG wireless connectivity is frustrating. Often AG has system outages with no notification, so if you try to connect a new garden during that time it will make you want to tear your hair out. Often the garden doesn't appear to be connected but suddenly, it is. So don't give up on it yet.
And as for the Bounty lighted display... it does go to sleep and turn completely off, but I don't know for how long. I discovered this by accident when I was having a sleep deprived episode and wandered downstairs at 3 a.m. At first I thought the power was off but when I touched a Bounty it "woke up."
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Post by scarfguy on Oct 28, 2023 18:42:08 GMT -5
I struggle in the summer with heat and warm water also. I think it is the cause of poor oxygenation cause warm water can't carry as much free oxygen.
I haven't found much that I can do about it. I don't think ice cubes do enough to lower the temperature in a bounty.
The other issue is that I work in the garden room. I have a portable air conditioner in there. SO... when I'm working, I turn on the air. The air temperature drops from about 83 to 72 in about a half hour.
That shock to the plants can't be good for them.
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Post by swimmom500 on Oct 28, 2023 21:09:26 GMT -5
Have you had any issues with the water being too warm in the 6 Elite+? I just restarted mine but the last round I was adding several scoops of ice cubes a day to bring the water temperature down. I had 1 pepper plant in it and I got 4 peppers then the whole plant just dried up from the heat I guess. I had another pepper garden that’s too crowded so I moved one to the 6 elite+. Hopefully it does better than the last pepper I had in there. To date, no. However, all the 6E+ and Veggie Pro units have previously been in a basement garden room. I did grow peppers, green beans and tomatoes in them, with no particular issue, though it was years ago. The basement is glacial in summer, because of all the AC cool air sinking down, and doesn't get particularly warm in winter. This is the first time I've had a 6E+ running upstairs. Plants look happy so far. I just now dipped a finger in, water felt cool to touch. I'm in the Pacific NW, we were quite cool outside this AM, 26F! It's probably around 40F now. It's possible that in summer, water temp might be an issue upstairs, especially in my small office, which gets a lot of afternoon sun. I will hope I don't have to use ice cubes, because our fridge/freezer is not large and there's no room to make ice cubes usually. I haven’t had an issue with the water being warm in my Veggie Pro or my Pro 200. Just the 6 Elite+. I will check my water in the morning as I transplanted 1 pepper that was in my Bounty but it was getting too crowded. I am in NW Florida but my Aerogarden room is on the north side of the house. I didn’t know if the water heating up was an issue with this model. Of course the water coming out of the faucet isn’t exactly chilly either.
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Post by swimmom500 on Oct 28, 2023 21:11:24 GMT -5
I struggle in the summer with heat and warm water also. I think it is the cause of poor oxygenation cause warm water can't carry as much free oxygen.
I haven't found much that I can do about it. I don't think ice cubes do enough to lower the temperature in a bounty.
The other issue is that I work in the garden room. I have a portable air conditioner in there. SO... when I'm working, I turn on the air. The air temperature drops from about 83 to 72 in about a half hour.
That shock to the plants can't be good for them.
So what do you do about the warm water? All I could come up with was ice since the faucet water isn’t cold and then I added the peroxide. The problem is I was adding ice twice a day.
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Post by scarfguy on Oct 28, 2023 21:41:18 GMT -5
So what do you do about the warm water? All I could come up with was ice since the faucet water isn’t cold and then I added the peroxide. The problem is I was adding ice twice a day.
Well... I really didn't do anything about the warm water. I just tried to mitigate the detrimental effects by adding hydrogen peroxide to increase oxygen and counter root rot. AND... I added aquarium air pump and a couple of air stones to also add additional oxygen. It seemed to help quite a bit. BUT throughout the summer months I had a lot of blossom drop and curly, deformed leaves on both my peppers and tomatoes. They still produced enough fruit to be considered a successful grow.
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Post by scarfguy on Oct 30, 2023 7:29:33 GMT -5
TODAY...
I topped my dwarf awesome tomato plant for the second time. It's outgrown the 42 inch growing height that I allocated for it.
I really haven't been happy with the dwarf awesome. Nice sturdy, healthy plant that seems to like an AG but it just hasn't produced many tomatoes in my opinion. So far, I've harvested 3 and have about 9 more that will ripen. There were new flowers on the very top but I didn't want to keep nursing this plant to see if those few additional tomatoes would ripen.
SO... I'm gonna let the 9 tomatoes that are maturing to finish ripening and they I'll terminate it.
The very first "full-size" tomato plant that I grew a couple of years ago was the yellow taxi variety. I had great success with that plant. So, I think I"ll try it again!
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Post by scarfguy on Oct 30, 2023 7:33:46 GMT -5
ALSO TODAY...
I now have three, THREE!, cantaloupe vines growing great at the same time. They all have opened their first female flowers!
SO... I'll be wearing my bee costume for Halloween and will be spending the day pollinating flowers!
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pfunnyjoy
AGA Bounty
Made more grow room in my office!
Posts: 621
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Post by pfunnyjoy on Oct 30, 2023 18:42:03 GMT -5
Rinsed and refilled both the Harvest Slim Elite and the Classic 7 and did nutrients for both.
However, suddenly, overnight, I've got leaves drooping and looking sad in BOTH gardens! Although only on the two Deer Tongue lettuces so far in the Harvest. I'm scared that something is wrong, only I don't know what.
Posted a "help" with pictures in the greens forum. Because what I don't want to do with my AeroGarden today is cry over them!
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Post by tompepper7 on Oct 30, 2023 21:02:29 GMT -5
SO... I'll be wearing my bee costume for Halloween and will be spending the day pollinating flowers! ...s'okay if there are no pics...
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slw
AGA Bounty
Posts: 775
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Post by slw on Oct 31, 2023 20:20:46 GMT -5
I didn't do anything today! Well, except for picking a couple of banana peppers to eat with my dinner. Speaking of banana peppers... I have a ton of them that need to be harvested but I have no idea what on earth to do with them. Maybe I'll look for some relish recipes or something since I have already pickled three quarts. Next time I plant banana peppers I won't be so enthusiastic.
Happy Halloween, AGers.
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pfunnyjoy
AGA Bounty
Made more grow room in my office!
Posts: 621
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Post by pfunnyjoy on Oct 31, 2023 20:48:16 GMT -5
Well, my Tatsoi garden looks worse. It does not look likely to recover, though I will give it a few more days. It looks like even the new growth is starting to be affected by whatever is ailing that garden. The other Tatsoi garden looks gorgeous!
The Harvest Slim salad greens, well, the Deer Tongue lettuce was a tiny bit worse. I have since trimmed off the affected leaves. So far, neither red leaf lettuce in that garden seems to be having trouble. I don't know if I should pull the Deer Tongue plants or not.
The good news, all 9 pods in the Bounty have germination, and I can see tiny green leaves below the labels in most of the pods. I added the recommended 8ml of AG nutrients today and reset the nutrient timer.
Feeling sad and mystified by the problems in the two kitchen Aerogardens.
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Post by lynnee on Nov 1, 2023 14:48:42 GMT -5
I didn't do anything today! Well, except for picking a couple of banana peppers to eat with my dinner. Speaking of banana peppers... I have a ton of them that need to be harvested but I have no idea what on earth to do with them. Maybe I'll look for some relish recipes or something since I have already pickled three quarts. Next time I plant banana peppers I won't be so enthusiastic.
Happy Halloween, AGers.
Banana peppers are great pickling peppers. I use a very simple recipe that I found by Googling for banana pepper recipes/pickles. I can find and post it if you want, but it's a basic cider vinegar + water + pickling spices thing. You heat it to boiling, then pour it over banana peppers with seeds removed, sliced into rings, and placed in a Mason jar. No need to seal the jar--just add a lid and store in the fridge. They last for months.
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