Terracool
26 de septiembre de 2020
Perfect for northern winters
I've seen ads for these things for years and thought they had to be the biggest white elephant known to man - some vaguely more sophisticated cousin of the Chia Pet. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong! This thing is great. It does everything it says and more, is easy to use, and will give me fresh greens all winter. I'm looking forward to having bright fresh greens while blizzards rage outside - and this gives more than enough for one person - I have trouble keeping up with a few things. It's given me more beautiful dill than I can use, by a mile (the photo is less than half the dill that I finally had to hack back because it was crowding other things). Best part is that this is almost zero work. Top off the water every now and then (up to every day or two as the plants get bigger) and add two capfuls of plant food every two weeks when the light goes on. Could. Not. Be. Easier. I learned a few things from my first round, so here are some helps and hints: - I started with only four items, planning on planting the other two after 2-3 weeks so my harvests would be staggered. Mistake. This stuff grows so fast that the greenery from my first round blocked the light from getting to the later plantings. I spent a few weeks trying to pull back the higher stuff to create a path for the light to the newer stuff but finally gave up. Learned for next time, though. - Ditto with not putting things that take a few weeks to sprout (the plant cone has est sprout time written on the top) next to things that sprout in days or the later items may struggle to get light. Next time I'll arrange plants so that things with similar sprout times are somewhat together. - This one's no joke. Plant things that you will use a lot. Things like basil, parsley and chives can go on almost everything, but uses for something like dill are more limited. Next round I will favor things that are versatile and have wide use, because this grows A LOT of everything. - And final comment on balance, next time I will plant maybe four salad greens and two herbs. You use the greens in more volume, so they will balance out with the herbs if you plant more. So 4-2 or maybe 3-3 - The light is really, really bright. Pick a place where it's easy to walk to from the kitchen with a bowl and scissors, but not in your face where it could get irritating. If you cycle it on during the day, it won't be so intrusive. This thing throws zero heat, so you can block the light easily if needed with stacked items or even a paper bag over top. - The bigger your plants get, the more they suck up the water. At first I only had to top off the water once a week or so. Now I'm adding about a pop bottle of water every few days. I worry about what happens when travel resumes because I can see it running out quickly when I'm not here. There is a model of AeroGarden with a vacation mode that adjust lights so the plants grow less and need less water while you're away, and if I get a second AG, it will have the vacation mode. That's it! This thing really works and is a lot of fun. For a single-person household, it almost works too good because there's a lot of greens to eat! I will solve that by using better balance and targeted selection of plants for the next round. Read moreVer másVer menos
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