After continually experimenting with the herb garden found in “DIY Indoor Herb Garden, Part 1”, things were not working as well as planned. The plants were growing, and were quite large, but were not the way that I wanted them to be. The Plexiglas held in too much moisture, and the plants were not thriving. Also, the plants were not getting enough nutrient.
I added in bone meal after talking to a few friends – BIG mistake! A flurry of tiny flies developed and took over the garden. Nothing happened to the plants, they were just an annoyance. The container was not working perfectly, and I wanted to expand to more plants. It was time to build something new. I knew that we needed an environment with plenty of moisture, while the leaves needed more air circulation. About this same time, we were gifted an AeroGarden for Christmas.
The AeroGarden works well – not great either – but for the price, it’s insane! We received a three-plant system and two of the plants sprouted and the third did not. We called the company, they sent another seed in their net pot and that one didn’t sprout either. In the meantime, the basil in the AeroGarden was going wild. It was open to the air, with a constant water feed to it. This solved my problems.
I started to research hydroponics, the same type of system that the AeroGarden uses, and how to make a system by myself.
Reid Pikul 