The Aerogarden gift wrapping team –

Sarah – Favourite seeds: Chilli pepper

– an easy going Northern lass who also works part time as a salesperson for The Water Cooler Company. She was drawn away from t’up North to work in the “bright lights of the big city and has openly confessed to be loving it!” When she’s not wrapping aerogardens Sarah likes to sit down with cup of hot brew and gravy to dip her chips in whilst watching Corrie, or drag her long suffering boyfriend around Westfield for a spot of retail therapy.

Patrick – Favourite seeds: master gardener.

- Young gun Patrick started his first day at aerogarden towers as a bright eyed kid full of naïve optimism and big ideas… and was quickly ground into a gift wrapping machine in the Christmas run-up. Well done Patrick, you worked like a Trojan.

Sophie – Favourite seeds: salad greens

– Sophie hasn’t been on the aerogarden team for long, but she’s already naming her chilli peppers; Mavis and Tarquin are growing nicely and nearly ready for cooking. She loves prancing around the office singing her socks off and making the twirly bits of ribbon on top of a parcel, and really likes the music that the boss plays in the office.

Robert Laughton – Favourite AG accessory – The Garden Starter Tray

Rob Laughton started aerogarden in the latter part of 2007, his other business include the Water Delivery Company, Man and Vans (removals), The Water Cooler Company, The English Meat Company (fresh British meat delivered to your door), Wishlantern.co.uk and iliketomoovit.com (selling Berg go karts for children). Look out in 2009 for Robert’s new business, selling wine aerators.

Likes: Robbie Williams, mountain climbing (Chris Moyles eat your heart out, Robert defied biology to climb Kilimanjaro here first)

Dislikes: Clutter, tardiness and anyone at aerogarden towers not working their fingers to the bone

Regional Director of Topsy Turvey Department – Marita
Aussie girl Marita has been a welcome addition to the aerogarden team, since expanding her role in the office from running http://www.wishlantern.co.uk, our sister company which sells Chinsese sky lanterns, to include heading up our sale team for the topsy turvey tomato planters – sales of which skyrocketed last year when they became a featured product on www.amazon.co.uk . Like any good Aussie girl she enjoys nothing more than a bevvie and a barbie, and recently went to see  Girls Aloud in concert.
Customer service/sales rep – Tom - Favourite Accessory: Extended season nutrients
 

Local boy Tom has become quite the expert in all things aerogarden whilst working here, he is the man likely to be fielding all your queries and questions, whether it be propagation, light settings, nutrient composition or how to turn the lights on, Tom is your aerogarden Einstein.

Likes: guitars, films and any aerogarden troubleshooting he can get his hands on

Dislikes: Tap water of an unsuitable pH for the aerogarden

Roger - DHL collection driver – Favourite seeds – Cherry Tomato
 

Turning up at aerogarden towers at a prompt 4pm every day, Roger is the legend who ensures that every one of your important orders gets to you the next working day after it is placed.

Likes: Parcels, Gary Barlow, mullets

Dislikes: Having his photo taken/ being asked about his likes and dislikes for aerogarden blogs

Martin - Our Postman
 

“Stop! Oh-oh wait a minute Mr postman, Mr postman look and see, oh-oh if there’s a seed kit, a seed kit for me…”

Martin is in charge of ensuring all of the smaller orders get out to you prompt and efficiently. Martin is our Royal Mail collections man, and a bloody fine one he is too.

Likes – His cat Jess, post offices, post boxes and penny black stamps.
Dislikes – Incorrect addressing, thrash metal, electromagnetic forces, hardcore origami
Favourite seeds – cascading petunias

Aerogarden employee of the Year:  Ed

Part-time Sports science student Ed is “delighted, overwhelmed and deeply emotional at being awarded joint employee of the year, and I couldn’t be sharing the award with a nicer kid.” Ed had been at aerogarden since the first seed kits came through the door and is still getting aerogardens out the warehouse with the same drive from day 1.

Likes: Running stupid distances in the Lake District, and telling rubbish jokes

Dislikes: Orangina and other hydroponic products on the market, all of which are of a far inferior standard in comparison to the aerogarden

Favourite seeds: International basil
Aerogarden honorary employee of the Year: Louis C-M (Tom Jr)

2008 also saw the birth of head of customer services Tom’s little boy Louis, who, like a cascading petunias seed kit, has blossomed into wonderful 5 month old

Favourite seeds: gourmet herbs
Aerogarden’s sister companies, run by http://www.root7.com

http://www.wishlantern.co.uk – Chinese sky lanterns, also known as sky candles or floating lanterns these are a safe and fun alternative to fireworks and look beautiful in the night sky
http://www.englishmeat.co.uk – Delivering quality cuts of British meat to your door at competitive prices

http://www.manandvans.com – Affordable removals jobs within the M25 providing customer service that larger removals companies simply don’t

http://www.thewaterdeliverycompany.com – Bottled water cooler rental for the office or for home, with a team of friendly drivers to get your water to you when you need it

http://www.thewatercoolercompany.com – Plumbed in mains water coolers that could save you money in the office, our friendly sales team and engineers provide the quality customer service
http://www.vinturi.org.uk – This exciting new product is a must have gift for wine lovers – the handheld device does the job of a decanter in the time it takes to pour a glass – giving it a fuller flavour, aroma and texture
http://www.iliketomoovit.com  – The home of the moov go kart system in the UK – a great toy for kiswho can re assemble the kart into several different shapes. We also sell the full range of quality Berg go karts.

Aerogarden tip of the month:

Make sure your aerogarden is kept topped up with water in the winter months if you’ve got the heating on high indoors. If the aerogarden is allowed to run dry it can seriously damage the pump.

Top 5 New Products of 2008
International Basil Seed Kit

At number 5 we have the international basil seed kit. The kit comes with 7 different kinds of basil from around the world to garnish your salads and cooking with a taste of exotic cuisine. It started off slowly, but has now picked up to become one of our most popular kits.

http://www.aerogarden.org.uk/aerogarden_international_basil.html

Three Tier Shelf – Coming in at number four is the three tier shelf, for the extra keen aerogardener who is not satisfied with one machine, but goes for three, really using it’s power to grow huge harvests. The sleek and stylish design is a must for any modern aerogardener’s home.

http://www.aerogarden.org.uk/aerogarden_three_shelf.html

Upside-down topsy turvey tomato planters – This great garden product is both fun and a great way to get fresh tomatoes for your kitchen. It hangs from a wall or awning outdoors and is aided by gravity in growing straight down towards the ground. Had a great month in Novmeber when it was listed as a top product on Amazon. Unfortunately we are not able to get stock of these until February now. 

http://www.aerogarden.org.uk/aerogarden_topsy_turvy.html

Cascading petunias seed kit – So close yet so far to the number one spot for this flamboyant new seed kit that proved a smash hit in our office. Beatiful petunias start to flower within a few weeks of planting and are great as a little gift to a loved one.

Top 3 Heroes of 2008  

Fiona Phillips – the GMTV presenter exclaimed her amazement at how big and juicy the basil leaves in the aerogarden looked live on the Paul O’Grady show in early December. Watch it here…
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed7gUU1aarc

Aerogrow – the US manufacturers of aerogarden continue to improve and widen the product range. Their great site http://aerogrow.com has tonnes of information and troubleshooting tips for the product.

The team at the Gadget Show – Channel Five’s gadget show featured the aerogarden in May, and it proved to be a massive hit with their audience, and so for us! 

Top 3 Villains of 2008

French customs – where our gourmet herb kits were held and delayed in coming into the country at the end of December. Sincere apologies to all those who had to wait on these.

Andy Murray – His match against Richard Gasquet at this year’s Wimbledon extended into the air time for the Paul O’Grady show, foiling our first attempt to have the aerogarden on there. The production crew loved it so much though, they got it back on the show in December.

Snakes – for biting Paul O’Grady on the day that the aerogarden was featured on his show. Paul wasn’t going to let that stop the day that would go on to be the highlight of his career though – when he finally managed to get an aerogarden on his show. Good man.

What we’re looking forward to in 2009…

New Products – The aerogarden space saver, a more compact system that is great for growing decorative flowers or for those with a smaller kitchen, and the pro 200, with twice the lamp arm height, and lamp power of the classic aerogarden, are just two of the new products with a planned release for 2009.

We also expect to expand our seed kit range and bring in exciting new customized seed herb kits…
Watch this space for more info, or email sales@aerogarden.org.uk with your name and phone to be contacted when we have more news on new products.

We wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2009!

The Aerogarden team x

He only bought the aerogarden a few weeks ago, but has already showed the adventurous gardening spirit of a true aerogardener, experimenting with using the aerogarden lights to give some of his potted plants a boost by placing them around the periphery of his aerogarden unit. Here’s the results he’s reported, in his own words

Picture 1 shows the effect on the parsley (foreground) and basil (background). In the case of both, a pale green, sorry-looking plant has been transformed, in seven days, to be a darker green, larger and more ‘plump’ plant.

Picture 2 shows some garlic bulbs, grown from a single clove. When they went under the lamp they were barely above the soil. The stick shows its height at 2 days in, and you can see the current height. Quite remarkable. They are now 16cm and 19cm respectively.

Picture 3 shows how I have arranged the plants around the rim of the Aerogarden, so that they get some of the benefit of the special lighting. The plants in the aerogarden itself are here just one week into growth, and so visible, but very small. The ‘green’ you see, then, is from the soil-based plants on the perimeter.

The message then, that you can get even more out of your aerogarden by using it to boost other plants, by feeding off the power of its energy efficient lamps. Get to it!

Top aerogarden tip of the day – Most problems with aerogarden pumps can be easily prevented or solved by cleaning out your aerogarden pump in between seed kits. Watch the pump cleaning instruction video here.

There is also further details to be found by looking at this pdf document on pump cleaning.

(These nutrients from our warehouse show how the tablets can sweat or partially dissolve)

We’ve also some interesting emails documenting the exploits of some of your fellow aerogardeners. Nikki Anderson from London, came to us with puzzlement as to who had been nibbling at her parsley, before discovering…

“The parsley thief is definitely a mouse – I found some droppings behind the Aerogarden this morning. He’s been nibbling away at the basil too!!! We’ve had pest control people in the building, they put down traps with poison in the flat but haven’t caught a thing. So now I’m bringing in the big guns – REAL mousetraps laid with a dollop of peanut butter, not these namby pamby plastic boxes. The fact that the mice have gone for our Aerogarden is a declaration of WAR and they’re going to lose!!! ”

So beware of losing out on your harvest to the attack of the mice. And beware to all mice who dare to cross an aerogardener by the looks of Nikki’s email.

The programme was due to be aired live on Monday 30th June at 7pm on BBC 1. As many of you are aware, with the tennis pedigree that exists  in the UK, we take every opportunity to show the nation our talents, whether it be Chris Eaton, Laura Robson or Andy Murray, and so it happened that the Wimbledon Mens last 16 singles game between Andy Murray and Richard Gasquet on Day 7 of the Championship was shuffled from BBC 2 to BBC 1. All i can say was that we were rather dissapointed.

 Pictures of the aerogarden that would or should have been aired are here, the chillis are looking pretty good, we are sure you, Adrian and Andy would have agreed!

Click here to see the original article on the three seed kits in our warehouse during the first two months of their growth

These shots were taken on 03/06/2008

The tomato plants are now at full height – even with the extended lamp height which is shown elsewhere in the blog. We are now cutting back and pinching the growth at the top to encourage the plants to bush further down below. They have started to flower and we hope that we’ll have shots of the tomatoes at some point soon. At the moment it is not the prettiest plant. Customers can clearly see why we only have three active pods.

The salad greens are continuously growing and being eaten by people in the warehouse. The height of the lamp is at the tallest default setting for the Aerogarden.

The Chilli peppers are now at the heighest extended setting. As with the cherry tomatoes they need cut back and pinched on a regular basis to ensure they are bushing out. The flowers are all over the plants and we expect to start cropping soon.

The system which increases the height of the lamp unit extends to a maximum height of 23cms (from the base where the seed pods are inserted to the lamp unit).

We have found that you can pull the lamp unit up further. You simply extend the lamp arm up past the final slot – to the point at which nothing is holding it up. Then by inserting a stopper into the top slot of the arm attached to the base, you can let the top arm fall back onto the stopper. By doing this you can extend the height of the light unit to 35cms. This should be done carefully and we take no responsibility for customers who affect the top unit by doing this.

 The two photos below show firstly the difference in height and secondly a shot from the back of the unit showing how/where we insert the stopper into the bottom section of the arm unit. As you can see from the photos, the power cable is easily long enough to handle this.

When completed you will have the bottom of the lamp arm balanced on top of the stopper you have inserted into the heighest slot on the bottom section of the arm ( I am sorry but there is no easy way to explain this – if you have an Aerogarden you will understand)

Step 1: Find Some Strawberry Plants to Transplant into your AeroGarden The first step is to find some already existing live strawberry plants. Most nursery’s or garden centres will stock them at certain times of the year. Make sure that the plants you use have a good, healthy root system and are not too developed. Please remember that they have to be able to grow within the structure and size of the Aerogarden.

Step 2: Trim the Roots

If the strawberry plants have been growing for any length of time, the roots may have become quite large. Before transplanting into your Aerogarden, the excess roots need to be trimmed to allow the plant to be fitted into the Seed pods (and into the base of the Aerogarden).

Step 3: Prepare the Aerogarden Seed Pods

The Aerogarden seed pods need preparing for the strawberries. The easiest thing to do is to use the AEROGARDEN MASTERGARDENER KIT – which allows you to grow your own seeds:

1. Take out the grow sponge and split it in half all the way down (there is an existing tear in all the sponges which you can use)
2. Place the strawberry plant inside the two halves, and place it back into the seed pod.
3. Place the completed seed pod back into your AeroGarden  (you may decide to use spacers between the plants eg. three pods used and four pods as spacers – as this will allow you to bush the plants out more.This method is used with tomato seed kits for the Aerogarden)
4. Hold the reset button down for 8-10 seconds. When the unit resets, switch the controls to “Strawberries” or “Live Plants”
5. The strawberries will need added water and nutrients as with any other Hydroponic plant but these are provided within the Master Gardener Seed Kit. In a few weeks you should see the plants develop significantly. They should crop for at least a month.

What is in the nutrient tablets?

The actual composition of the nutrient tablets, according to the “gourmet herb” seed kit on page 31 in the Gourmet Herb seed kit manual. Aerogarden nutrient tablets consist mainly of mineral salts. These provide the 13 micro and macro nutrients that all plants require, in just the right proportions for your herb plants.
The tablets also contain: