Customer Reviews

AeroGarden 0019-00Z 0019-00Z Garden Starter Tray

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was hoping that this would use the existing pump system and be constructed with different materials than styrofoam, however, the main unit appears to be a dense syrofoam piece--per instructions, you need to remove the entire Aerogarden tray and pump system before using this (so you know that those parts will not be used).

My disappointment stems from a setup that wicks than drips--in the regular Aerogarden, the system drips, some settings have a 7 hour drying out period to give roots some time to get air. A wicking setup does not get the period to air out.

This unit appears to resemble a raft / floating hydroponic system--where the plugs wick the nutrient water from the bottom; the floating system always keep the water toucheable from the bottom to wick.

Apparently, the only key part of the Aerogarden used is the automatic lightening and plastic shell as a custom-fit bucket. Otherwise, you probably can let this float in a bucket of similar size and find similar lighting.

I am highly confident that this will work well; however, I would proabably prefer to let my Aerogarden keep working on producing herbs, and find a bucket to let this float in.

Like a raft systems, the underside of strofoam grows funky stuff. Cleaning can sometimes scratch and tear if not gentle or careful. I assume similar care will be needed here.

The concept appears to be sound. I am writing this review to let anyone know what to expect on what they are getting when they order this product--a fancy shaped piece of dense styrofoam, good-fair instructions on use, and nutriet tablets.

I had previously purchased the master gardener kit for my aerogarden with the intention to start my garden herbs and veggies indoors and to later transplant them outside. The drawbacks this design were that I could only start 7 plants at a time, and all of the refill components are proprietary. :(
Then I discovered this starter tray - which solves the "7 at a time" problem. You can conceivably start 70 plants at once, though it would be better to stagger the starts to give them more room to grow. It is still a proprietary refill however. The plugs that fill the 70 holes are made of the same material as "perfect starts", which is a spongy brown peat-like material which holds water for a long time. And of course the nutrients are only from Aerogarden as well. You can find some alternatives from Hydroponic stores, which would be much cheaper.

The only part of this kit that surprised me was that it is simply a big molded piece of styrofoam that floats in your aerogarden. It has the 70 holes and plugs ready to seed and the nutrients... but that is it! I don't really know what else I was expecting, perhaps a plastic top similar to the top with the 7 holes, or something with a pump...

So altogether, it works well- you can start lots of seeds for your outdoor garden, and it is very easy to get good results. The only reason it gets 4 stars out of 5 is that the refill plugs are proprietary and come from aerogarden only.

The product does what it says.. grows stuff. And the plants I started in it transplanted well. But they didn't say the pods smell like cow poo. There is no water circulation, so you have cow poo pods sitting in still water. They smell bad, and changing the water every day or so is a pain. I won't use this again unless they have a way to have water circulating or make pods that don't smell.

Wow...just wow! Ladies and gentlemen, what a rip-off. This is nothing more than a $30 piece of styrofoam. That's it. No housing to allow for the pump to be used with this, so if you bought this, you just paid $30 for a miniature version of Jiffy-pellets, which would cost you no more than $10 for about 70 pieces. Oh, and by the way, if you plan on reusing this, you will need to purchase refills, which run about $20!!!! One of the stupidest purchases I have ever made.

I, too, was disappointed in the fact that this was just made of Styrofoam. The water started to stagnant after just a couple of days. But I bought a cheap 5 gallon fish pump and an airstone, dropped it in the water, and now it works just like the Aerogarden 3. And no bad smells. It's just been a week and over 75% of my seeds have already sprouted! I was expecting a greater failure rate - I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all these plants! Overall, this is a great plant starter, just a bit pricey. But most of the Aerogarden items are over priced. If you want to do this to save money, this isn't the way to go. But if you're doing this to enjoy watching the plants sprout, and having something that is useful as well as decorative, this is the way to go. I have 3 Aerogardens, and they look very nice in my dining room, especially when the plants start to grow.

I got this for Christmas and decided to wait and start my seeds for my garden and window boxes. I set it up on Sunday and by Tuesday I was seeing green. It's been less than 1 week and almost all of the 70 pods have some growth. Some of these seeds took weeks to sow the traditional way. I covered the tray with plastic wrap, I have had to use tooth picks to lift it off the plants. Just use the lights during the day (lite up my whole house at night). I have not noticed any unpleasant smells. It's great, a bit expensive but worth it to get up expensive seeds.

I purchased this starter kit last year. I thought it was awfully cheaply made and was disappointed that it did not utilize the aero garden pump. But, it worked really well. After removing my first set of plant starts I washed the Styrofoam in warm water in which I had added a small amount of bleach. Second use was also good. I cleaned and stored the unit to use again this year. In the first use this year half of the starts had this white wispy stuff covering it. I knew this was disease so I kept only the really good clean starts, discarded the rest and soaked the styro foam in bleach water. This did not do the trick. I ended up having to throw the styrofoam away. The second batch of plants were disgusting. I am thinking of drilling the right size holes in a piece of styrofoam. If that works I will discard the styrofoam after each use.

This is made of white styroform so it is not real durable. Looks a little tacky in my all black grower. It did it job however.

This product produced amazingly fast plant growth. Does not fit the spacesaver Aerogarden. I could not find that information before I purchased the product, so I had to cut mine down to size. Messy but doable. Have had a little trouble transplanting from the Aerogarden to the outside, but that could be the weather more than any thing. The verdict is still out on that.

I love my aerogarden. I've got a first kit and love to have fresh herbs to cook with. The gaden starter tray is awesome. It's now 2 weeks that I have put the seeds in. A mix of veggies, annual and perrenial. I cannot wait to put them in my garden/yards.