Customer Reviews

AeroGarden 2101-00W Classic 7-Pod with Gourmet Herb Seed Kit, White

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Length:: 4:02 Mins

I only wish I got this with something other than the plain white plastic finish. Let's see how it lasts beyond one season (see the other reviews re. motor problems). However, this should give you an idea of how quickly you can harvest after only one month. I'm expecting this crop should last through the winter.

This device waters your plants and turns the lights on and off based on the setting. Add the nutrient plan and you have some of the fastest growing plants out there. It comes with a seed kit, but I couldn't tell which one is included. Probably Salad (the fastest growing, 3-4 weeks!) or Gormet Herbs (the most popular). Here are some of the specs:
It takes a standard plug, instead of a 3 prong, so it can plug in anywhere instead of just the kitchen. The bowl holds 14 cups of water. That's one pint shy of a gallon. The light goes on for 15 1/2 hours to 17 hours depending on the plant, and the water goes over the roots & sponge for the lights on time or longer for thirsty plants. You have to hand polinate (a rapid 10 second wave in each plant) the tomatoes & peppers every other day when flowering, and the Peppers & International basil require you wash out the bowls every 4 weeks, but otherwise there is very little maintenance. The light comes on when the water is low and another light comes on when the 2 weeks are up and the plants need more nutrients, but other than that you can pretty much forget it. The lights also work to help my potted plants grow when near it. The plants like human comfortable temperatures (61-80 F) but the peppers & tomatoes will produce more fruit if safely over 70.
The nutrients are different for each plant (I have a breakdown on my dinubabear site) and come in 2 to 4 sets in a kit (Starting, sprouting, normal & fruiting). You give 2 nutrient tablets every 2 weeks.
Aerogrow guarentees their kits to sprout as described, or you can call them & they will replace their kits.
New kits will be available in September, such as French, Italian & Japanese herbs.

I am very happy with this garden so happy I am ordering a 2nd one. I planted salad greens just a week ago and the plants are growing so quick you can see the difference each day. I work a day time job so I have the light come on about the time I get home and stay on all night - that way it is almost like a second lamp and I can look and admire my plants as much as I want. It is fun watching them grow and I can't wait to harvest them. The salad green kit said that you can start harvesting in about 2.5 weeks, and at the rate these plants are growing I believe that to be true. I have tried growing fruits and vegatables indoors before but I never had much luck. The thought of being able to eat freshly picked food is enough to make me buy another garden. I can't wait for them to come out with the Strawberry seed pods (I will probably need a 3rd garden then).

I now had my first salad with the salad greens; it was so good I made a 2nd larger salad. I am very happy with this garden.

I got the AeroGarden back in November, and had great luck with the Salad Greens kit. I ordered another Salad Greens kit, and as soon as I planted it, the pump got REALLY loud. So loud you can't be in the same room with the thing and hope to get anything done that requires concentration (I'm a grad student and the AeroGarden has become my personal study albatross). Sooooo...thinking I needed to clean out the roots a bit better, I took it apart and went through the whole sanitation process, preparing the garden for my third planting. As soon as I plugged it back in, the pump roared to life and once again my living room was filled with a lovely, deep buzzing/humming sound. Other posters are spot-on about customer service - you simply cannot get through to these people. I've been on hold for 20 minutes and more before giving up each time - I'm hoping they'll send me a new pump, but I need to actually HEAR from a real person. It's great that they're nice and all - hey, we'd all be nice if we rarely actually talked to anyone!

UPDATE: I sent one email and they responded within hours with an offer to send out a new pump, so my opinion of customer service has changed considerably - I'll update this review when I get the pump to let everyone know if that fixed the noise problem

FINAL UPDATE: Yes, the new pump fixed the noise problem *and* customer service has gotten a LOT better. I've phoned a couple of times and got a live person, quickly, who was extremely helpful. Looks like the kinks are worked out from the original problems and I now wouldn't hesitate to pick another one of these gardens up.

The Aerogarden was going great until today when the pump stopped working. I did some searching on the net and found others have the same problem. The pump needs to be replaced, I wrote Amazon to see if they are going to replace or refund my money for the Aerogarden. I am not very happy, especially when many other have the same problem with defective units. Buyer beware, you may want to wait a year or two until they perfect this system. Who want to watch their plants die because of a bad pump, then after they die you have to put in a new pump and start all over again.

I don't think they even tested many of these units before they sold them to the public. How could a problem like this happen to so many people if they did proper testing? And if they did test them out good, they must not care about selling a quality product.

My final thought is it works well at first, but does not last long.

Well, Aerogrow is sending me another unit. They have already taken the trouble to send me a replacement bowl which fixed the first problem and later, they sent a replacement pump which shut down the entire system. I don't like contacting them and then getting replacements. My aerogrow setup does not look like the flourishing results at the local kitchenwares store. My consumer experience thus far has stank despite customer service's efforts to fix the problems. Customer service has remained courteous and attentive. They have mailed out parts promptly but does that buy them my silence? Well, I can see how the positive reviews are true on this site so make up your mind after reading all of them. Mine is just one experience. I lost money and I lost time and will start all over again once I receive the new unit. If I had ordered through amazon, I would have just returned it for a money refund. So if you want to try hydroponic growing as I did, then go ahead and buy this but I urge you to buy from amazon. Good luck.

Here were my issues that were all responded to by aerogrow's customer service:

(1) I was misled that by ordering directly from aerogrow instead of Amazon at the cost of Amazon's free shipping, I would become a special customer and receive discounts on future purchases on seeds and more machines. But when I wrote to aerogrow about not receiving any membership packet, I was told that the additional purchases should be made at the time of the initial purchase (when I have no experience with the worthiness of the aerogrow product)

(2) aerogrow had to send me a new bowl because when I received the product the red indicator light for low water level was already on and NEVER shut off. Following the suggestions from the phone rep did not solve the problem at all. The new bowl fixed the problem.

(3) Then I realized that deep in the growing period a number of herbs were not growing at all and was told that I had received a bad pump and would have to install a new one that Aerogrow would be sending me and that I would have to start all over again from the beginning with another packet of herbs that would be included in the package.

(4) I unplugged the aerogrow and installed the pump according to the BLURRY pictures on the instruction sheet and now the entire machine will not turn on. Changing the pump is messy and not recommended. Don't throw away the attaching screw for the old pump because Aerogrow doesn't give you anything but the pump and the blurry instructions.

The remaining survivors are going to die but that's okay because I have a brand new packet of seeds and in two months, I MIGHT have herbs, right?

(5) I put the new plug in today and now the machine won't turn on at all. HELP!

This product just isn't reliable and it is priced too high to be this risky.

(6) Aerogrow reps always maintained a friendly tone and polite demeanor in dealing with me. However, I still felt wronged. When the replacement never showed up after weeks, I emailed requesting a full refund, offering to ship the machine back to them so they could investigate the problem. They said that I could chuck the old machine, the new one was at the post office because of a wrong address and that they would credit my credit card. I have to check to see if they did. I don't want another aerogrow anyway.

I bought this with such high hopes of having fresh herbs all winter (we successfully grow all kinds during the summer) and I was SO disappointed! I followed the directions to the letter and did everything exactly as I was supposed to ... to no avail. Only 3 of the 8 plants even grew and were available to eat and after 3 months they ALL died. Don't waste your money ... I wish I hadn't!

The AeroGarden was easy to put together, the directions were clear and so far it is performing as expected. It seems like it does grow pretty fast and you don't have to do much but watch it grow and explain it to your friends (people are very interested in this thing). I had to reset the light timer because at first it was on all night and off in the day, but that was easy and now it comes on in the morning and goes off around bedtime. I already have little yellow flowers on my tomatoes and I don't think it's been growing even a month!

I've tried in the past to grow any plants and would not have much luck, I'd forget to water or the sun light was either to much or too little. This product works wonderful. The firts time I seen it my sister was at my sisters house. She had the herb garden growing. The plants were healty and Tasty. There is nothing like having fresh herbs for cooking. After that I just had to have one. It's has taken all the guess work out of gardening. It's easy to maintain and it's nearly self suffecient. There is a light that come on about every two weeks as a reminder to add the fertilizer and water and the rest is taken care of for you. You can get any better than that.
LK

We purchased two of these for gifts and both recipients are absolutely delighted. One is my elderly father-in-law and he mentions it every time we talk to him on the pnone. He is an avid gardener and the Aerogarden has given him a lovely winter crop of lettuce for the last 2 months and is still going strong. He said it is easy to set up and is a subject of conversation when people come to visit. The second purchase was at the request of my father-in-law for my niece. She is also in a cold climate and the Aerogarden is a bright spot of green in her kitchen with a fine crop of herbs growing that she enjoys using in cooking. She also has 2 small children who are getting an education in aero-hydroponic gardening. I am hoping that my husband buys me one for my birthday.