Using an aero garden or earth box to plant CPs

[tmcelwee8]

Has anyone out there ever tried to use an aero garden to plant, start from seed or cuttings. I have thought about trying it since I have two.

I also have several earth boxes that I think would be really good since they self water, if I put a tent over one.

Any thoughts?

[pinglover]

Somebody else recently mentioned an aero garden. I don't know what these are. Are you in a position to share a photo or a link to an aero garden?

[tmcelwee8]

Oct 30, 2008 15:21:46 GMT tmcelwee8 said:

Has anyone out there ever tried to use an aero garden to plant, start from seed or cuttings. I have thought about trying it since I have two.

I also have several earth boxes that I think would be really good since they self water, if I put a tent over one.

Any thoughts?

[tmcelwee8]

You can just type aero garden in any search engine to find. It grows plant without soil and it sends water to the plants on a timer, it also uses special lights. You can also get a seed starter tray that uses natural, degradable sponge plugs, but the water does not go when in that mode. It grows regular plants really fast and requires little care. I have about a 99 percent germination rate using it too. I think it would be awesome for pc plants I plan to try some. Kinda exspensive but I love my 2 and will probably buy a few more. Thanks for asking.
Trish

[pinglover]

Type AeroGarden (no space).
www.aerogrow.com/index.php

I purchased something a little different for starting cuttings several years ago however it's not nearly as attractive-
www.hhydro.com/cgi-bin/hhydro/XHH0180.html?id=Ym4uu2Sg
Although not appearing above, there was an optional humidity dome available that I did purchase as well as a central mister kit. For some of the plants I propagate, these two optional kits are important.

Big difference in the unit I have and the unit you have is that mine does not provide any lighting. I provide my own. I use metal halides for some plants and for others I use a mix of cool and warm fluorescents and I guess it depends what plants I'm working with and where I'm growing them how I address the lighting issues.

I think if I had it to do all over again, I would have purchased the American Agritech Power Cloner only because its shape is easier to work with. The RainForest is a big unit with an irregular shape. You can see the American Agritech Power Cloner at the above site if you're interested.

All of these types of products can work very well to start plants from cuttings. People have been successfully growing plants hydroponically for a very long time and your product is a contained table top hydroponic system that is very easy on the eye and integrates nicely into most homes because of the color choices. It's almost as if it's a decorator home accessory which is kind of neat.

I have never tried to propagate seed in my RainForest. I could, I just haven't. I use mine exclusively as a cloner. I find it easy enough to start seed without having to purchase expensive equipment.

If you're looking to clone in your AeroGarden, you might want to try Olivia's Cloning Solution. I find it to be cheap and works as well starting cuttings as formulations that are considerably more expensive. I also use rockwool in my cells.

As far as earth boxes-
www.earthbox.com/consumer/what_is.html
I've made my own. They worked very nicely for indeterminate tomatoes as well as many other vegetables. I don't see where using an Earthbox to grow carnivorous plants would be worth the expense given the tray method works well enough for most of what I grow.