I decided to start a new blog documenting snippets of my "everyday life", as I don't travel year-round, even though the entries in "Where in the world is Kat Kong?" look like I am on vacation all the time. Thus, here is the debut of "What in the world is Kat Kong doing now?" (witwikkdn.blogspot.com) Hope you find this new blog at the very least entertaining. I hope it'll be helpful sometimes. Perhaps even eye-opening. I'm sure there will be days where I get flamed; that's fine with me as we all have our own opinions and I invite you to share yours.
Enjoy!
Kat
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For my birthday this year, my fiance Kaleb bought me an AeroGarden Ultra. I had seen the ads on TV and thought about growing an indoor garden. However, I didn't recall mentioning to Kaleb that I was interested in getting one. I interpreted this as evidence that he could actually read my mind, contrary to what all relationship self-help books preach. But in reality, it wasn't hard for him to know he hit a home run - I love to eat, and if all I have to do is pop the seeds in, fill the tank with water and nutrients, push a button and food comes out a few weeks later, I'd think it was the best!
The seed pods that came with it consisted of 7 herb varieties: two kinds of basil (Thai and Genovese), mint, parsley, dill, chives, and cilantro. It was easy to set up and fill; the hard part was waiting for the plants to grow. I was pleasantly surprised that several of the seed pods had germinated within a few days, faster than what the instructions had mentioned. There was a paragraph saying that distilled or reverse-osmosis (RO) water would be better for the garden; we filled it with RO water, so that may explain the quick growth. Some days, the plants would seem to grow in front of our eyes. By the third week, I was already harvesting basil for my Thai curries and dill for fish. Kaleb used the mint in a mint julep and I plan to use it in spring rolls later this week.
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| herb garden at around 27 days; will be even bigger next month |
Almost a month has passed now and you can tell from the picture that the seeds grow at different rates. Unfortunately, the cilantro has not germinated (lower left corner). AeroGarden has a warranty on the seed pods and will send you a new one for free if you call and let them know. The parsley pod on the lower right corner has been the slowest to develop, though it was the first to show signs of germination. Thus I call it "a shower, not a grower". :)
Since the garden was a success, I plan on owning a couple more: one to grow tomatoes and the other to grow salad greens. There are seed kits for other plants like peppers, strawberries, and flowers. If you want to grow your own seeds, they have the Grow Anything kit but you'd have to use trial and error to see if they'll survive in a hydroponic garden. Some gardeners use the AeroGarden to quickly germinate seeds, then plant them outside when they are big enough to survive. There are also forums on the internet such as aerogardentalk.com to learn what others have been planting and their successes and failures.
I'll keep you posted on how the garden is doing as time goes by. I'm having a lot of fun watching the herbs grow as well as eating the bounty!
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