AeroGarden Harvest is the most popular model by AeroGarden, which is the brand leader in the indoor hydroponic gardens space.
It is known to be the ideal solution for people who want to grow herbs and plants at home, but just don’t have the time, physical space, or climate conditions to be able to grow plants successfully.
But is the AeroGarden Harvest really as good as it’s said to be? And how easy is it to set it up anyway? To answer these questions, we got our hands on an AeroGarden Harvest and have written a detailed review to help you decide if it’s worth the money or not!
In this article, you’ll learn what the Harvest is, how to set it up, tips for growing your own plants and veggies, as well as a detailed review to answer all your burning questions.
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What is an AeroGarden Harvest?
An AeroGarden Harvest is an indoor gardening system that utilizes the hydroponics system to replace soil with water as the growing medium.
The Harvest model is a mid-sized, space-efficient model that can easily fit on top of your kitchen counter and can grow up to 6 plants, including fresh herbs and lettuce!
Its automatic timer ensures that the lights turn on and off at the correct times, and the simple backlit buttons remind you to add water and plant food.
The integrated water pump aerates the nutrient solution continuously and maintains the amount of root moisture required to keep your plants growing.
You can easily buy seed pods from AeroGarden or use their Grow Anything Seed Pod Kit to use your own seeds in their system.
Since there is no soil involved, you don’t have to bother with pesticides or chemicals and can truly enjoy organic produce in the comfort of your own home, regardless of the weather outside.
AeroGarden Harvest
Who Should Buy an AeroGarden Harvest?
The AeroGarden Harvest is perfect for just about anyone who’s either always been interested in gardening or wants to get started effortlessly while enjoying all the perks of having your own herbs and plants at home.
People With Space Limitations
If you live in an apartment or house with a small backyard but have always wanted to grow your own plants at home, including fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers, then the Harvest is ideal for you.
It’s small enough to fit on a kitchen countertop or table in your living room yet allows you to grow more than 150 varieties of plants.
People Who Live in Colder Areas
If you live in a colder part of the country or want to grow plants that just aren’t suitable for the area you live in, then the AeroGarden Harvest is ideal for you! You can easily grow your favorite plants indoors with this system regardless of the temperature conditions outside. Thanks to AeroGarden, you don’t need to have perfect weather for a great gardening day!
People Who Want to Grow Plants Effortlessly
Having a traditional outdoor garden is truly rewarding, but it also means you have to deal with fertilizers, regular watering, and pest control, amongst other things. The Harvest eliminates all of that, and all you need to do is fill up the water reservoir from time to time with minimal other steps and you’re good.
People Who Crave Growing Their Own Herbs and Veggies
If you love cooking at home, then you’ve probably always dreamed of having some fresh herbs such as basil, cilantro, thyme, and rosemary at hand to make delicious pasta sauces, dips, and more.
Buying herbs from the grocery store means sometimes most of the herb bundle goes to waste since they wilt so fast. But by growing your own herbs at home, you can snip some off to use whenever you want.
People Who Want to Get Started with Gardening
If you want to enter the beautiful and rewarding world of gardening and test out your green thumb, then there is no better way than to start off by buying the Harvest system.
Not only will it allow you to grow your own plants easily at home, but it’ll also help you understand what goes into gardening and help you figure out whether it’s the hobby for you.
How Many Types of AeroGarden Harvests Are There?
When we mention the Harvest here, we’re talking about their flagship model AeroGarden Harvest which is part of the Harvest family.
There are 6 other models that fall under this family, and while they can all grow up to 6 plants at a time, each of the other 6 models has slight variations in terms of size, shape, and some added features.
We’ve broken down all the details and even shared a comparison chart in our Complete AeroGarden Guide article.
How to Buy the Harvest
AeroGarden’s website has its full product catalog and we recommend you purchase your unit directly from them since the site frequently features deals and sales that can come in handy.
You can also buy some of the more unique plant pods only from their website, and so directly ordering from them every time is way more convenient in our books.
It’ll allow you to try out different pods, check out their accessories, and know of any upcoming deals they may have.
Otherwise, you can find the Harvest at a number of places, including Amazon.
How to Set Up an AeroGarden Harvest
Once you’ve bought the Harvest, it’s time to unbox and set it right up! AeroGarden markets it as being exceedingly simple to assemble, and setting up in minutes, so we were excited to test out how much it lived up to that. So let’s get started:
What’s Included
First things first, let’s look at what you’ll get when you first unbox your Harvest. Every unit comes packaged in a box with all the required parts and accessories included.
The seed pods come in packages of six for the Harvest model and are pre-loaded with seeds for growing your own herbs, salad greens, veggies, flowers, or a customized mix you can curate yourself.
You’ll receive the 6-pod seed kit, power adaptor, quick start guide, and Harvest unit itself with the full-spectrum 20W LED light hood.
The 6-pod seed kit includes the Miracle-Gro liquid plant food nutrients, 6 pre-seeded pods, 6 grow domes, as well as the seed pod kit instructions, all neatly packaged in a box.
We purchased the Gourmet Herb seed pod kit that includes Thai basil, curly parsley, Genovese basil, dill, mint, and thyme.
Warranty
The Harvest comes with a limited warranty that covers any defects in materials or workmanship for up to one year from the date of the original purchase.
You can easily process your warranty claims by contacting AeroGrow customer service. Their customer service is top-notch, and feel free to reach out to them at any point via their website with any questions you may have.
Setup Process
We were surprised at just how easy it was to set up our Harvest. The power cord is a 2/6-watt type and is six feet long, so it can easily reach any outlet you may have without coming up short.
Find the right spot to place your unit, as it’s quite lightweight without the water but once you fill it up, it’s a bit heavier.
We recommend picking a spot on your kitchen counter or a table that’s near an outlet but not near a sunny window. This is because this can lead to too much light for the plants.
Plus, if you have any young children or pets around, it’s best to place it somewhere that they can’t access it easily. The instructions also recommend placing it near a stove as it can produce too much heat.
Once you’ve found the right spot, it’s time to set it up and get started! Start by filling it up with water; it should take a little more than half a gallon to fill it up to the water level indicator. There’s an opening at the front that allows you to easily pour water in.
We used a container with a spout but plan on getting a no-spill watering jug that AeroGarden sells to make it easy to pour water easily whenever the water levels get low.
Next, insert the pods straight into the designated slots and add two caps full of the provided plant food into the water. This may be the only part that gets slightly messy as its cap dribbles a bit when you pour.
This wasn’t such an issue for us but if it is for you, you can easily solve it by getting the Easy Feed plant food dispenser from AeroGarden (they have seriously thought of everything!).
Next cover the pods with the plastic domes, plug in the power adaptor, and press the light button! That’s it, you’ve managed to successfully set up your AeroGaredn Harvest. It takes less than 10 minutes and is an incredibly straightforward process.
No Spill Water Jug
Easy Feed Plant Food Dispenser
Tips to Grow the Best Herbs and Lettuce in AeroGarden Harvest
The AeroGarden Harvest is quite low maintenance once you’ve set it up, but here are some tips you’ll find useful:
Check Once a Day
All AeroGarden models, including the Harvest, are incredibly low maintenance. But we recommend spending two minutes a day checking on your unit to make sure everything is all right. Make sure it has enough water and see if you need to add plant food. Also, make sure your plants aren’t touching the light as the heat can burn the leaves.
Water Supply
Your Harvest won’t use up a lot of water at all in the beginning, but once the plants start to grow root systems they tend to drink up water fast! So make sure to regularly check the water level indicator and fill it up to the ‘fill to here’ marker.
Germination Guarantee
Sometimes certain pods may not sprout. While that wasn’t something we experienced, it does happen. But in such a situation you can contact AeroGarden since all pods come with a germination guarantee! So, if your pods don’t germinate, you can reach out to them and they’ll ship you a replacement right away.
Vacation Mode
If you tend to go out of town often, consider paying a little extra to get AeroGarden’s Harvest Elite model instead which comes with vacation mode to make it easier for you. It also includes illuminated push button controls and Wi-Fi for better control features.
AeroGarden Harvest Elite
Prune Regularly
Once your plants have started to grow, you’ll ideally want to prune them regularly to encourage denser and bushier growth. This will also allow the slower germinating plants to catch up so that ideally all your plants grow at the same height and have access to the grow lights evenly.
Check the Plants’ Roots
Over time as your plants grow, so will the root systems. Since the Harvest and other AeroGarden units are meant to be compact, this also means that the roots have less room.
The good thing is that they don’t need that much space anyway since it’s a hydroponics system. So regularly check the roots by lifting the container every two weeks. Cut back some of the roots, if necessary, as this will make sure they don’t start clogging the reservoir pump.
Explore Accessories
Love your new Harvest? Then consider exploring the different accessories that AeroGarden sells. We’ve already mentioned the Easy Feed plant food dispenser and the no-spill watering jug above, but their water reservoir called AeroVoir is worth checking out as well. It’s designed to refill fresh water as needed rather than having you frequently do it yourself.
AeroGarden Aerovoir
How to Harvest Herbs From An AeroGarden
Harvesting herbs and other plants from AeroGarden is incredibly easy. All you have to do is find the leaf nearest to the portion you are cutting and trim just above it.
Since each herb is different, you can check out the dedicated pruning videos that AeroGarden has on their website to find the one for the plant you have and follow along.
Harvesting from an AeroGarden isn’t much different from harvesting regular plants. All you need to make sure of is to not over-prune them at any given point.
What We Loved About the AeroGarden Harvest
There are way too many things to love about the Harvest, but here are our top 3 reasons:
1. Easy to Operate
We loved how easy it was to not only set up the Harvest but to manage it day to day. In fact, there is little to no maintenance apart from ensuring the water levels are adequate and adding plant food to the reservoir.
And while we absolutely love gardening, there is a definite appeal to the effortless way in which we were able to harvest our herbs and enjoy them in the many recipes we tried!
2. Plants Grow Fast
AeroGarden claims that ‘plants grow in water five times faster than in soil,’ and we have to say that’s pretty spot on! They might seem slow in weeks 1 and 2 but you’ll notice most plants take off around week 3!
If you’re a little impatient (aren’t we all?) and want your herbs ready faster and with less effort, definitely go for the Harvest!
3. Sturdy and Durable
The design is not only aesthetically pleasing, but it’s also really sturdy and durable. You can tell that the quality is top-notch, and it makes a beautiful addition to any kitchen or home.
We also love that the Harvest comes in four different colors allowing you to match it to your interiors! In case you want one in a stainless-steel finish instead, go for the Harvest Elite.
Should You Buy One?
Yes.
AeroGarden Harvest is an incredible indoor garden system that lives up to its name and claims. We had a great time testing it and will definitely be keeping it around. The unit is easy to clean, small yet efficient, and AeroGarden’s customer service is incredible.
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AeroGarden Harvest Elite: Is it Better Than the Harvest?
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