Blog Math.... I started this blog... 19 years ago... 19....19. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that but... there it is. 19 years ago, when I started it, my blogs were 2 or 3 paragraphs... with a little bitching and complaining and a little astrology, bunches of art talk and the occasional rant about politics or tv. I wasn't even posting once a month. I had a few friends that read it and that was just about it. Then I started casual gardening, got a few chickens and the next few years the posts were basically just reports about what was going on in the backyard and in the kitchen. Chickens and 100 year old recipes were the main focus.... and it was fun. Then in 2018 I had a major health crisis. It kicked my ass. It was the final straw in what had increasingly turned into a nightmare marriage with an increasingly verbal and emotionally abusive husband, who took the opportunity to become physically abusive when I was at my lowest point.... ever.... and I didn't have the strength to fight back. My friends and family stepped up and took care of me. They created a circle of safety around me and kept Jimmy from getting too close until I could function on my own. The little red house was my sanctuary for almost a year. I healed slowly. Everyone helped. AND... Just as I was able to be functional again...Covid......And well.... we all got our asses kicked in that one. I wasn't blogging at the time because I just didn't have the stability or heart to continue what I was working on or... so I thought. And like everyone else, I thought blogging was dead. I thought it had been replaced by Instagram and Tik Tok. But, there is a place for the written word with some history behind it. Unlike the influencers, I have been around for a while and I have shared my journey for many years So, here we are again...... I begin again.... Everywhere I landed, I planted a little, cooked a little and preserved a little and learned what other people were doing. This post is about what I learned from a friend while I was staying in her back room. While I was with her she introduced me to the Aerogarden. Its a houseplant size hydroponics garden that is completely self sustained while it is growing. It is, my friends, a handy little gadget. She has a small six hole Aerogarden. She grows everything in it from herbs to geraniums. I was so impressed I got one for myself. At first I only grew kitchen herbs,... basil, cilantro, parsley, thyme... chives. Then I got another one. One for herbs, one for lettuce and other salad greens. Then I got another one. I grew snow peas in January in that one. It was next to the kitchen window and once the plant matured, I had a nice batch of snow peas every week for the winter. I had a lot of fun with these. Everywhere I went I set up the whole family of hydroponic gardens. I have 4 big nine hole gardens and a few six holers. I pretty much always have a mini vegetable garden going in some corner. And it really was just to keep my inner gardener happy. And then came all the food recalls. I could veer off here and go into a rant about how we got here, why our food isn't safe and who is responsible but, for the purposes of this post, we are going to stick with the useful tool topic. Also, I am sticking with the brand name that I started with. There are lots of hydroponic gardens out there right now so if you don't want .... or cant afford the name brand, there are good options available. After I turned another friend on to these she got a knock off from amazon. She loves it and says, 'it does the job'. When all the lettuce recalls happened a few months ago, I just walked over to the hydroponics shelf and made a salad out of romaine and italian basil. I have had a bad habit all my adult life of letting lettuce go wilty (and sometimes worse) in the fridge and have often wished I had learned about aerogardens years before I did. But information comes to us when we need it.
If you need or want to grow some of your own food, I highly recommend one or more of these. If you live in an apartment or somewhere that an outdoor garden is not a realistic consideration these are a good option. The small ones are about the size of a 2-slice toaster .. Double that size for the nine hole. They fit in lots of small spaces. I have a friend with a studio apartment that keeps hers in her bathroom. They pretty much fit anywhere...apartments, tiny homes, studios etc.. They are easy to set up and the directions are easy to follow. The brand name aerogardens come with everything you need to get started including seeds. Most of the knock offs come with everything but the seeds. They all have internal timers. They turn on the lights and pumps without you having to do anything but set them up. They tell you when to add water and when to add plant food. The plants germinate and grow at a really fast rate. Far faster than growing in soil. If you are going to grow lettuce and other greens you need at least the 6 hole garden. The reason is the root base of the lettuce needs some space to grow. Aerogarden currently has a 3 hole on amazon for a very low price. It's a good place to start if you are not sure how much you want to invest in indoor gardening. I'm going to link a couple of them here so you can go look at them.
Aerogarden medium 9 hole I like this one because it has a computer screen to tell you what is going on and walks you through set up... every time.
And for comparison, here is a knock off I picked at random because the price is way affordable. It has everything you need to get started, except seeds. So, just know you might need to pick up a couple of packets of seeds. I recommend romaine and basil but... grow what you want. Affordable with good reviews
I think that's it for this post. I tried to give some history on how I got involved with the gardens and what the outcome is. And it is pretty good. They also have an extra benefit... One friend says they really help with seasonal depression. The grow lights make up for living in classic PNW winter gray
