Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

When I want to try something new, I tend to dive right in. I wanted to try everything at once (not just herbs), but my space is quite limited. Thus, I purchased four of the Harvest units and several sets of seed kits. One month in and I am loving them so much I had to write a review. Before I get into what I planted, here's a few things to consider. The grow lights are on for 15 hour increments. You can adjust the time they turn on by pressing and holding the light indicator at the time you want it to turn on each day. You can also turn them on or off manually by tapping the indicator light. The lights snap to five different heights. In my picture, the first two are at the lowest level, third at the middle level and the last I raised to the highest for the picture, but lowered it back down to the middle height. One last thing about the grow lights. My eyes are quite sensitive to bright lights, be it sun light, headlights or phone screens, but the grow lights on these don't bother my eyes dispite being very bright. As for the indicator light for lights, it is always on and quite bright. I have these set up in my bedroom of all places, so to solve that issue, I've covered the indicator lights with a strip of red Tail Light Tape. The watering cycle turns on every 25 minutes, 24/7 and runs for 5 minutes. I already sleep with ear plugs, so not a problem for me. I have noticed the dripping gets louder if you let the water get low, so be sure to keep it topped off as they recommend. Now for what I planted (left to right in the picture). I have the herbs that come with it in the first unit. I did have a dud thyme which I swapped out after 20 days. (It grew fuzz instead.) The new one showed leaves in 3 days. Woohoo! It is still small, I still have the Grow Dome on it. From the Q&A section, I see you can contact Aerogarden for a replacement, but as I received a set of herb pods with each Harvest I bought, I didn't need to that. To allow the slow growers to get there share of light, I've already pruned/harvested dill four times, basil two time and Thai basil once. Speaking of Thai basil, I never tried this herb before, but found a delightful idea online for three cup chicken which I made last night. My roommate even told me I have to make that again for her. Not a problem as I will have a constant supply of that herb soon enough. The regular basil has turned into little appetizers with mozzarella balls and tomatoes. Can't wait to make these with home grown tomatoes as it is still store-bought in the picture. My second unit is filled with six Salad Greens Mix pods. Already harvested five bowls of salad for myself, and I've stopped ordering lettuce from the store. I harvest by picking off the largest leaves. My goal is to keep it below the lights at the lowest setting, but hard to keep up with these fast growing leaves. Looks like I'll be sharing it with my neighbors before long. They already took some of the dill off my hands. The third and fourth units have tomato and bell pepper plants. I used two of the Red Heirloom Cherry Tomato pods. They are the larger, faster growing tomato plants. I already trimmed some of the branches that were reaching too far out. I can see a few flower buds starting to form, so I have my Be the Bee Pollinator prepped with batteries and ready to go once they open. I used the Grow Anything Pods using a few seeds from a yellow bell pepper and an overripe grape tomato. Both sprouted nicely. The grape tomato seedlings turned yellow for a bit, but finally started to grow nicely. As for the bell pepper, I will need to wait and see if I can keep a  plant at a manageable size in a Harvest unit. If you managed to read though my mini novel, you get one last word of caution. The fertilizer is on the pricy side. I accidentally bought one 3oz bottle for almost $20 on Amazon. Looks like the price has dropped now, but I found it much cheaper to purchase directly from the aerogarden website, caveat being you can manage meet the minimum amount for free shipping. They frequently have sales and you can checkout using Amazon Pay. At the speed I go through it with four units, I thought it better to purchase the 1 liter bottle size. Happy growing!!