After 18 weeks of growing herbs in my first AeroGarden Sprout LED, I’ve had to transplant my Genovese basil to my AeroGarden Farm Plus, thoroughly clean the tank, and plant a new garden.
Week 17’s maintenance included harvesting, adding water and lowering the lights. Week 18’s maintenance was pretty major since other herbs were not doing well with the Genovese basil.
AeroGarden Sprout LED Garden #1 Week 17 Condition Before Harvesting Herbs
Week 17 was another week where the lights didn’t have to be raised to full height. Also, I had another dill plant die and the curly parsley was also starting to die.
AeroGarden Sprout LED Garden #1 Week 17 Maintenance Details
Maintenance remained the same as ever for odd-numbered weeks: water and harvest. I also cut off the dead dill and curly parsley in the hopes that the dill would find the will the grow new stems and the parsley would become healthy once again.
I also made a mental decision that if on Week 18 the dill and parsley were still not doing well, I would move the Genovese basil and replant this garden.
AeroGarden Sprout LED Garden #1 Week 18 Condition Before Harvesting Herbs
At Week 18, the dill and the parsley continue not to do well, so some major changes were made to my first AeroGarden Sprout LED.
AeroGarden Sprout LED Garden #1 Week 18 Maintenance Details
Maintenance on Week 18 involved harvesting the Genovese basil, composting the parsley and dill pods, trimming the Genovese basil roots so that I could remove it from this Sprout LED and move it to the Farm Plus, cleaning the tank very well, replanting it, adding nutrients and water.
Week 18 maintenance was a lot. It took quite a bit of time to do everything required.
The first thing I did was harvest the Genovese basil, and pull the dill and curly parsley pods. The dill had completely died and root rot was taking hold of the parsley. Once I took off the top of the tank, I trimmed the roots of the basil right down so that I could pull it out and place it in the Farm Plus.
The next thing I did was inspect the tank. I noticed algae growing in it, so I thoroughly cleaned it with vinegar and water.
When that was done, I replanted my first AeroGarden Sprout LED with curly parsley, Italian parsley and dill.
Finally, I added a cap-full of nutrients, filled the tank with water, and lowered the lights all the way down.
At 18 weeks, the Genovese basil that now lives in my AeroGarden Farm Plus has another 8 weeks left of “life” unless it exceeds what AeroGarden says is the lifespan of herbs if tended to correctly and nothing bad like algae or root rot takes over.
How I Used The Last Two Week’s Maintenance of the AeroGarden Sprout LED Garden 1 for Mental Health Gains
This week’s extra long gardening session — I also had to tend to my Farm Plus and my second Sprout LED on Thursday — ended up taking all of my spoons. By the time I got to this Sprout LED, I was done.
This week was an exhausting one. I had a site launch for a client, I had an in-person meeting, and I had to travel out of town for a surgery consult. These three tasks zapped all of my communication spoons — I’d be completely non-verbal if society would allow it — and the surgery consult had extra stuff attached to it because of dysphoria. I was so spent by the time I did Week 18 maintenance on Garden 1, I accidentally dropped my brand new Polaroid Zip in the jug of water I keep in my garden room.
That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy this week’s gardening session and journaling session, it’s just to say I wish I could have postponed it a couple more days because my brain was done.
All that said, going 18 weeks before gardening was just a bit too much is pretty amazing. I wouldn’t be able to go one week with dirt gardening before wishing I just didn’t have to. The circumstances of this week don’t happen frequently, so being too tired to garden will always be an outlier.
If you have any questions about these updates, let me know in the comments!
