I have both happy and sad news to report after eight weeks of growing in my second AeroGarden Sprout LED garden.
Just like with my first Sprout LED garden, it is now time to harvest my herbs every week, instead of every other weeks.
Today’s maintenance involved adding water and nutrients, harvesting my mint and chives, lowering the lights and saying goodbye to my thyme.
AeroGarden Sprout LED Garden #2 Week 8 Condition Before Harvesting Herbs
It’s amazing to me how much the mint has grown in the last two weeks considering how slow it was to start. The grow dome didn’t come off until around week 4 — which is drastically different than how my mint is doing in my Farm Plus — and now, it’s growing like a weed, reaching for the lights of its neighbouring gardens.
The growth-rate of the chives is fast, but it grew fast to begin with, despite it being a slow growing herb.
Unfortunately, my thyme died. Shortly after the last harvest of the second AeroGarden Sprout LED, I noticed that most of its leaves were turning brown. So, I switched positions of the thyme with the chives. The roots from the mint were strangling the pod. I don’t know if that is what killed it or if it was the fact that for its few weeks, the room would get too cold overnight, or if it’s a combination of both that contributed to its demise.
Next time I start thyme, I’m going to grow it only in the Farm Plus which has smarter technology when it comes to creating the perfect environment for plants.
Below is a reminder of what this Sprout LED looked like two weeks ago after harvest:
AeroGarden Sprout LED Garden #2 Week 8 Maintenance Details
Again, today’s maintenance involved adding a cap-full of nutrients, topping up the water, harvesting the chives and the mint, and lowering the lights to the lowest point.
While I was harvesting the mint, I also pinched off a bunch of leaves that were turning brown because they were trapped underneath the monstrosity of this herb. Because the mint is now at maturity, it takes a bit longer to find every single stem, count back a few leaf sets and cut. However, it still took less than five minutes.
Normally, I would remove all the leaves from the stems to prepare for freezing so I don’t have to do that when it’s time to prep them for cooking, but I’m very low on spoons today so I put them in a freezer bag stems and all.
As for the thyme, I removed the pod for compost and covered the hole with black electricians tape to block the light in order to prevent algae from growing.
As with my other Sprout LED, even though I’ll be harvesting the garden once a week, I’ll still being doing the updates every two weeks. That said, I will include details about the weekly harvest in each bi-weekly update.
How I Used Today’s Maintenance of the AeroGarden Sprout LED Garden #2 for Mental Health Gains
I’m currently very low on spoons because I have a cold and stomach bug. So, I didn’t take as much time being slow and deliberate with my journal entry, but that’s okay! Mental health self-care also means recognizing when you need to take it easy because you need to spend more time with physical health self-care. Being able to recognize it a mental health gain!
Thursday is Week 4 maintenance of my AeroGarden Farm Plus and hoooooooboy, once again I have a lot of exciting things to share about that garden!
If you have any questions about today’s AeroGarden maintenance, questions about using the AeroGarden for mental health benefits, or questions about AeroGarden-ing in general, please feel free to ask them in the comments!
