Four or five years ago, I purchased two AeroGardens as the Northeast Ohio winter months tend to wear on me, and having green growth and full spectrum light helps my mood (blah). An AeroGarden is a hydroponic indoor garden that can grow certain vegetables, herbs, and flowers. I’ve had the most luck over the years with cherry tomatoes, basil, dill, mint, garlic chives, thyme, and parsley. This year I’ve taken a next step by purchasing two additional AeroGardens – a smaller one for work and a taller one for bigger cherry tomatoes. I also purchased an AeroGarden seed starting kit to do starts for my outdoor gardens this season. Because I get SOOOOOO excited and antsy with spring just around the corner, I’ve already planted some starts (Maybe too soon? Guess my royal Snarkyness will find out), including parsley, Swiss Chard, broccoli, leeks, kohlrabi, and two kinds of kale. And of course Johnny’s Selected Seeds got an order from me this week for spinach, cilantro, lavender, cutting celery, echinacea (which means “hedge hog” in Greek), fennel, and Agribon+ row covers to protect my broccoli and Brussels spouts from those creepy (and hungry) green cabbage fly worms. As indicated by the lavender, echinacea, and fennel, this year I’m adding some medicinal herbs to my primary garden to both make me feel better and attract beneficial insects. I’ll be writing about my “thymely” herb efforts in much more detail in future posts (just love a good gardening pun).
