I’ve been trying to grow things for quite a while. When I lived in my apartment many years ago I tried mostly potted flowers. I did get things to grow, but to get them to continue to live was apparently the trick. Mostly I forgot to water them. I live in South Florida so leaving something outside without watering them is going to kill flowers pretty quickly in this heat.

When I moved into my boyfriends house he gave me free rein to replant the outside bushes. Unfortunately shortly after I did we moved. In our new house I’ve been dying to garden but despite our good sized yard our HOA is pretty strict about what can be done. Plus we keep saying we’re going to renovate so what’s the point of planting anything. And yet, almost ten years later, I still have only a few pots of plants on my front porch.

Recently though we finally dug up our pathetic looking hydrangea bush in the backyard and I planted some night blooming jasmine bushes. I just love the way they smell when they bloom at night. Reminds me of my home growing up. My mom planted them all around our exterior fence. The fragrance was so heavenly when you‘d walk into our house at night.

The Aerogardens seem to be the best way for someone like me who forgets watering is important. I’ve even invested in Aerovoirs for the bigger gardens so I only have to remember to refill them about once a week. I do love my little indoor garden. Since it grows so well on its own, ironically, its helped me to remember to water the other plants too. Now even the few little potted plants I have there are growing well also.

I’m doing the aforementioned strawberries, tomatoes, bell peppers, and basil. I just planted some cilantro, which for some reason in the past has not grown for me. I can’t believe how well the strawberries are growing compared to past tries though. The berries are almost as big as the store bought kind and have continued to produce for over 8 months now.

I nearly killed them a month ago though when one of the older gardens blew a fuse and it killed the air pump in the strawberry garden. I thought at first there was just another algae issue when one of the crowns started to die. I realized, after having cleaned the garden thoroughly and still having some of the other crowns start to wilt, that something else must be afoot. Seems the coco mulch was dry as a bone. After some investigating I found the pump issue. I hand watered them until the replacement pump came.

Unfortunately I think I lost the one crown, it hasn’t really grown back even after the hand watering. I have extra crowns in my outdoor fridge (The company I bought them from said to refrigerate unused ones for later use. I keep wondering how long they’ll be ok in there. Guess we’ll see.)

I have big plans this spring to try my hand at a larger garden. I am getting tired of waiting to renovate the outside, and I have a nice little patch of dirt behind our “privacy” wall thats screaming for some love. My plan is to go to Lowe’s one day, buy some soil and just do it. I had been growing tomatoes there back about 5 years ago. But something (birds or squirrels I suspect) kept helping themselves to the nearly ripe ones and I never got the chance to reap the benefits.

This time I have seeds for cucumbers, pumpkins, spinach, lettuce, and green beans. Since the growing season starts much earlier here in zone 10b I’ll need to start planting soon before the summer heat hits. I’ll update later as that project commences.

For now, I’ll just keep updating on the Aerogardens. I planted new tomatoes on January 18th and they are progressing quickly. This time I’m going to be more ruthless about the pruning. The current tomato plant is tall and lanky and above the grow lights so I think I’ve grown a grand total of 7 tomatoes in the last 8 months. Not very spectacular. Pruning them to keep them bushy and short is supposed to be more fruitful (literally!) Fingers crossed!