Miracle-Gro AeroGarden ULTRA Indoor Garden with Gourmet Herb Seed Pod Kit Plus Bonus Seed Starter System
Miracle-Gro AeroGarden ULTRA Indoor Garden with Gourmet Herb Seed Pod Kit Plus Bonus Seed Starter System By AeroGrow
Get the Special Price at $200.00
- Amazon Sales Rank: #2267 in Lawn & Patio
- Color: Black
- Brand: AeroGrow
- Model: 903000-4100
- Dimensions: 15.00" h x
11.00" w x
17.00" l,
8.00 pounds
Features
- NASA-proven, dirt free growing technology scientifically proven to grow plants faster
- My Garden Control Panel automatically controls all growing functions; Fully automated with on-screen, step-by-step instructions anyone can follow
- 3 energy efficient grow lights, polished aluminum reflectors; Advanced grow light technology maximizes yields
- 19.25-Inch L x 14.75-Inch W x 15.5-Inch Minimum Height, Extends to 33.5-Inch Maximum
- Bonus Seed Starting System is ideal for starting any garden; The re-usable starter tray receives the perfect amount of light, water and nutrients
Most helpful customer reviews
369 of 395 people found the following review helpful.
By Douglas B. Moran
NOTE: Before deciding to buy this model, look at the just-announced LED version that AeroGarden (AG) claims to be a major improvement: More effective lighting and cheaper over time. Although the LED version lists for $100 more than the fluorescent light version, the fluorescent lights are a major expense. The fluorescent lights list at $35 (as a set of 3) and need to be replaced every six months -- comments on the AG website indicate that these lights often *burn out* around 6-8 months, not just that they become less effective. The LED version is advertised to last 3-5 years, or $210-350 worth of fluorescent bulbs. And the operating cost is less. Other than the LED lighting, that model seems the same as this one. However, see the comments below about (poor) quality of construction -- the LED model might not survive long enough to reap the benefits.
Limited review: I was given this product in exchange for an honest timely review. The time limit requires me to post this review well before I have had the experience of a full cycle of growing plants. I am commenting on my early experience and will update this review as appropriate.
Because of my professional background, I tend to be much more critical in my evaluations of products. You may well decide that various of my comments are irrelevant/unimportant to you, so I have tried to structure this to make it easier for you to spot and skip such comments.
Details: As an engineer (software) I not only developed products but dealt with the company's marketing people about design decisions. And another part of my job was evaluating products, both competitive analysis and for purchasing decisions. One lesson-learned from dealing with Product Managers (Marketing) was to play close attention to their visible decisions because they are highly predictive of decisions that you don't immediately spot.
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My first negative reaction came with unpacking the product -- it felt too insubstantial for what it was. It was not just me. I asked several neighbors to give me their quick first impression (no hints) and the responses were "cheesy", "flimsy", "cheap" and not built to last. However, in looking through various comments, I couldn't find complaints about this being a problem, so maybe it is tougher than it looks, or maybe people adapted.
First, the plastic could easily have been a bit thicker in both the tank and the hood. Second, the pole for holding up the hood is probably more than strong-enough, but the impression was "cheap". The cutting-corners was evident in that AG didn't even bother to de-burr (smooth off) the rough ends of the pole. But most worrisome is that the sockets for the pole in both the base and hood are relatively thin-walled -- I would have thought they needed to be much thicker to handle the torque of even a partially raised hood.
Note: I don't know how the construction of this model compares to earlier one (for you to extrapolate from the reviews of those models), but the taller (extensible) pole is an advantage for growing taller plants, but creates torque greater than those models. And the hood carries more weight from an additional bulb (3 vs 2 in the previous model).
Because I know to be very careful about this, I expect that I can keep it from breaking prematurely. However, if you plan to let children help you, there may be a problem. And if you have a cat, you may have a problem: I couldn't use the initial place I planned to put the unit because I knew that my cat would be rubbing against it (curiosity and scent-marking). And I think it would be the height of folly to grow catnip in this unit (one of the seed kits that AG sells).
The biggest example of corner-cutting and unimaginably bad design is the trellis. This is thin cheap plastic bar that seems to be capable of *guiding* the growth of plants, but not supporting plants such as tomatoes, much less supporting tomato plants while you are picking. The trellis was not designed for reuse from season to season: Connecting the two halves is permanent, thereby greatly increasing the likelihood it will be broken during storage. Although I don't see this being a significant factor itself in your buying decision, this is indicative of the pervasive problems with this product.
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One of the basics of Marketing is to do multiple things to make your customers happy with their purchase. If this were not a review unit, I would have had significant buyer's remorse.
1. The cost and frequency of replacement lighting was a major surprise (see above). Having used straight fluorescent grow-light tubes, I expected an operating life of 2-3 times these, and a lower price.
2. The need to immediately buy supplemental items. For example, I hadn't considered the need to change the water in the tank. I judge it impractical to carry the tank to the sink, because of (1) the lack of grips suitable to the weight, with the risk of both spilling the water and of breaking the tank, (2) no good way of leaving the growing plants behind (at my location for the product). So the alternative is to siphon out the water into a bucket -- not great in several regards, but the lesser evil. And surprise, AG sells a siphon pump separately, but you can likely get one from a fish/aquarium store.
3. Badly over-priced supplies. For example, paper labels for the pods cost $0.26 each (in bulk = 50 count). For comparison, file folder labels cost less than $0.04. The pod baskets which are trivial pieces of plastic cost $0.34 each (in bulk). The plug for unused holes is a combination of these two and is further marked up to $1.33 each (from $0.60). Furthermore, this is the wrong way to plug the holes -- the plugs should have been a more robust construction and should have been included, not an after-market purchase. Then there are the "Grow Domes" which are essentially the little plastic cups you put Salsa in at Mexican take-out: $0.30 each (in bulk).
Advice: Before making a purchase, look at the price of supplies and decide if you are going to feel that you are being gouged. If so, that is likely to adversely affect your use or enjoyment of this product.
4. Difficulty find a location for the unit. You are instructed to *not* locate this product where the plants will get sunlight because that can overwhelm them. This eliminated most of my prime locations for this unit. I was surprised that the product couldn't handle this. Then eliminate locations where draining and refilling the tank will be a problem. Then ... From what I have figured out, the product was designed on the assumption that you would find a location suitable for its requirements, rather than being designed to be adaptable to where you wanted to put it.
Note: One can adjust either the starting time or ending time for the lights, but not both. Setting one automatically resets the other to have a fixed period the lights are on. I wanted to put the unit in a south-facing garden window and set the start-time to be roughly sunset, with a 6-hour runtime to supplement the natural light. You can't do this. The closest approximation I found is to disconnect the unit's lights and leave the windows lights on until bedtime.
5. Mediocre instructions. While setting up the unit is easy and intuitive, there is much more to using it. There is not a coherent user manual. Instead there are several overlapping documents (equiv to Quick Start Guides), various FAQs and lots of blog-style postings. Many of these are erroneous, ambiguous, contradictory or incomplete.[1] It took me more than a 10 days to start up my unit because I repeatedly reached my frustration limit trying to hunt through the web pages to find what I thought were answers to basic questions (I am not a "Just do it" person). There were too many clicks and searches yielding too little result. I kept muttering that it shouldn't be that hard. Part of what you are paying for with a product like this are instructions and guides to use it successfully. But as in the manufacturing, there are big deficiencies here.
Note: My professional background makes me inclined to get a more complete understanding than the typical user, partly from a well-earned paranoia. And I do understand that there are people for whom ferreting out such info is part of the joy of products such as this.
6. In poking around on the AG website, I discovered many complaints about problems with the water pump. Under "Accessories > Replacement Parks" the description for the pump begins "Keep your garden growing at its best with periodic pump replacement". Looking at the pump in my unit, I had to wonder if the reliability problems were simply the result of AG skimping on this part.
7. When I went to register my unit, the web site offered $125 of coupons for signing up for the newsletter. 90% of those were discounts on buying other models. Hold it. I have just started using it -- I am hardly ready to buy another, either for myself or as a gift. Marketing wisdom is that those coupons should either be to reduce the shock of the cost of supplies or to encourage purchase of add-ons that could make the user more satisfied/enthusiastic with operation.
----
Using for transplants:
I was strongly considering using this to start transplants in the spring, but after looking at the details, I am reconsidering.
1. In looking at comments on the AG website, I found numerous complaints about poor success rates. I expected transplanting from a hydroponic environment to a normal garden to be more involved than normal transplanting. What I expected to find, but didn't, were articles of the form "How to successfully transplant" and "Common mistakes made in transplanting".
2. One needs to look at the comments under their "Seed Starting System" and not just the description. This is Styrofoam and people report that it is often non-reusable because it breaks as you remove the inserts (Grow Sponges) for transplant. And it floats on the surface of the water -- none of the air circulation around the roots that AG advertises as so beneficial (and I didn't find an explanation of why). And why don't they need the Grow Domes and the Pod Labels? Especially since the Pod Labels are advertised as useful/important in reducing the evaporation of water from the tank when you have the normal 7 pods vs 66 pods for the Seed Starting System.
3. The insert is similar to the Hydrofarm JSEF55 Smart Float Grow Tray with Plugs (and about the same price per position). Searching keyed to that product and its ilk may produce useful advice (I haven't looked yet).
==== Examples of problem in the documentation ====
1. The maintenance schedule omits any mention of the existence of the filter on the water pump, much less cleaning it and changing it (every 6-8 months). I discovered this when scanning the product offerings on the web site. Similarly, the online maintenance schedule hadn't been updated to include this model (the Ultra). This sort of sloppiness is common.
Plus: The filters are very inexpensive, bur rather than including several changes, you have to purchase them, with S&H making them *very* expensive (better alternative: go to a B&M fish/aquarium store).
2. When I clicked on what was advertised as an online tutorial for new owners, what I got was a brochure targeted at potential buyers formatted to be a glossy hardcopy handout. Most small startups try to avoid this mistake, and there is no excuse for a mature company to do it.
3. The documentation for the control panel is minimal -- just enough to get you started. I put water in the tank and started experimenting, but who knows what I missed or misunderstood.
4. When I looked at the advice on growing seeds for transplants, it said that the baskets came in two parts which were held together by the Pod Label. And in the AG product listing, there are "Easy Transplant Baskets" that "snap away". However, when I looked very closely at the right picture, "snap" seems to mean "break" not "disengage". Minor, but this is an example of the casualness of their descriptions.
5. For the seed kits, the descriptions of the plants can be vague. For example, it treats "cherry tomato" as good enough, ignoring/oblivious to the fact that there are a wide range of cherry tomatoes for different tastes and uses. I know that they have adapted some of the plants to better fit, but why not say "similar to variety X"?
6. Statements with no explanation. For example "baskets help regulate moisture levels in pods". I could find no info on when I needed to change what was happening or how to accomplish that. Or was this simply puffery?
7. Fertilizer is specified using different units in different places: Milli-liters, fluid ounces, and "season". I can convert between the first two, but why don't they just give both together (eg, with a parenthetical). As to "season", if you look around on the AG website, you can find the Rosetta Stone. This is yet another example of AG not putting what seem to be normal efforts into making their documentation user-friendly.
-- Douglas B. Moran
35 of 37 people found the following review helpful.
By team W
I bought this as a gift for my wife and was a big hit with her. We've had it about a month and so far so good. All but one of the herbs that came in the kit germinated. All the ones that germinated have thrived. We've only been growing this stuff about a month and we've already had to trim/harvest some of the herbs because they are growing so fast.
We had one of the 3 bulbs fail almost immediately and the customer service people at Aerogrow were top notch - they shipped us out a replacement bulb and replaced the one herb that didn't go too. We decided to put a tomato plant in the one pod that didn't go originally and it has similarly popped up and is just starting to take off.
This is not a low-budget way to grow fresh herbs or veggies. The thing is expensive to buy initially, the lights have to be replaced every six months and they are expensive, the little seed pods are expensive too. However, it is a really nice, low-hassle way to have a little hydroponic garden in a self-contained spot. The whole thing is very attractive and relatively compact. It is particularly nice in winter to have this little patch of brightly lit, vibrant green garden inside. It just warms up the room in a way we didn't really expect.
Basically you drop these little seed pods into holes on the top of it, fill the bucket with water (use distilled water to keep the pump clean and the nutrients balanced), add hydroponic nutrients to the water and program when the light cycle should go on. You're done. It tells you when you need to add more nutrients, but you will have to monitor the water level (it takes all of 5 seconds to check it - you lift a flap and see). I find we add water about once a week, maybe a little more often than that. As the plants grow, their demand for water increases, so you will find that as the garden matures, it needs more frequent watering. I think maybe we are up to 3 gallons of distilled water used now after a month - most of which was used when we filled the big tub initially. So it isn't a huge on-going expense to use the distilled water with it.
The light is bright, and it needs to be on something like 16 hours a day. They say not to put the garden somewhere in bright, direct sun, the lights are all it needs and a lot of real sun on top will be too much for it. We have ours up against a window, but it is in a shady spot that doesn't get huge amounts of sun and so far so good. The pump isn't particularly loud in operation, the main thing is that the lights are bright, so put it somewhere where you won't mind the bright light.
I think if I had it to do over again, I'd have bought the newer, LED version so you don't have to replace the lamps every six months. It would use less energy and be a little less hassle.
It turns out that I like this so much, I am thinking about getting another one for my office and putting flowers in it. It would definitely warm up any space with poor natural light.
52 of 59 people found the following review helpful.
By Amazon Shopper
[I bought this garden directly from the website since it was not on Amazon at the time.]
Lights - The lights are a nice upgrade if you have an AeroGarden 7. The AeroGarden 7 only has two lights, this Ultra garden has three. I did notice though that the lights in the Ultra sometimes flicker, I'm not sure why. Maybe I have bad bulbs, I did notice on the website some people reporting that the light goes well before it's time. You're covered for six months on the bulb, I would suggest getting extra in case something happens though.
The heat from the bulb is pretty warm too. If your seedlings are sensitive to heat then the heat from the bulbs could actually burn them. I have pepper seedlings in mine and they seem to be doing great right now.
Pump - Unlike the AeroGarden 7 which has an air stone the Ultra has a water pump and no air stone. If you wanted to the Ultra has two holes which can feed an air line, you would also need to buy an air stone too. It looks like it would take a normal size air line, I am not completely sure however. So far I have no problems with the pump, they sell replacement pumps on the website if you need to replace it. If you have an air stone in the system when pump goes then you don't need to worry too much about rushing it because the air stone will provide enough air to keep them alive. Remember, the AeroGarden 7 does not have a pump just an air stone.
The pump also pumps out water on the side of the sponges too.
Digital Stuff - My biggest problem is here. They didn't put much testing into this. The way some stuff is written it seems like it was written in another language then translated. Also, when the power goes out you will lose some data such as the nutrient cycle. When my power went out the nutrient cycle completely reset, so even if the water is bare of any nutrients the system will not tell you to add any because of this. I don't see anyway to change it back so now I need to rely on a PPM meter all the time. You can get this meter from amazon. They claimed they fixed this issue but apparently they didn't.
The LCD light is so bright too! There is no way to turn it down or off. I have it in my room so I have to put a sock or something over it at night just to sleep.
The Ultra also allow you to use custom settings. I don't think I will ever use them. Could be fun to try new things with it though.
Design - The design looks nice, it don't take up much room. It's about 15 inches long and 11 inches wide. The plug that goes into the light does not go in all the way. I think they made the plugin part too long. It don't bother me too much but it would look nicer if it actually fit correctly. This system should also be easy for you to clean compared to the AeroGarden 7.
Seed Kit - Mine came with a pepper seed kit, the one on Amazon comes with an herb seed kit. With the pepper seed kit you can only grow two plants, which is kinda silly because the AeroGarden 7 is smaller and allows you to grow 3 tomato plants. I would think pepper plants would be less in a bigger container? Maybe I'm wrong. I don't really like how the AeroGarden seed kits only come with so many. I could fit another tomato plant inside the AeroGarden 7, giving me 4 plants instead of three. As long as you manage the size good you will do great.
I had an herb kit planted in the AeroGarden 7 before I switched it to tomatoes and all the herbs did good.
Nutrients - The Ultra comes with the nutrients in a squeezable bottle, which is nice. It worked ok for my cherry tomatoes in the AeroGarden 7 when it came with them. The only problem I have is you get little clumps of buildup from it which would mean more cleaning of the pump. If you're not worried about the organic label then try using general hydroponics flora series (they cannot be labeled as organic because they use machines something). It's $40 for all three needed but should last you multiple grows unlike the small bottle they give you. It does a lot better too, gives the most amazing taste to what you grow. You could also invest in a PH kit by general hydroponics too if you wish to go that far. I would keep PH around 5.5-6.0.
Water - They tell you not use use well water, which is true. Well water can wreck the system. You should only use RO water or distilled water. I do have one problem with what they say though. Not every RO system is equal... some are better than others. It all depends on how the water is filtered. AeroGarden tells you not to use RO well water either if it's been softened. I don't know why but there shouldn't be a problem. My RO system produces near "distilled" water, and it adds some nutrients to it (such as calcium) in the last cycle so it's better to drink. Chances are if you have a at least 3-4 stage RO system then you can use it. My system is a 6-stage by iSpring for those of you that wish to know, I got it right from Amazon.
Overall - This garden does have it's problems, the nutrient cycle is the biggest for me because now I have to keep testing with my PPM meter until the cycle is normal again. For an average person this could cause them to lose their plants if the water ran bare of nutrients due to this. It's best to have a PPM meter on hand because the cycle WILL mess up on you, you cannot avoid it. For seedlings you can keep the PPM around 400-600. For plants over 12 inches you can keep it at around 800-1000, but I wouldn't let it drop below 600.
Would I say it's worth $250? No, not at all. With the price I paid (A little over 1/3 of the price of a smartphone priced at $700) I would want this to be in great working condition. Until they have digital problems, and lights sorted out I would stick with the AeroGarden 7 which is about $100 cheaper. They only have two seed kits made for the taller garden like the Ultra anyway, you're not missing out on much unless you want to grow bell peppers, or mega cherry tomatoes. You can still grow the smaller stuff however, so don't get confused on that.
See all 47 customer reviews...
Indoor Garden with Revolutionary Hi Tech Control Panel
AeroGardens. AeroGarden ULTRA LED; AeroGarden ULTRA; AeroGarden EXTRA LED; AeroGarden EXTRA; AeroGarden 7; AeroGarden 6; AeroGarden 3; Seed Kits. Custom Seed Kits
Gourmet Herb Seed Kit 6/7 Pod AeroGarden
AeroGardens. AeroGarden ULTRA LED; AeroGarden ULTRA; AeroGarden EXTRA LED; AeroGarden EXTRA; AeroGarden 7; AeroGarden 6; AeroGarden 3; Seed Kits. Custom Seed Kits
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