Harvest Time

Time has come to harvest the last of the herbs.

We were given an Aero Garden for Christmas. If you aren’t familiar with them, they are a mini hydroponics garden for your counter top. It has a pair of grow lights and a circulating pump that delivers water to each plant, and all of this is controlled by a micro processor that turns the lights and water on at a predetermined time and reminds you when you need to add water and fertilizer. The plants come in little single serving cups that fit into receptacles on the top, and each one has it’s own water supply delivered by the pump. The version we have has spaces for 7 plants. With it we received a kit with 14 cups of a variety of herbs, we chose our 7 for the first planting, they were 2 different varieties of basil, chives, oregano, savory, parsley and epizote.

We ‘planted’ right after Christmas and the first sprouts came up in about a week and within 4 weeks the plants were growing enough that we could harvest a few leaves occasionally. In a couple of more weeks the plants reached the point that we could harvest leaves without worrying about striping them bare. But overall the results were mixed. The cats decided that they liked the chives and kept eating the shoots. Unfortunately chives can be toxic to cats so we removed that cup; they never got taller than an inch before they ate them anyway. On the other hand we found that the oregano also had mint growing in with it, so that made up for the lost chives. The parsley never really produced enough to use in any quantity, and we never really found a consistent use for the epizote or the savory. The basil on the other hand grew like gangbusters, and it seems we were using it every day in something. We love basil so that waa more of a treat than a problem. The same is also true of the oregeno, but it was getting a little crowded by the mint so we didn't have it in a large quantity.

Now the plants are nearly spent, and it is time to do a final harvest. We will try drying the remainders. We have a kit on order for starters for the garden; we will see how that works out. It has been great having fresh herbs in the house during the long cold winter, although having the grow lights on 18 hour a day was sometimes annoying.

So as we were picking the last of the herbs I did a little calculation. Let see, 70 watts of light for 18 hours a day for 30 days a month at 20.7 cents a kilowatt hour (that is 12.7 cents generation charge and 8.0 cents delivery charge) is $7.83 a month x 4 months equals $31.30. I thought I noticed the electric bill go up a notch over the winter.

Them’s some expensive herbs! I could surely get them for less at the grocery store, but that somehow isn't the point.