AeroGarden Strawberries

AeroGarden Light Bulb Goes Out!

Well… crap.  I came home today to find that the right side light bulb has gone out.  Funny part is, this bulb was ~27 days young.  I looked over the limited warranty information and it looks like the bulbs are covered by a 6 month warranty from the date of the original purchase.  Looking back at my receipt, I placed my order on 1/29/2007 so I should be covered.  I will give AeroGrow a call tomorrow at 1-800-GROW-NOW and see if they can get another bulb out to me.  I hope the lack of light will not impede our strawberry plant growth.

 
Notice the right side is a little darker…

The plants on the right side are already are starting to look weak…

AeroGrow Sells 100,000 AeroGardens!

Picked this up off Market Wire:

AeroGrow International, Inc. (OTCBB: AGWI) (”AeroGrow” or the “Company”), makers of the AeroGarden(TM) kitchen garden appliance, announced today that the AeroGarden has just passed the 100,000 unit sales milestone. The Company began selling the AeroGarden in March 2006.
“It’s been quite a launch. We expected a high level of consumer acceptance, but going from zero to 100,000 gardens sold in less than a year has been a powerful market confirmation of the AeroGarden’s appeal,” said Michael Bissonnette, Founder and CEO of AeroGrow. “The AeroGarden appeals to a wide range of demographics and interests, both men and women, young and old, cooks and gardeners and it’s a hot gift item as well. Our consumers are forming their own chat groups, sharing photos of their gardens and getting involved with the product in ways we couldn’t even imagine when we started.”

In addition, sales of the Company’s Plug & Grow Seed Kits recently surpassed 270,000 units since the launch in March 2006. AeroGrow’s Seed Kit line, soon to be expanded to more than 18 different plant kits, allows consumers to simply and easily grow a wide variety of herbs, vegetables, flowers and fruit in their AeroGardens.

Congrats AeroGrow!  I am looking forward to seeing the new plant kits!

AeroGrow: Use the Herbs/Basil Setting to Grow Your Strawberries

During the AeroGrow International follow-up call, I was informed by the customer service representative to stop using the Strawberry setting on the AeroGarden and use the Herbs/Basil setting instead.  This is very important to your AeroGarden Strawberries as the original Strawberry setting was optimized for a different variety of strawberries.  Please use the Herbs/Basil setting to grow your AeroGarden Strawberries.

What is the difference between the Strawberry and Herbs/Basil settings?

AeroGarden Strawberry Setting:
15 Hours Lights On (day)
9 Hours Lights Off (night)

AeroGarden Herbs/Basil Setting:
17 Hours Lights On (day)
7 Hours Lights Off (night)

Get excited everyone.  Two more hours of sunlight for your AeroGarden Strawberries. (That’s 13.3% more sunlight for your AeroBerries!)

Follow-up Call from AeroGrow International

As mentioned in the letter that was sent out to those receiving the first shipments of Sweet Rubies strawberries, AeroGrow called me to follow up about the AeroGarden Strawberries.  The rep from AeroGrow called this evening at about 6:25pm Eastern to check the status of the strawberries.  As far as corporate telephone follow-ups go, I was very impressed by his candor.   He was very professional and made me feel like he truly cared about how my strawberry plants arrived.

He first identified himself as being from AeroGrow and that he was calling to follow up about the AeroGarden Strawberries.  Questions that AeroGrow asked me:

1. What day and time did you receive the item?
-I received the plants on February 13th via FedEx Standard Overnight.

2. What was the temperature outside during the delivery time?
-The temperature outside was about 45 degrees.

3. Did the plants remain outside for any period of time?
-No, the delivery was left indoors by the FedEx driver.

4. What were the conditions of the strawberry plants?
-Excellent condition.  No darkened areas on the leaves.

5. Did you plant your strawberries as soon as they arrived?
 -They were planted in the early evening of 2/13/2007.

“Thank you sir.  I also want to inform you that we are advising people to use the Herbs/Basil setting to grow their AeroGarden Strawberries, as when we designed the original AeroGarden and programmed the strawberry setting, we used a different breed of strawberries.”

-Interesting.

The gentleman then asked me if I had any other questions, which I did not.  He said that if I had any questions or problems during the growing process to call AeroGrow directly at 1-800-476-9669, email customerservice@aerogrow.com or visit AeroGarden help on the web at www.aerogrow.com/help..

All in all, a very good follow-up call by AeroGrow that was also enlightening.  They seem to be rather concerned about the conditions of the strawberry plants after shipment.  (Heck, I guess I would be too if I spent $27.99 to ship it!)

While problems could come up in colder climates, I feel that AeroGrow has taken multiple steps to ensure the survivability of the strawberry plants during the shipping stages.  The first level of protection is the AgriStar Star*Pac bag, followed by the foam envelope/bag and the sealed cardboard box with the HeatFactory Shipping Warmer to heat the internal temperature of the box.  With the combined three-tiers of protection, the plants are shielded from the elements and out of harm’s way during shipping.