Not bad, huh?  What are you waiting for?  Go buy an AeroGarden and start growing your own!

During the waiting period for the replacement light from AeroGrow, I started wondering why I was unable to go to a store like Home Depot or Lowe’s to pick up a readily-available fluorescent grow bulb.  My curious nature led me down the path to deconstruct the grow light that left us before it’s time.  This of course led to destroying the glass tubing to get at the internal ballast and wiring.  You should not try this at home by any means.  Glass can cut you.  Fluorescent bulbs contain Mercury.

Ballast Circuitry - Front and Rear views

What makes this little guy AeroGarden light so special anyway?  Furthermore, why do AeroGarden’s grow bulbs cost ~$19.99 when you have alternative ~1450 Lumen, 26 Watt varieties available at 40%+ lower cost?  I do understand that AeroGrow’s business model depends on your purchase of said lights, but I always love a project. 

What if we could build an adapter out of the shell of the old light? Perhaps a socket for a similar fluorescent light?  Could this save us money in the long run? Here is a pair of 26 watt GE Spiral lamps for $11 bucks.  Nearly half the cost for better light.  Let’s compare the Underwriters Laboratories-accepted specifications:

	AeroGarden Grow Bulb	GE Spiral Bulb
Light Output (Lumens)	1450	1700
Energy Used	26W	26W
Estimated Life (Hours)	6000	8000

Interesting… this could be a viable option for us.  However, size could be a factor inside the cramped AeroGarden hood.  We will keep investigating.

Once again, we look to our roots.  This time, an individual photo of each of our seven strawberry plants is included for your root-viewing pleasure:

 As you can see, a few of these plant root systems do not seem to be growing.  :( 

The weeks keep ticking by and it is time again to rinse out and feed the AeroGarden.  If you need directions, click here.  Meanwhile, let’s see the photos of some of our budding berries:

Quite the runner:

With the good sometimes comes the bad.  Unfortunately our inner right plant seems to be in pretty poor shape.  I will remove the dead leaves with a pair scissors according to the directions in the AeroGarden Strawberry Patch manual.

Check out this bird’s eye view photo of the AeroGarden’s growing surface after being removed from the bowl during the rinsing procedure.  You can easily see how much better the left side is doing compared to the light-deprived right:

Looking at both sides in the same frame, we see reduced growth on the right side.

Despite our setback on the right side of the AeroGarden, we still have our thriving left side plants whose production rates seem to have increased over the past few days.

Strawberries grown in the AeroGrow International AeroGarden

Motivational Fulfillment & Logistics Services
15820 Euclid Avenue
Chino, CA 91708-9162

Straight out of Motivational Fulfillment & Logistics Services‘ sunny Chino, California distribution center comes our brand new 2-pack of Grow Bulbs via UPS.  These bulbs have arrived under AeroGrow’s warranty to replace my defective right-side bulb that went out back on March 12th.  Since only one of the bulbs went out, I now have a backup in case of a second failure.  (BOOYAH!)

Well this is a tough one… why the huge delay from the fulfillment center and/or AeroGrow?  I know from the UPS website that if a package is shipped UPS Ground from Chino to Atlanta and arrives on a Wednesday then it was shipped the previous Thursday.  March 22nd.  That means it took 8 days for AeroGarden to give the fulfillment company the go-ahead to ship my bulbs.  Either AeroGrow is having issues keeping bulbs in stock at the fulfillment center, or their internal systems that send the order to the shipper.  It does not sound like they have an ERP system in place.  Either way, the new bulbs are here and I’m excited for our little aeroberries.

Unfortunately… the right side lightbulb has not arrived from AeroGrow.  When I spoke with the AeroGrow representative 12 days ago, she assured me she would send it the next day.  From past experience with USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL… I seriously doubt they sent it out on the 15th.

It is too bad the strawberry plants on the right are not growing as tall as the left side. The lights still have not arrived from AeroGrow, but I can’t imagine them showing up any later than tomorrow assuming they really did ship them out on the 15th.

We’ve got another strawberry just starting out in a separate seed pod.  I did not notice this one yesterday, so the nutrients must have helped!