Aerogarden Experiment

I took my little aster and scabiosa plants out of the aerogarden and planted in peat pots. When I went to buy the potting soil I also bought some Orchid Moss to use for my experiment... I'll talk about that later. But while I was reading on the Orchid Moss package it said that you can use orchid moss on tiny little starts when transplanting. So I took the little pods out of the aerogarden, wrapped them in orchid moss (that had been well soaked) and then packed Miracle Grow potting soil around them. They've been in there for a couple of days and doing well. Scabiosa

Asters

The Aerogarden Seed starter kit is resusable, however they want you to pay $19.99 to buy 45 more little pods to put in them. This kind of took the wind out of my sails for resusing, as it would take two packages to fill the tray even once. But then I thought about using moss as a plug in the bottom and building my own little starter pods.

So, that is what led me to the Orchid Moss. My first inclination was peat moss but I couldn't find a small enough package and then started reading about the Orchid Moss. I stuffed it into the hole (which is open ended) dry hoping that when it absorbs the water that it will expand and plug the hole sufficiently to hold the soil. The hole is just about as big around as my index finger so it made it easy to stuff. Then I added Ferry Morse Organic Seed Starter mix. I have used other seed starter mixes before and it didn't seem to absorb the water well, but this seems to be just fine. I planted the rest of the Asters and Scabiosa. Since I know how long it took to sprout before, I have a good reference point for the experiment. Even if it takes a couple days longer, it sure will beat spending $40 to start seeds.

You can also see my little petunia starts to the right. They are growing ever so slowly.

I hope to be doing some card making this weekend for the 2Peas Winterfest 2009 stamping challenge, so will be posting some cards later.