So, in our review of the Salad Greens kit there are a couple of questions that we are going to take a look at and cover in our review of the Salad Greens kit.

(1) Did the seed kit perform up to expectations?

(2) How was the taste of the lettuce, compared to buying a bag of salad mix from the grocery store?

(3) Was there a cost savings in your budget with growing this seed kit?

(4) What short coming did we find with the Salad Greens kit?

These are the questions that we are going to be answering with our review of the Aerogrow Salad Greens kit.

Question #1: Did the seed kit perform up to expectations?

We were very impressed with how quickly the seeds in each pod initially germinated.  Within 36 hours of being "planted" and the AeroGarden being turned on, you could see the first signs of the plants starting to appear.   Around 5 days later, the first leaves started to break the plane of the growing surface in which we had to remove the grow domes from all pods.  From planting to conducting our first harvest, took only 26 days which wasn't a huge surprise.  Since on the package for the Salad Greens does say that you should harvest within 28 days.  Our first harvest of Salad Greens as you can see from below was quite decent, to say the least that they were delicious for salads.

My wife pulled a few leaves, to make a clean cut. My wife pulled a few leaves, to make a clean cut.

It can be a little tricky harvesting in the back. It can be a little tricky harvesting in the back.

Make sure to harvest evenly across the whole AeroGarden.Make sure to harvest evenly across the whole AeroGarden.

After our first harvest, we began to routinely harvested from our AeroGarden every 5 days (+/- 2 days).  Each subsequent harvest of salad greens was producing enough for 3-4 dinner sized salads.  One way we kept our Salad Greens fresher for a longer period of time was to store them in Debbie Meyer's Green Bags.  By storing the Salad Greens in the Green Bags, they added about 7 days to the freshness of them.  

Overall, we were very impressed that what is described for the Salad Green's kit is pretty much spot on. 

Question #2: How was the taste of the lettuce, compared to buying a bag of salad mix from the grocery store?

Now, this could be somewhat subjective to answering this question.  As each of us have different tastes, so we will be speaking from a more general position with this question.  Today in most grocery stores there are numerous different types of salad mixes that you can choose from.  For this question we are going to be talking about your average straight lettuce salad mix (no carrots, red cabbage, etc.).  

Now some people might say lettuce is lettuce, but the biggest difference is that you are taking lettuce directly from your AeroGarden and most of the time you're going to eat it immediately.  Most lettuce/salad mixes arrive at your local grocery store several days after being harvested.  So, already before you even purchase the salad mix some of the flavor is already gone.  

We did conduct a small test, just to see which did taste better.  We took a 1lb bag of Dole Salad Mix and our last harvest of Salad Greens from our AeroGarden, then drizzled a small amount of salad dressing and proceeded to take a bite from each salad.  You can definitely taste the difference in the flavor of the lettuce from the AeroGarden to that of the salad mix.  So speaking for us here at Kitchen Garden Today, we would recommend the AeroGarden Salad Greens if you want the best tasting salad (that you can grow indoors).  

Question #3: Was there a cost savings in your budget with growing this seed kit?

Currently with the times of food prices skyrocketing, alot of people these days are cutting some things from their grocery list.  One thing is purchasing organic lettuce and/or premade salad mixes, since these prices have gone up 30-50% over the year or two. 

One thing to remember, is that we are not going to take into the account of the price for the AeroGarden.  Why you might ask?  Well, because you may have already recouped the cost of your AeroGarden in your previous crops that might have grown.  So, it would not be completely accurate to portray this.

So, the first thing to look at is what the cost of the AeroGrow Salad Greens kit.  If you purchase this at full price the cost is $19.99, not including shipping (if needed the cost is on average $5.00), you can normally pickup this seed kit at most major retailors.  The cost of electricity to run the AeroGarden for 4 months using the national average for electricity cost of 9.86 (cents per kWH) would be $4.20 per month.  Since the average lifetime for this seed kit is 4 months we would take $4.20 x 4 = $16.80 to run the AeroGarden for 4 months.  You can take $19.99 + $16.80 = $36.79 would be the toal cost altogether.

If we take a look at the cost for purchasing one 1 pound bag of salad mix per week, here in Indiana the cost per bag is $2.50 as of a few days ago.  Then if we look at the same period of 4 months, we rounded the total number of weeks for 4 months to 16.  Taking $2.50 x 16 = $40 for 16 weeks of purchasing premade salad mixes, but there is also one other important number that we need to take into account.  The cost of gas to get to and from the store, which lately has been coming down (thankfully!). Since for each of us the grocery store could be right down the block or 10 miles away (also include vechile MPG) it's hard to really come up with a solid number for gas costs of driving to the store.  But, if we take our situation as an example:  we live 5 miles (driving) to our closest grocery store.  Normally we when go to the store, we take our Buick Rendevous (which gets 18MPG).  If we were to work it out to be 1 trip to the store per week, then we would be using 1.25 gallons of gas per month.  When you take $3.60 x 1.25 =$4.50 in gas costs, now again this is our situation.  When we total up the costs $40 + $18 ($4.50 x 4 months) = $58 total. 

When comparing the additional positives of growing your own produce with the AeroGarden:

- No worry of pesticides/diesases contaminating your produce

- Ability to harvest your produce on your schedule

- Ease of use / Anyone can grow with the AeroGarden

Yes, we did save $20 over the 4 months that we grew our Salad Greens which is great.  But, the additional benefits and knowledge that you get of growing your own vegetables, and knowing that they are safe for you family to eat is priceless.

Question #4: What short coming did we find with the Salad Greens kit?

As much as we loved and enjoyed our growing of the Salad Greens kit, there were a few things that we did note during our growing season with the Salad Greens.

(1)  The green leaf lettuce sometimes has the tendcy to get twisted in with the other lettuces that are growing.  Causing sometimes the bases of the pods to have quite a bit of brown/dead leaves.  Which if not cleaned up quickly could cause some plant issues.

(2)   With regards to the grow lights, there isn't something in the documentation that you shouldn't need to raise the grow lights.  Because early in the growing season/process we thought it would be necessary to raise the grow lights.  But, when we did do that our plants began to almost immediately started showing signs of distress.  Once we relowered the grow lights the plants recovered a few days later.  I don't think it was to the point that it was before we raised the grow lights the first time.

Overall we were thoroughly impressed with how this seed kit performed, and would recommended it to anyone who is looking to grow their own Salad Greens indoors.  If you are interested in purchasing the AeroGrow Salad Greens seed kit, you can through our online store link.

If you have any additional questions or comments, please feel free to use the comment area below or send us an This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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Comments (1)

Nice Informative Article

I was a bit apprehensive in buying an Aerogarden, but this article has helped me lean toward buying one now. While I enjoy herbs as much as the next person, growing greens is what I'm looking forward to the most. This article is one of very few that actually reviews the growing of the greens mix instead of the herbs.

One caveat to your price comparison, however... Since it takes about a month to harvest the greens, shouldn't you be comparing 4 months worth of costs with the Aerogarden vs only 3 months of purchasing salads at the grocery store? Not to mention, most people shop for groceries at least once a week, so the cost of gas can be almost negated.

I do agree that the piece of mind that you're getting fresh, tasty greens with no pesticides -- and the enjoyment you get from harvesting your own food -- is well worth the costs.

Brian , December 17, 2008

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