I love watching this AeroGarden grow. Every week there are significant changes. I’ve already got some flowers from my Love Blooms kit!
Much different than it looked 10 days ago. Even just 5 days ago, this is what the garden looked like…smaller with just a few buds.
And here was the first flower:
I love seeing the flowers with the basil. I can’t wait until there are more.
I didn’t forget the other garden. The parsley and oregano are going strong!
I hope the little cilantro can catch up!
Just a quick AeroGarden update…my little petunia’s doing great!
Much bigger than last post, and that was only what, a week or so ago? The heavily-pruned basil’s not doing too poorly either. Those plants are putting their growing efforts into making the remaining leaves bigger. I can’t believe the basil plant on the right is almost a year and a half old!
In the new garden, things are coming along nicely as well.
Nice growth on the parsley – the leaves are really starting to take their shape! Some more visible sprouts in the oregano and under all that condensation, the cilantro has some tiny sprouts as well.
I just love watching these things grow! :)
I’m finally movin’ things around here in the AeroGardens!
My little petunia is doing so well, so I figured it’d be a good time to move it in with the big basil.
(There are tiny sprouts in the parsley and oregano, too!)
To aid the petunia’s growth in the old AeroGarden, I decided to prune the basil down a lot, so I could lower the light. I forgot to take pictures before I began, but here it is halfway through:
And after they were both pruned…they looked so sad. :)
I hope they continue to do okay! But I was able to lower the light and move the petunia in.
Then I planted some cilantro seeds in the new garden.
Now, here are the two AeroGardens side by side:
Here’s hoping everything does well!
Just a little AeroGarden update.
I’ve got tiny petunia sprouts! They’re hard to see with the humidity in the dome, but they’re there. I’ll be able to take the dome off of them soon, and then when they get a little bigger, move them into the AeroGarden with the basil.
As you can see, I also replaced my empty pods with some seeds to get them started. I planted Italian parsley and oregano, then I’ll add cilantro when I move the petunias.
I planted the oregano using a “grow anything kit” (though when I got it, you could buy just the grow sponges in a “refill kit”, and re-use the baskets and domes that you already have) and some oregano seeds from Menards.
My basil is doing phenomenally as well. The leaves are getting nice and big!
These guys are due for a pruning, but I’m trying to hold out till I have time to cook. I’m hoping to make a basil-cilantro pesto from my new cookbook, Veganomicon. :)
It may be rainy and gloomy outdoors, but I love that I can still watch my little garden indoors!
How’s spring coming along for you?
My new Aerogarden is here, and I couldn’t get it out of the box and set up fast enough last night!
So far, I’ve planted it with one pod of flowers, leaving the other two empty. My idea is to get those little flowers started (with the light nice and low to them) so I can transplant them into the other AeroGarden – in the hole left by my dead cilantro. Then start a whole new garden in there!
Let’s see if this germination/transplantation experiment works. :)
Here are my two AeroGardens side by side:
I’ve trimmed down the basil a lot, and I can’t wait to trim it down some more, so I can lower the light a little (to help the new flowers when they get transplanted there!) and hopefully encourage some new basil growth. But I am trying to wait! I don’t want to get over zealous here. :)
Also, AeroGarden suggests you change the grow light bulb every six months. I’ve had my first Aerogarden for over a year and hadn’t changed the bulb yet. I ordered new bulbs along with my new garden and changed the bulb last nigh. What a difference!
The old light bulb:
And the new light bulb:
I’m glad I changed it. Especially with the shiny new AeroGarden sitting next to it. Oh yeah, and to help the plants, too. :) :) :)
I’m excited to watch these babies grow, again! I will keep you updated. :)
I haven’t updated you on the Aerogarden lately, because generally everything’s going swimmingly. My two basil plants are huge and so productive! (The one on the right is the first basil plant I ever planted – so it’s been living for over a year now!)
I keep pruning it, so it’s nice and bushy – but I have lots of small leaves instead of a few nice big leaves. I’m working on figuring that out. (I’m thinking another bowl washing is in order.)
And my cilantro has died. :( It’s never really taken off in this planting like it did the first time. Not that I’m an Aerogarden expert, but so far, in my two rounds of planting, I have not gotten cilantro and basil to grow successfully together. First, my cilantro was doing amazing, but my basil wasn’t. And now it’s vice versa. Womp womp. :(
So, I’m doing what any normal girl would do, and I’m getting a second Aerogarden! :) Mwhaha! They’re on sale now, and really I’ve been wanting another one, because I love this thing so much. :)
I had planned on growing lettuce, but I’ve been getting it cheap at a local produce market, and one of my friends said it’s easy to grow outside, so I think this second Aerogarden will consist of parley and cilantro.
And flowers!
Flowers may not be the most “useful” thing to plant in an Aerogarden, but I’m sort of excited to have some pretty color mixed into my gardens. As I discover new herbs I like, I will attempt to grow them as well, of course, but flowers in the meantime seems pretty fun. :)
I hope you’re excited to join me on the next Aerogarden journey! :) :) :)
So, are you going to get yourself an Aerogarden now? :) Or just stick with pots in the window? :)
Thanks to my amazing Aerogarden, I’m always looking for delicious things to cook with all my basil. Well, this dish was very delicious! Chicken tenderloins stuffed with garlic, mozzarella, and basil in a creamy mushroom sauce or garlicky red sauce. Yum.
Oh my gosh, my mouth is watering writing this post. This was the kind of dish where the chicken was good on its own and the sauce was good on its own, but together, oh man. Oh man. Together, it was just so good.
I basically followed this recipe from SouthernFood.About.com but I changed it up a tiny bit, using chicken tenderloins for little roll-ups instead of full chicken breasts, just because that’s what I had on hand, because I like cooking with chicken tenderloins for some reason.
So here’s what I did. (I’m not going to re-write the recipe for you, but I’ll show you what I did and what I changed!)
I set the oven to preheat at 375 degrees, and I got to work pounding the chicken. A meat mallet would have worked better than my rolling pin, but either I don’t have one or I don’t know where mine is.
Chop up some basil and sauté some minced garlic in butter, then put that deliciousness together.
Then I got my little stuffing station together: the basil/garlic mix, some shredded mozzarella, and some bread crumbs. (I skipped the egg wash part. Eh, it just seemed like an extra step that I didn’t need to take.)
I spread on some of the basil/garlic, sprinkled the mozz on, added some salt and pepper, then rolled/folded the chicken tenderloin into thirds. Then I dipped the little roll into the bread crumbs (and made sure to coat it all over!) and…
…placed them on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.
I sprinkled some extra mozz and breadcrumbs on top. :) Then they went in the oven to bake for about 30 minutes (but definitely check your time. I was not scientific about it, so I can’t remember how long they really were in there.)
While they were baking, I worked on making two different sauces! A creamy mushroom sauce for me (from the recipe) and a red sauce for Brandon.
I followed the mushroom sauce recipe pretty closely, but I left out the green onions (just because I didn’t have any), I used half and half instead of cream (again, just what’s in the house), and a bullion cube to make my own “broth.” Let me tell you, that mushroom sauce was ah.may.zing. Seriously so good. I could just eat it on its own. Really, what’s the difference between creamy mushroom sauce and creamy mushroom soup? Not much, I think.
The red sauce I make is pretty easy and delicious. I put about 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and let it warm up, then I add a teaspoon or so of minced garlic. I let that warm up a bit, then add a can of tomatoes, diced or crushed, or sauce or whatever you’ve got. And I let it cook/simmer for a while to take out the acidic tomato taste and let it taste like garlic. While it’s cooking (probably about halfway through), I add the chopped fresh basil. Along the way, I’ll add salt, pepper, and a little sugar to taste. Oh. My. Yum. I’ll try to take some better measurements as I’m cooking it next time, but it’s one of those things I eyeball as I go. But it is so simple and delicious! And since Brandon prefers red sauce to cream sauce, I’m glad to have an easy, go-to recipe for it.
Let’s just look at the mushroom-sauce picture one more time to make us hungry.
Yum!!! Again, here’s the recipe I followed.
Are you cooking tonight? :)
So, I should have posted this sooner, but they keep threatening to end the sale, so I didn’t. (Of course, now that I’m actually posting this, the sale might be actually over tomorrow.) Aerogardens are on sale!
For the past few weeks, Aerogarden’s been having some good sales, (Cyber Week, baby!)but in my opinion, the best one is the Aerogarden 3, like I have, for $49.95. Trust me, that is the best price all year. I know. I’ve been shopping for them all year. :) You won’t find one cheaper!
If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that I love mine! I love watching it grow, and I love having fresh herbs for cooking. (In fact, I’ve got a stuffed chicken post that I should really write up for you! Yum.)
If you’ve been thinking about getting yourself one, now’s the time! (If I didn’t jinx the sale by posting this, that is.) :)
Happy shopping!
(Update: today, Dec 5, the black Aerogarden 3 is still $49.95 but the others are $59.95, BUT they’re offering free shipping! Go shop!) :)
I’ve got a few fun little projects going on right now, but of course nothing that’s finished enough to share! So here’s a picture of my Aerogarden.
Isn’t everything so nice and huge? I actually put the top of the big basil plant outside of the light so I wouldn’t have to keep raising it. I wanted to keep the light as low as possible as the littler plants grew. And now they’re getting so big! I did a lot of basil pruning after this photo. Tomorrow I’m hoping to make basil and mozzarella stuffed chicken! I’ll tell you how it turns out!
And, as I was waiting for paint on various other projects to dry, I finally cut up 2 remaining Halloween pumpkins we had, and roasted them! I mostly wanted to roast the seeds, but felt bad wasting the rest of the pumpkin, so I Googled around and decided to puree them, following these directions (complete with great photos).
I cut the tops off the pumpkins and cut them in half. (I scooped out the seeds for cleaning and roasting.)
Then I placed them cut side down on foil lined baking sheets and covered them up with foil. I baked them in a 350-degree oven for about an hour and a half.
When I took them out, I let them cool for a while, then started cutting and peeling the skins off.
I cut the roasted pumpkins into chunks and pureed it in the food processor.
I scooped the puree 2-cups at a time into baggies.
(And labeled the baggies of course!)
Some of the pumpkin puree is currently being used to make dog treats. (They’re still in the oven. Hopefully tomorrow, I can report how well they turned out!) You can freeze the puree, but I plan on using it soon to make smoothies, butter, and soup. If they’re successful, I will let you know!
Have you been doing any seasonal cooking lately? Do you cook while waiting for paint to dry? :)
Boy oh boy! After 9 months, my basil is looking amazing!! I can barely believe that the plant has lasted this long, as well as looking better than ever. This big ol’ basil beauty is the original one I planted in January!
The leaves are just huge, dark green, and begging to be cooked into something delicious. This is much more like what basil looks like at the store. I’ve been doing something right! I suspect I need to give the bowl a more thorough cleaning more often! (Read about my basil trials and tribulations here.)
Here’s what the whole garden is currently looking like:
The cilantro is tall but droopy…but I’m just gonna hang in there with it as long as it hangs in there with me.
The little basil is growing like a champ. After trimming off some of the big basil to use, I turned the big plant to allow more light to hit the cilantro and baby basil. Hopefully that will help them out a bit.
And lastly, here are some leaves I cut off before I took the pictures of the whole plant/garden. They’re huge! They and some more big ol’ basil clippings went right into some yummy turkey meatloaf. It was so much more delicious with fresh basil instead of dried!
Who would have thought that basil would be so exciting?
Or, Update #1 since the big bowl wash out!
And, boy what a difference washing out that bowl has made!
The basil has never looked this good!
The sprouts are getting big, too! The cilantro has gotten so tall, it’s falling over…but it’s got little cilantro shaped leaves! And the baby basil is growing steadily, too.
These sprouts look pretty different from when I started this Aerogarden earlier this year:
After I washed out the bowl, I was re-reading some of the information I found on AerogardenGrowers.com early on, I saw that cleaning out the bowl was totally given as a big refresher for tired looking plants. I know I had gotten the idea somewhere, but if only I had re-read that advice earlier! Oh well. It’s still exciting to see this new Aerogarden grow and to see the existing basil doing so well. I love watching the sprouts grow every day! It’s so amazing to watch little green things grow. :)
What about you? Do you grow anything in an Aerogarden or otherwise? Do you love watching the sprouts as much as I do?
Today, I turned 30 years old. Whew.
I’m hoping to celebrate with a lot of ice cream this weekend. If it turns out as cute as it is in my head, I will post pictures. :)
Today, my friend Jacqueline sent me these cute flowers that look like a cupcake.
I did a lot of yard work. Then the mower broke. So after a nice dinner with Brandon, we attempted to fix the mower. Our efforts are so far unsuccessful.
And, my little cilantro sprout is growing so big! It’s only been 2 days since I last posted a picture!
Happy birthday to me. :)
Since I killed my cilantro sprout, and since my basil wasn’t looking fantastic, I decided to overhaul the Aerogarden.
I carefully lifted out the top (now with just the basil plant living in it), lifted out the bowl, dumped the nutrient-(over)filled water, and thoroughly cleaned everything.
As I was cleaning the top (the basil was still in it, so it was getting jostled a lot), a little gray caterpillar fell out of the basil! I didn’t take a picture for you (boo!) because I was so shocked and relieved to find the culprit that had been eating my basil! So I killed the poor little guy and now I know what to look for when my basil looks sad and has bite marks in it.
Anyway, the whole thing got a nice clean makeover. I refilled the water and added new nutrients, I trimmed down the basil so I could lower the light a bit, and I totally replanted the cilantro (new seeds, new grow sponge) and another basil. I know that I haven’t been all over using basil like I used the cilantro, but I figure with 2 plants (and who knows how long my big one will last) I’d have more basil for recipes and will hopefully use it more.
I did all that cleaning and refreshing on August 16. When I checked on it today, just 5 days later, I’ve already got little sprouts!
A cilantro seed sprouting.
Two tiny basil sprouts!
Don’t worry, as soon as I took these pictures, I replace their little plastic domes. I don’t want to mess anything up like I did last time!
What about you? Have you done any replanting lately?
