Foil on the Aero Garden

Hey all, I wanted to post an observation that I had over the past few days. I have an AG veggie pro and I grow in a ventilated cab which with the 125w CFL and the AG hood the temp stays pretty good in there.

Even though my plants were growing like weeds (pardon the pun) I decided not to leave well enough alone and to cover my ag in foil like I have seen so many do on these forums. When I did this I noticed that my plants slowed down noticeably. When I went to check the PH today I noticed that the water was COLD.

The only thing I can imagine is that the foil was keeping the light from reaching the black res and therefore it no longer absorbed any heat.

I have removed it, tomorrow morning I am going to confirm that the water has warmed up again.

I thought I would share with the rest of you.

Devero420: It's not really that unusual for plants to stall between stages of development. How do they look? Are they still green and healthy? I'm assuming you haven't done anything to stress them because that can take ten days for them to get over, if they ever do.

If you're talking about covering the planting deck with foil? I've seen that done, but wouldn't recommend it. A/G sells plug/spacers to close off the empty planting holes but I don't think that's your problem.

The water in mine always feels cool to the touch because my normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees F., + or - 1 degree and that would be way too hot for my babies. I would think that the warming effect from the CFL's would be minimal. What's the ambient temperature of the room your plants are in? I keep my home in the seventies year around and my babies seem to love it.

In defense of having reflective materials around your A/G I would have to put in a plug for mirrors or what I'm using now. After seeing the Mylar curtains that A/G sells for that purpose I glued 2mm Mylar to some plastic recessed florescent fixture lenses that I bought from The Home Depot and cut down to size. I placed them around my A/G's and by trial and error you find what angle to adjust them to that reflects the light back up to the lower portions of your plants that normally sit in shadows. The result is that you get buds all the way down to the planting deck!

Be careful about getting light into your reservoir or you'll soon have an algae bloom on your hands. Most people complain about pH problems now but if you get an algae bloom established just wait and see what you'll have then.

Thanks for replying, with the foil off of the deck my water felt cool, but not cold. My plants are in the basement, but they are in a cab so they lights keep them warm. The aero garden puts out a fair amount of heat, but the 125w CFL will scald you if it touches your forearm or the back of your hand. That keeps my box at about 83 with the lights on. I just use a flat white cab, I seriously need sunglasses when I look in there. Heres a pic of my empty one. (note the AG is not turned on, the box that the plants are in is alot harder to take pictures).

The plants seem to be doing good, I think you were right that they were just slowing down because they were just starting to change from seedling to veg b/c now they are soaking up nutes like nothing else. The only reason I covered it to begin with is because I seen it done, It def does make a difference from cool to cold, but I grow in the basement, the plants are 6 inches off of the basement floor with plastic metal and wood in between.

dont use foil---- use mylar, huge difference

Jesus de Cannabis: I'm not too sure that I can agree with you on that point. I do think we need to surround our plants with reflecive materials to take advantage of the light we have when we use CFL's but I'm wondering if one is really that much better than the other. Before i started growing with an Aerogarden I grew in dirt in a small enclosed space in my garage; 3' tall X 3' deep X 4' wide and I lined it with the shiny side of a roll of aluminum foil to take advantage of the light I had. When I moved inside and started growing with an A/G I surrounded it with mirrors and I had better results. This year I replaced the mirrors with Mylar glued to plastic recessed lighting fixture lenses I cut down to size and granted it's done as well as the mirrors but I'm just liable to use the aluminum foil over them on the next grow to see how much difference there really is. We may be jousting at wind mills.

i put foil then masking tape on top. working great so far for me, 8 days in, 6 leafs

Matatan: Here's what I've been talking about reflectors. these are some shots of my garden.

Look like you should have done some training to your plant, like you said it is growing like a weed.

Alexonfire: You can see that I've got a couple of bushes full of flowering buds so I'm not complaining. This crop will refill my meds jar and it's been an experiment in a lot of ways. I used the weekly light reduction schedule suggested by our instructor. As far as I know I'm the only one in the class who did and I loved it.

Second, I went from heavy glass mirrors that were working for me, lighting up the lower portions of my plants, to feather light 2 mm Mylar glued to plastic waffle pattern recessed lighting fixture lenses that I cut them down to size. And that's been a success. I still have buds all the way down to the planting deck. What more can you want from my little Aerogardens? Granted the lower buds are smaller than the upper ones but they'll fill a glass pipe bowl with high quality medicine and that's what's most important to me. Besides the fact that as a pensioner I'm not spending another dime on electricity for extra lighting. And my table doesn't look like the snake pit from the first Indiana Jones movie or a wireman's night mare.

Third, and probably most important: the plants were significantly bigger/taller and bushier. They did threaten to out grow the Aerogarden, as predicted by one naysayer a few months ago. At the extreme adjusted height of the arm/light stand, (two feet), the plants threatened to out grow my Aerogarden so I gently bent them over, tied them down with four pound test nylon trout fishing line and kept them bent and weighted down with crimp on fishing weights. The result was that they grew horizontally, for a while anyway. Eventually they'd bend back up to the light and I'd have to re-bend and tie them down again. Like one other contributor here remarked, who did the same thing, "They look crazy." Some of them look like snakes, but they're still confined to a well lighted area two feet tall and they're flowering. If I straightened them out some would probably be close to three feet tall. What the hell, it works for me.

Has anyone used the Mylar sheet that they sell for the AG? Its only 13" tall I wonder if there is way to attach them together once the plants get taller?
Thanks.

http://www.aerogarden.com/catalog/product/gallery/id/215/image/202/

Pryapsm: If you have an A/G with a 24 inch arm/light stand 13 inches is too short when your plants get up to close to two feet tall unless you only want buds on the top half. Not only that, thanks to gravity, I think A/G's Mylar curtains would have a tendency to box in your plants where the reflectors shown above in my photos give them a little extra room to go along with the light. It resulted in the best harvest I've ever had with an A/G and it wasn't very expensive to do.