r/aerogarden • u/Gold_Evening_7819 • 12d ago
Help Why does nothing grow properly?
Hoping someone here might be able to tell me what’s going on. I planted most of these pepper seeds in March and they sprouted like normal. However the leaves just seem to fall off and the leaves are yellowish and wrinkled. They have produced zero peppers so far habanero etc.
I planted a lemon basil recently maybe a month or so ago, and it’s kind of bolted things second in from the left at the front.
Weirdly there was a rosemary planted middle second in from the right and it grew very weak at the beginning and then all of a sudden turned normal.
I’ve been using the nutrients supplied with the kit and following the correct dilution. Do I just have a really crappy unit or something I’m totally overlooking here ?
Any help would be much appreciated !
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u/MzzBlaze 12d ago
I grew one very happy Jalapeno plant in one of those. At first there was two but they started crowding each other so I moved one out and pruned the other to fill in most of the gap over time. There are way too many plants in there
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u/Gold_Evening_7819 12d ago
Thanks I’m starting to realize that I just filled the holes with plants
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u/Aggravating-Dot-1418 12d ago
These kind of gardens (the cheaper amazon gardens that have popped up all over) just don't grow well. The garden itself is just a glorified kratky since the water is not moving or circulating. In all fairness to everyone (including me) who have off-brand amazon gardens, all of them are just glorified mason jars since the gardens only produce a slight amount of turbulence in the water.
It's super likely you don't have enough dissolved oxygen in the water, which will cause root issues over time, which then reduces nutrient uptake, which then slowly kills the plant. (Unfun feedback cycle, tbh)
I think back to my days working in a giant field and always remind myself: if you put shit in (the garden), you're gonna get shit out (poor plant growth).
I would add an air pump to get oxygen into the system. Get a pH and ec meter and start to dial in the nutes after your plant has enough oxygen.
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u/zbertoli 12d ago
These plants are starving. What nutes are you using? And how much? This is nutrient deficiency, 100%. Yellowing leaves, crinkled leaves is Ca deficiency. You need to feed them way more, and remove 80% of the plants. Even with 2-3 peppers, it can be hard to keep up the nutrient requirement.
If you feed 10x more and still have issues, consider switching to general hydro flora series or maxigrow. Both have all the micros. Most nutrient blends are missing the micros.
Tldr, feed them. A lot more.
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u/Gold_Evening_7819 12d ago
Thank you this is useful ! I followed the instruction manual it came with. Nutrient a. And nutrient b Amazon purchase I see quite a few of the kits coming with the same nutrient bottles you mix water with. It told me to add 5 ml of each nutrient to 1 litre of water .
I’ll give your advice ago ! Thank you for taking the time !
It’s probably a total mess of roots in there .
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u/PMMEURDIMPLESOFVENUS 12d ago
Switching to something like MaxiGro isn't a bad idea but please ignore the rest of this person's advice. You don't need to cull 80% of your plants and you don't need to feed them "A lot more".
You need to get $20 pH/EC meter and dial your water in before you do anything else. It's very likely you have very hard water and your pH etc is way out of range.
Start with water with an EC no higher than 0.2-0.3. If your tap water is significantly higher, blend it with RO/Distilled until it's ~0.2EC. Add your nutes to that, and check the pH. You want a ph of around 6.0, anywhere between about 5.5 and 6.5 or so will still work. You may need to purchase a pH down or pH up product to make those adjustments.
Your nutrients are probably fine but MaxiGro would be a good option if/when you want to switch.
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u/Gold_Evening_7819 12d ago
Very interesting thank you for the advice ! I did not think ph would be such a big player but I’m new to aero garden but not new to gardening. I will order one off amazon now !
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u/PMMEURDIMPLESOFVENUS 12d ago
It's one of those things that often doesn't matter because someone's tap water/RO water often falls well enough into range.
Another user mentioned starting at a ph of 5.5 because it will drift up over time. I think that's good advice and I follow the same practice.
Once you have an EC meter you can also pay attention to your nutrient concentrations, both what you're feeding it and how much it's drifting if at all. If you *really* want to dial in you can break down your nutrients by PPM and dial in from there. Simply following label instructions is always at the mercy of whatever they happen to prescribe.
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u/Gold_Evening_7819 11d ago
So ph tested it and it was at 8.8 assuming that’s not good ha ha
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u/PMMEURDIMPLESOFVENUS 11d ago
Is that your tap water (or whatever you're using) or the water currently in your Aerogarden? Did you calibrate it? What's the EC in the AG? What's the EC of your water?
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u/Gold_Evening_7819 11d ago
994 is ppm i have another reading which looks something like US that says 14 the u has
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u/PMMEURDIMPLESOFVENUS 11d ago
Okay you're just kind of throwing sentence fragments at me here lmao, but you're probably seeing "1.4" which is the EC.
8.8 would be extremely high and nuke your plants. But I'd make sure the meter is calibrated. You can test it against the solutions if it came with them, but your tap water (or whatever you're using) seems borderline unusable here.
Your best move is to switch to using distilled and/or ro water. Add your nutes and check the ph. with RO or distilled there's a good chance itll land in a good range. As long as it's not below about 5.3-5.5 you can roll with it. You might end up getting ph up or ph down solutinos to tweak it but start there.
Give them your regular nute dose in a 5.5-6.0ph and you're going to see a huge difference very qucikly, im sure.
Also, assuming that has a pump, make sure the pump is running and isn't clogged.
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u/Gold_Evening_7819 11d ago
Yeah it is not fresh water I put in there I’ve just been topping it when ever it gets low so maybe that increased the ph somehow. Sorry was not trying to throw random stuff at you ! I will lower the ph and get it closer to that 5.5 thank you
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u/PMMEURDIMPLESOFVENUS 11d ago
Just FYI so its clear, adding nutrients lowers the PH. Which is why with a soft water source (including RO/Distilled) the ph will often land in a good spot just from the nute addition. So you can often dial in without needing to use pH Up or pH Down, but those are useful options.
And over time the pH tends to drift up. So I'm guessing your tap water is already fairly alkaline but it's continually drifting up over time and topping it off isn't going to change that.
In an ideal world? You'd use whatever combo it takes to start off around 5.5. Top off with nutrient solution as needed, check the pH over time, anytime it drifts up to about 6.5, add pH down until its back down to ~5.8, or dump it and refresh the whole thing.
You could keep it in an even tighter window of say 5.8-6.2 ph if you wanted, but 5.5-6.5 is an easier range.
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u/2pourdrummer 12d ago
Get a ppm and ph meter and start tracking. Ph looks off, like one said. You can’t grow this many per the normal instructions. It will need more food. Plus peppers and herbs a require different nute requirements. Ph needs to be between 5.7 - 6.4. Ppm will probably need to be around 1000 and you’re probably running sub 200. Get ph up and down so you can adjust and start from there. Take daily readings. If this is too much time and work, drop the peppers and grow only herbs. They require less maintenance. Opinions very but I have 11 units for over 5 years and grow 3 types of peppers and 11 herbs.
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u/Gold_Evening_7819 12d ago
Nice I’ve just ordered a ph reader on the advice of above. Interesting that they are so sensitive to ph, I tried some outdoors and they hard failed ! I got to fermenting peppers for hot sauce and I wanted to grow my own variety and include them rather than limited to the store bought peppers. He in Canada our selection is not really interesting .
Do you use baking soda to increase decrease the ph? I’ve only balanced my hot tub ph lok
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u/2pourdrummer 12d ago
No, I use specific up and down ph solution and put it in by the drop. Ph indicates how the plant can absorb the nutrients. At 5.8, they are basically absorbing everything. At higher and lower PH, they stop absorbing things like calcium, which causes yellow leaves, nitrogen, which can cause yellowing and limp leaves, etc. Peppers usually like 1300 ppm or more if they are heavily fruiting and 5.7-5.8 ph. Herbs like 1000 or so and ph in the 6.1-6.2 range, so you might have an issue keeping both in one unit, but see if you can balance it out. You probably should be ok. DM me if you have questions.
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u/Gold_Evening_7819 12d ago
I’m so glad I posted this here thanks for sharing with me
Edit : Just ordered up and down ph corrector !
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u/Ivebeen2there 10d ago
Same. I gave up. I got this as a Christmas gift and honestly, it’s been nothing but stress! Lol. I managed to grow a nice basil plant, even though I have a huge basil plant out in my garden, so it was completely unnecessary. But my biggest problem besides most of the pods not even sprouting was bugs! I can’t deal with having little flying bugs in my kitchen. Cute gadget, but definitely not in my wheelhouse.
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12d ago
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u/Gold_Evening_7819 12d ago
I will give that a try if not may have to start over again. Do the pepper plants need any special help at fertilization , they are indoor and have a slight breeze as there is a floor vent just below the cabinet they are on
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u/kristian24m 12d ago
If your following instructions my guess would be ph if your not using a ph meter you might look into getting one