This is very timely as I have been considering whether to purchase the Harvest or Harvest XL for my next garden. Thank you so much for reporting detailed results of your experiments. Best Aerogarden channel I’ve found on TH-cam.
Great experiment!...my wife purchased the harvest xl on sale for me for Christmas and I will grow taller peppers in it..but haven't had an issue growing them in my basic harvest model if I topped them young to grow bushy rather then tall.
I don't think so. There is Bounty Basic on top of Harvest XL. My strong belief is, the lights are little far in Harvest XL so the growth is lagging in the initial days. Once the plants are established, they can leverage the light well, and they will catch up the growth quickly with little extra wattage in XL. But the initial growth is always lagging in XL.
First I have to tell you how much I enjoy your channel. You always try so many things and share all of your experiments, even the ones that fail, so that we can all learn more about our mutual gardening obsession. I had several thoughts while watching this video. First is the bowl size difference. When I first got my XL I called to see how much food I should put in, since there is more water volume. The person I talked to just kept saying "six pod garden you put in 8ml". That is accurate between the Harvest, the Slim, and the 360, because the only difference is the shape. But since one of the main points of the XL is a bigger size bowl, this "6 put in 8" mantra does not make sense. If there is more water, the same amount of food would mean a lower concentration in the water and the plant would have to work harder to get the same amount of nutrition. Working harder would take energy from growth, wouldn't it? The 9 pod Bounty has an even bigger bowl and they say to feed 12ml. (They never ask how many plants are actually in it.) So to me it seems like the XL, being in-between size should get an in-between amount of nutrition. My math skills are not so good, so maybe someone who has lots of Aerogardens of all three kinds could do some measuring...😁 The second thing I thought about is the light issue. Because of the extra extension arm, the XL's lowest position is a little bit higher the the original Harvest. Not a lot, but enough that even with the extra five watts, maybe the plants aren't quite getting as much light. It was notable that as the plants got bigger the difference was less, but the early starting advantage of the Harvest plants really gave them a boost, comparatively. Now those two thoughts made me think: what if you started the plants in one of the other gardens that have a super low light option and then move them into the Harvest or whatever larger garden you wanted, depending on the plants? You could use a low-light-position garden like a little nursery to get the plants off to a supercharged start, maybe. So that got me started thinking maybe I should buy one of those low-light-position gardens myself. Which would you recommend?
Regarding the nutrition, AFAIK, plants are smart enough to spread their root system if they are not getting enough nutrition. Most of this happens while plant is in developing stage. Once the plants are well established, those roots will help the plants back pumping the nutrition well. So, we don't to worry much about plants using their enery in development stage. Next thing is, Aerogarden says a fixed amount of nutrition to keep things simple. So, if you are really want to go by the water ration, you can add extra 1-2 ml which is totally fine. I do that many times. Regarding low light height, even though the light on XL are little far, the additional 5W will cover it and the seedlings are happy with it. However, if you still want a low light hydroponic system, I am liking iDoo 8-pod system (amzn.to/3Gr1KOf) recently.
I agree with you. The XL bowl is more than 50% larger than the Harvest bowl, so it should receive 50% more nutrients. That would be 12ml for the XL. This would provide equivalent nutrient concentration. Everything I read about hydroponics has you calculate nutrients by concentration (ppm or mg/liter, for example). I hypothesize that if equal nutrient concentrations were provided, the plants in the Harvest XL would outperform the ones in the Harvest,
Very interesting. I have been researching all the different hydroponic systems and thinking the cheaper ones had lights with less wattage, meaning, “lesser quality grow.” Perhaps I am wrong! Have you compared Harvest with Bounty?
Those are called AeroGarden Galaxy Pod Covers from UrbanHydroculture but practically they are very bad. Doesn't hold up well and doesn't block the light. I see that product is already discontinued. Even if they show up, I don't recommend.
Good experience. Question: can you lower the height of the lights until the plants grow taller? Next question: what grow best in harvest xl. Thank you.
Not really. Both Harvest and Harvest XL has minimum height and we can't lower further. As far as I can think, Harvest XL is good for tomatoes and peppers. Most peppers grow more than 1 feet tall and Harvest XL will be better for them.
@@aerogardenexperiments Yes, my XL has been dedicated to my Bell pepper plant for 9 months and it is very happy. I think many slightly-taller varieties would do well.
Once you reach the end of the harvest, what do you do? Do you cut the plants way back and let them grow out? Will they produce another crop as they did before? Do you make cuttings from the old plants and will they produce well or do you just destroy the old plants and start again from seeds?
After the first crop, I will trim the plants almost to the base and they will come back nicely. We can repeat it 2-3 times. In fact, we can keep on doing it almost forever but the plants get leggy very fast after 2 crops. So, it's better to start over from seeds after 3rd crop. I have shown this process and the results in this video th-cam.com/video/e-mfo5vwL4M/w-d-xo.html
Regarding starting with cuttings, I tried it. Plants grow tall and wild from cuttings but it works well. It is almost similar to trimming the plants to the base.
Nice experiment, and makes sense. The Harvest XL has a 47% larger water capacity and lights do not lower to the deck as much as the standard Harvest. The "smaller container" of the Harvest standard model should produce a faster harvest and smaller fruit size. Have you compared against a standard Bounty model yet?
Yeah, I compared Harvest with Bounty Basic model and saw nearly same growth, same yield, and same time for the tomatoes to be ready. I think, cherry tomatoes can do well anywhere.
I don't think so. I still believe in my theory that the lights are bit far in Harvest XL compared to Harvest. This is (comparatively) slowing down the initial growth. This is the reason, once the plants are established, they have grown better in Harvest XL as they can leverage the light better.
I think it's a sample size issue and the Harvest plants got lucky. 25 watts (Harvest XL) should do better than 20 watts. I continue to be amazed at how many tomatoes you can grow with hydroponics compared to how many I grew in 100 days in soil (using a 120 watt light too). My Kratky hydroponic tomatoes also did very poorly - probably due to a lack of oxygenation. So next time I'm running an air pump. I grew GIANT plants, but only got as little as 1/10th of the fruit that you got. It'd be interesting to test whether there is a really a 5 watt difference between the two Harvests using a Kill-a-Watt meter to measure how many watts they are pulling. It's also likely that there is a declining rate of return for light and plants. So with 25% more light, you might only get 10% more yield (or even 0% if the plant is limited by another factor like oxygen, nutrients, water, etc).
i dont care what everyone is saying, unless you have a 283000 gal container, kratky isnt good. Granted i still use it, side by side my DWC and never has kratky ever kept up.
I have been thinking of Farm (especially the XL that is 3 feet high) for a very long time but the cost doesn't justify it. I know it's large and tall (the XL model) and we can grow a lot. But, practically speaking, we can't grow multiple varieties successfully in the same garden. It works well for same variety though. This is the reason, I prefer to have multiple gardens so that I can plan the spacing, varieties, discard and start over as needed, etc. very well by having multiple gardens. This is pretty much the same reason I didn't try other high end gardens like ZipGarden, Lettuce Grow, etc.
Oops thanks so much for letting me know. Looks like I overlooked it. I will check the videos thoroughly before I publish next time. I wish TH-cam gives the option to update the videos inline.
I noticed that you originally added 8mls nutrients to both harvest, but if the harvest XL bowl is bigger then should you have added more to that one? Just wonder if that is why XL is behind the basic model
I don't think the nutrition is the real difference. What I think the difference is, the lights are little far in Harvest XL compared to Harvest and that made all the difference in the initial growth. This is the reason, once the plants are well established, they started picking up the growth well because the light is closer and the plants are big enough to gather the required light.
just for clarity's sake. Did you mean IS XL worth the money? Thanks for your videos. I have the one with nine spots for plants. I think that is called the Bounty. Just started some cherry tomatoes. I missed it, did you state which kind of tomato you are using here?
This is very timely as I have been considering whether to purchase the Harvest or Harvest XL for my next garden. Thank you so much for reporting detailed results of your experiments. Best Aerogarden channel I’ve found on TH-cam.
Glad it was helpful!
Which one did you go with? I’m looking at Prime deals today!
I have always used bounty to grow red heirloom tomatoes but now I’m going to try in my harvest model too
Thank you for this demonstration
I was excited to see a new video as always! Thank you!
Great experiment!...my wife purchased the harvest xl on sale for me for Christmas and I will grow taller peppers in it..but haven't had an issue growing them in my basic harvest model if I topped them young to grow bushy rather then tall.
This was so thorough thank you
I do have to wonder if the Harvest benefited a little from 'spill over' light from the Harvest XL, since it was underneath.
I don't think so. There is Bounty Basic on top of Harvest XL. My strong belief is, the lights are little far in Harvest XL so the growth is lagging in the initial days. Once the plants are established, they can leverage the light well, and they will catch up the growth quickly with little extra wattage in XL. But the initial growth is always lagging in XL.
Might I suggest that in the future if you do something like this? Also track the total harvest weight for comparison between the different setups
That's a good suggestion. I will sure do it next time.
First I have to tell you how much I enjoy your channel. You always try so many things and share all of your experiments, even the ones that fail, so that we can all learn more about our mutual gardening obsession.
I had several thoughts while watching this video. First is the bowl size difference. When I first got my XL I called to see how much food I should put in, since there is more water volume. The person I talked to just kept saying "six pod garden you put in 8ml". That is accurate between the Harvest, the Slim, and the 360, because the only difference is the shape. But since one of the main points of the XL is a bigger size bowl, this "6 put in 8" mantra does not make sense. If there is more water, the same amount of food would mean a lower concentration in the water and the plant would have to work harder to get the same amount of nutrition. Working harder would take energy from growth, wouldn't it?
The 9 pod Bounty has an even bigger bowl and they say to feed 12ml. (They never ask how many plants are actually in it.) So to me it seems like the XL, being in-between size should get an in-between amount of nutrition. My math skills are not so good, so maybe someone who has lots of Aerogardens of all three kinds could do some measuring...😁
The second thing I thought about is the light issue. Because of the extra extension arm, the XL's lowest position is a little bit higher the the original Harvest. Not a lot, but enough that even with the extra five watts, maybe the plants aren't quite getting as much light. It was notable that as the plants got bigger the difference was less, but the early starting advantage of the Harvest plants really gave them a boost, comparatively.
Now those two thoughts made me think: what if you started the plants in one of the other gardens that have a super low light option and then move them into the Harvest or whatever larger garden you wanted, depending on the plants? You could use a low-light-position garden like a little nursery to get the plants off to a supercharged start, maybe.
So that got me started thinking maybe I should buy one of those low-light-position gardens myself.
Which would you recommend?
Regarding the nutrition, AFAIK, plants are smart enough to spread their root system if they are not getting enough nutrition. Most of this happens while plant is in developing stage. Once the plants are well established, those roots will help the plants back pumping the nutrition well. So, we don't to worry much about plants using their enery in development stage. Next thing is, Aerogarden says a fixed amount of nutrition to keep things simple. So, if you are really want to go by the water ration, you can add extra 1-2 ml which is totally fine. I do that many times.
Regarding low light height, even though the light on XL are little far, the additional 5W will cover it and the seedlings are happy with it.
However, if you still want a low light hydroponic system, I am liking iDoo 8-pod system (amzn.to/3Gr1KOf) recently.
@@aerogardenexperiments Thanks so much for the feedback! I love your channel so much. I often put it on just to listen while I do my work.
I agree with you. The XL bowl is more than 50% larger than the Harvest bowl, so it should receive 50% more nutrients. That would be 12ml for the XL. This would provide equivalent nutrient concentration. Everything I read about hydroponics has you calculate nutrients by concentration (ppm or mg/liter, for example). I hypothesize that if equal nutrient concentrations were provided, the plants in the Harvest XL would outperform the ones in the Harvest,
Very interesting. I have been researching all the different hydroponic systems and thinking the cheaper ones had lights with less wattage, meaning, “lesser quality grow.” Perhaps I am wrong! Have you compared Harvest with Bounty?
Thank you for this comparison video
Thank you for this information I needed to know if the money was worth it
Interesting as always ! 👍
Great video! Where did you get the plastic pod covers for the plant baskets? Seems better than the paper sticker labels
Those are called AeroGarden Galaxy Pod Covers from UrbanHydroculture but practically they are very bad. Doesn't hold up well and doesn't block the light. I see that product is already discontinued. Even if they show up, I don't recommend.
@@aerogardenexperiments oh good to know, thank you! Any reusable ones you do recommend?
Good experience. Question: can you lower the height of the lights until the plants grow taller?
Next question: what grow best in harvest xl. Thank you.
Not really. Both Harvest and Harvest XL has minimum height and we can't lower further.
As far as I can think, Harvest XL is good for tomatoes and peppers. Most peppers grow more than 1 feet tall and Harvest XL will be better for them.
@@aerogardenexperiments Yes, my XL has been dedicated to my Bell pepper plant for 9 months and it is very happy. I think many slightly-taller varieties would do well.
Once you reach the end of the harvest, what do you do? Do you cut the plants way back and let them grow out? Will they produce another crop as they did before? Do you make cuttings from the old plants and will they produce well or do you just destroy the old plants and start again from seeds?
After the first crop, I will trim the plants almost to the base and they will come back nicely. We can repeat it 2-3 times. In fact, we can keep on doing it almost forever but the plants get leggy very fast after 2 crops. So, it's better to start over from seeds after 3rd crop. I have shown this process and the results in this video th-cam.com/video/e-mfo5vwL4M/w-d-xo.html
Regarding starting with cuttings, I tried it. Plants grow tall and wild from cuttings but it works well. It is almost similar to trimming the plants to the base.
@@aerogardenexperiments Great advice.
Thanks.
Nice experiment, and makes sense. The Harvest XL has a 47% larger water capacity and lights do not lower to the deck as much as the standard Harvest. The "smaller container" of the Harvest standard model should produce a faster harvest and smaller fruit size. Have you compared against a standard Bounty model yet?
Yeah, I compared Harvest with Bounty Basic model and saw nearly same growth, same yield, and same time for the tomatoes to be ready. I think, cherry tomatoes can do well anywhere.
Is it possible the light from harvest xl overflowed to the harvest machine below? Even ten oercent extra might give the boost?
I don't think so. I still believe in my theory that the lights are bit far in Harvest XL compared to Harvest. This is (comparatively) slowing down the initial growth. This is the reason, once the plants are established, they have grown better in Harvest XL as they can leverage the light better.
I think it's a sample size issue and the Harvest plants got lucky. 25 watts (Harvest XL) should do better than 20 watts. I continue to be amazed at how many tomatoes you can grow with hydroponics compared to how many I grew in 100 days in soil (using a 120 watt light too). My Kratky hydroponic tomatoes also did very poorly - probably due to a lack of oxygenation. So next time I'm running an air pump. I grew GIANT plants, but only got as little as 1/10th of the fruit that you got.
It'd be interesting to test whether there is a really a 5 watt difference between the two Harvests using a Kill-a-Watt meter to measure how many watts they are pulling. It's also likely that there is a declining rate of return for light and plants. So with 25% more light, you might only get 10% more yield (or even 0% if the plant is limited by another factor like oxygen, nutrients, water, etc).
i dont care what everyone is saying, unless you have a 283000 gal container, kratky isnt good.
Granted i still use it, side by side my DWC and never has kratky ever kept up.
Thanks. Very informative.
You have to try the AeroGarden Farm models. They are so big.
Also, have you looked at ZipGarden?
I have been thinking of Farm (especially the XL that is 3 feet high) for a very long time but the cost doesn't justify it. I know it's large and tall (the XL model) and we can grow a lot. But, practically speaking, we can't grow multiple varieties successfully in the same garden. It works well for same variety though. This is the reason, I prefer to have multiple gardens so that I can plan the spacing, varieties, discard and start over as needed, etc. very well by having multiple gardens.
This is pretty much the same reason I didn't try other high end gardens like ZipGarden, Lettuce Grow, etc.
At minute 6:20 PROBLEM with filming ⚠️ ⚠️
And at minute 11:05
14:00
Oops thanks so much for letting me know. Looks like I overlooked it. I will check the videos thoroughly before I publish next time. I wish TH-cam gives the option to update the videos inline.
I noticed that you originally added 8mls nutrients to both harvest, but if the harvest XL bowl is bigger then should you have added more to that one? Just wonder if that is why XL is behind the basic model
I don't think the nutrition is the real difference. What I think the difference is, the lights are little far in Harvest XL compared to Harvest and that made all the difference in the initial growth. This is the reason, once the plants are well established, they started picking up the growth well because the light is closer and the plants are big enough to gather the required light.
just for clarity's sake. Did you mean IS XL worth the money? Thanks for your videos. I have the one with nine spots for plants. I think that is called the Bounty. Just started some cherry tomatoes. I missed it, did you state which kind of tomato you are using here?
Thank you. Fixed it. Regarding the Tomato varieity in this video, it is Aerogarden's Red Heirloom Cherry tomato.
Excellent❤
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