Taking the fuss off the equation

How many of your friends have admitted to killing plants in the past and to never venture on growing indoor plants again? Most of my friends have. So this article is for me, you and our friends that cant seem to keep up with regular watering. I cant blame them, life is too fast and too short to keep up with everything.

So my friends, here is a tool that seems promising. I haven't used it, but I plan to. Its an automated watering system. It holds one quart of water and can water your plants for 3 weeks. You can also add some fertilizer in there if you like and it will be a regular source of feed for your plants. The pitcher is in turn connected to specially designed ceramic pointers that go into the soil near your plant. As your plant / soil requires more moisture the Senson pulls the water from the picture.

You can buy this tools at WindowBox.com - a great store to find containers and tools.
http://www.windowbox.com/store/product/Watering/W0054.html

Why AeroGarden is not for me?

When you are searching for information on herbs online or shopping for goods on online gardening store, it appears in front of you. An answer to the most successful growing of herbs indoors. The AeroGarden or rather the NASA – tested Aeroponic Technology which could be just great for growing plants in artificial environments like space stations or growing plants on Mars, it just doesn’t work for me.

As a plant enthusiast most of us enjoy every moment involved in growing a plant. Whether we germinate a seed using our little pellets and finding that warm dark spot to let is sit till we see the tiny little leaves pop up or we buy cuttings that we sow to see roots develop or we just buy the 3” plant where we wait to see the new growth happen. There is something emotional about these processes.

As per an article published on LiveScience.com in April 2007, Melinda Wenner studied the power of indoor plants. She referenced a study done by Clas Bergvall, an ethnologist at Umeå University in Sweden, who wanted to know what indoor plants did for people emotionally. For one thing, plants seem to make people more contemplative and self-reflective, Bergvall told LiveScience. Plants are often linked to people, places and memories—they are often given as gifts from close friends, for example—so having them around helps people snap out of their busy lives and think about things that are important to them, he said. Plants also remind people of the passing of time. They often look different in the morning than they do in the evening, said Bergvall, and this can keep people in tune with changes in their surroundings. And perhaps most importantly, plants bring people closer to nature, said Donna Lynn Sidhu, a plant enthusiast and landscape designer in Santa Barbara, California. “Plants are an expression of nature’s beauty,” she said. They help people incorporate the natural environment into their chaotic lives, and their influence can go as far as to be spiritual, she said.

(Source: http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070416_indoor_plants.html)

I agree with these view-points and there is a real sense of adventure in growing plants and taking care of them yourselves, it provides a sense of fulfillment when you get that first perfect gardenia flower. You feel that you did something right, you could help create something so beautiful. You provided it the right mix of ingredients for it to bloom and blossom. Its like running a software program and getting the results on the first run. You just have to be a little more patient with plants, there is no instant gratification.

My biggest lesson from growing my plants has been that of “Patience”. Being born in Mumbai – a chaotic city and then moving to New York eventually, my patience tolerance for anything in life has been very low. I carried the same attitude when I sowed my first set of seeds in the little pellets. I checked everyday to see little leaves show up. But I had to remind myself that this was a 2-4 week process. This reminding, has helped me cultivate patience as a virtue in my other walks of life as well. I think better, I think more wisely and react only after I have given myself the time to reflect.

I thus believe that one should enjoy all the little pleasure that come along with growing plants indoors. Its not about having the perfect plant, its about perfecting our lives and this precious lesson is to be learned in the process and not in the results. So forget the AeroGarden my friends, you can have a teacher in your house and lots of joy, why give this up for a perfect kitchen top herb center?