How I plan to keep my beloved AeroGarden growing after the company shuts down
- AeroGarden, the indoor hydroponic garden company, will close by year’s end
- Stock up on plant nutrients now; you can also make your own seed pods
A small basil plant sprouts from senior writer Celia Young's AeroGarden.
Celia Young for Brick Underground
Over the years, I’ve tried many ways to stave off the winter doldrums that hit as soon as the sun sets while I’m still stuck at my desk. But my favorite method—indoor gardening with my AeroGarden planter—is about to get a little bit harder.
AeroGarden announced that it would shut down this fall, citing “a number of challenges with this business.” With its products set to disappear from the digital shelves by January, I was worried about how I could keep gardening inside my apartment. Like a lot of New Yorkers, I don’t have any outdoor space of my own to garden.
AeroGarden is a well-known product; it made it onto CNET and New York Magazine’s best indoor garden kit lists, into classrooms across the U.S., and became a part of our collective pandemic-era survival hobbies. (Remember baking sourdough, anyone?) Two AeroGarden kits found their way into my apartment thanks to my former roommate, who didn’t want to lug them to his new digs in Brooklyn.
I was a novice gardener at the time—meaning I had narrowly avoided killing a philodendron for around two years. So I skimmed the instructions and popped the seed pods in, expecting a modest harvest. Instead, I got a cornucopia.
I grew lettuce, mint, thyme, and mountains of basil—so much basil. I froze some, dried the rest, and made pesto and more pesto, and even brought bags of fresh leaves whenever I went out for a late night slice. (I saved a few bucks on pizza toppings in the process.) I foisted basil on my roommates and friends. But it was impossible to use it all.
The end to my basil bounty came quickly after I went away for a week. I forgot to remind my roommates to water my plants and they dried out under the bright white LED lights. The plants are easy to grow, but just as easy to forget about too.
My second batch of herbs is growing now, but come January, Aero-Gardeners like me will need a new plant supplier. Luckily, there’s an easy trick to sourcing seeds yourself.
How to keep gardening with AeroGarden
You can reuse AeroGarden’s plastic seed pods and pack them with new growing mediums (nutrient-rich soil for seedlings). Plenty of Amazon sellers offer comparable, off-brand soil cones that you can drop your own seeds in and grow whatever you like.
For plant food—the nutrient mix you add to your AeroGarden’s water—you can stock up on a quarter-gallon jug online. AeroGarden, owned by Scott’s Miracle-Gro Co., will stop selling the nutrient mix along with its other products on Amazon at the end of the year, according to a company announcement. (AeroGarden did not respond to a request for an interview.)
You can also make the nutrient mix yourself, though I can’t say I’ve tried this method. (I plan to keep using my leftover bottles of AeroGarden plant food, which should last well into next year.)
My two gardens, thankfully, have all of their parts intact. But if your garden breaks down, you may need to head to Ebay or other third-party sellers to secure replacement parts, Wired reported. And FYI: If you do decide to buy any new products after Nov. 1st, you’ll only have a 90-day limited warranty and you won’t be able to access your account history after March 1st, 2026.
If you purchased one of the newer models equipped with the AeroGarden app, don’t expect service forever. AeroGarden says its app will be “available for an extended period of time,” and that information about its “longer-term status” is forthcoming. Your garden should still function without the app, though you’ll lose the ability to control your garden remotely, Ars Technica reported.
